Happy Birthday Gavin!

Well i figured it was about time to update my blog since we had a birthday in the house.  3 out of 4 of my boys are now in double digits! Gavin turned 10 yesterday. He was super excited. He really wants to be as old as Tanner and Brendon so he can do all the stuff they do. We took donuts to his classroom at school which is always fun. The kids love donuts!

My wonderful wonderful friend Carlie made Gavin's cake. it was a skate board with a big red flame on it. She is awesome! Thanks Carlie. :) Tanner played a good happy birthday on the piano for us so we could all sing beautifully.  It was actually really good and its the best happy birthday we've ever done.

Brendon was in charge of the decorating.  It looked great!  He is a creative genius. :) Like always we had lots of friends and family over so my house was packed and loud but it was fun.

Grandma Ong gave him some fun finger bikes he likes to play with on his ramps. He is a little richer which he is excited about. he was tired of watching his brothers have money to spend when he was poor. (get used to it)

Then mom and dad pulled through and bought him some clothes and his long awaited Etnies hat! YEAH!!!!  I'm just glad it fit. Birthday are always fun. Thanks for coming everyone and making it a great day for Gavin.

Go Ethan Go!

So i totally thought Ethan would just love football. He was really excited to play this summer. He plays in the yard with his brothers and is so tough. He takes hits and scores touchdown all day. And his brothers don't take it easy on him. He has to work hard. The first day of practice Ethan would absolutely not go out on the field. As i mentioned in my other post he has been super anxious about stuff lately. He cried and would not go out and practice. I have to say i was very frustrated with him. I had to do some deep breathing and remind myself that there must be a reason he felt uncomfortable with this. 
It took a few practices but when he realized adam and i weren't going anywhere he went out there and has been really enjoying himself. He is playing flag football and is awesome at pulling the flags of the boys with the ball. His first game he got a little bit of stage fright and didn't want to go out on the field. So we sat and watched the game before his so he could see how it was going to work. By the time the game was over he felt comfortable enough to go out and play. He did awesome!!!  He was lined up against a kid twice his size that was definately pushing him around. So ethan go sneaky and juked him a few time and got around him so he could get to the guy with the ball. It was fun to watch him play and be comfortable with the things he knows how to do.  I didn't know it was going to be so much work for him to have fun! :)

Big Hitter!

Gavin is playing tackle football again this year. He is much better at it this year than he was last year. Just a lot more aggressive. He is playing wide reciever on offense and saftey on defense. So he plays the better part of the game.  Last game he had 3 really hard tacklles. I was proud of him he stood in there and took the hits and wrapped those boys up and brought them down. He told Adam today at practice "it feels good to hit people"  LOL  Well i guess it is good we have an outlet for Gavin to get some of that pent up anger out of his system.  He takes a lot of garbage from his brothers. 

His teammate broke his arm in last weeks game so i was hoping that it wouldn't make Gavin anxious about being hurt. Doesn't seem to have bothered him. He gets out there and takles the big boys like it is no big deal and his coaches are telling his teammates that they need to watch Gavin tackle cuz he is doing it right. :)  Good job Gavin!!  Gavin is #14

Well Gavin was super excited to go back to school to be with his friends.  He loves school and learning. He is such a good kid. He has helped us so much with Ethan this year. I don't know where Ethan would be without his big brother. Gavin makes sure he gets on the bus in the morning and makes sure Ethan gets into his line at school so he isn't scared.  Adam and I feel bad to put that on Gav but if we went to the school with Ethan he would never go inside. So we are proud of Gavin for stepping up and helping us and taking care of his little brother.
Ethan on the other hand was not excited at all to start school.  He has had a really hard time adjusting to first grade.  When Ethan was smaller he would never leave us. He never went to nursery in church and he had a hard time being left with sitters. It went away for a while but we have noticed that in the past 6 months or so he has started being extremely anxious about things. He won't do a lot of things that he enjoys because he is too anxious about adam or me leaving him. He worries about being left outside on the playground at school in the morning after the bell rings and not being able to get into the school.  He worries about the lunch line at school. He has to sleep with Gavin at night. If we put him in bed in his room when i wake up in the morning he is on the floor by Gavins bed. The poor kids is worrying himself sick.  So he has definately had a hard time this year so far. He is trying hard to be brave and work on not worrying and letting mom and dad worry for him.  But we had a whole week this week without any tears. A few stomach aches before school but no tears. 
Hopefully with a little encouragement Ethan will begin to feel comfortable with his surrounding and more confident with himself.  He put on a good smile for the camera anyway. :)

My new floors!

So Adam really worked his butt off on our floors and they look awesome!!  First we chose the slate which is awesome!  We saw this on a home show we were watching.  They used the tile to look like and area rug  in the center of the hallway and i really liked it. So we found some slate we liked and tried to match the wood color with colors in the slate. We had a hard time choosing the color but i think we found the perfect one.  Adam hated the color when we bought the can but i really liked it.  I wasn't home when he started staining the floor so when i got home he met me at the door with a sad face and said that the stain was awful and i was going to hate it. :)  He scared me. But i love it!  We just have some little things left to do like baseboards and painting the built in shelves. And some caulking that goes between the slate and the wood. I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  And maybe after we pay off all of our boys medical bills (never)  we will get some new furniture to go with the beautiful floor.  Considering i have had this couch for almost 14 years! UGH!!!  But i love my floors. :)

happy birthday Brendon!

Brendon had a fun friend party this year. He had a some friends come over and they had an airsoft gun war.  I think they shot those things at each other into the wee hours of the night and then as soon as they got up again in the morning.  Brendon is fun to watch when he is with his friends.  Brendon doesn't just have tons and tons of friends like tanner. He has a few really really close friends. And they are good true friends.  He can just be himself with them and I love it.  They also help him to step out of his comfort zone.  One of his friend love making videos and playing the electric guitar and piano.  He is the reason Brendon started playing piano. Brendon also loves going over  and making videos with him. They are completely random and crazy viedos that they share with their class at school. I love that his friend helps him be confident enough to act and do crazy things in front of his peers. 
Brendon is now 11 and middle school is coming up next for him.  He is extremely excited about it.  Excited to be out of elementary school and moving up in the world. 

kindergaten graduation *sigh*

Ethan graduated kindergarten today.  I am definately not an overly emotional person but i got a little teary eyed today.  He looked so grown up and cute.  This is his best friend Noah. they are inseperable and they giggle a lot. :)   I can't believe he will be in first grade next year.  I will miss him.  Ethan and I have a lot of fun during the day when the boys are at school. 
We have a lot of changes coming to our house.  Ethan will be in school all day next year.  Brendon will be in middle school.  Adam will be home everynight for the most part from now on.  Those are some big changes.  I have been trying to sit back lately and just watch my boys. They are growing up so fast i can't believe it.  I will have an eagle scout in september. It just amazes me the things they have accomplished so far in their lives. It makes me wonder what is to come for them.  Whatever it is it should be fun!

Hula Hoops

For Ethans birthday he got a hula hoop from grandma.  Well grandma says it isn't fun to hula hoop alone so she bought each of the boys one. :)  Well the boys have thoroughly enjoyed the hula hoops.  They have tried to get the dog to jump through them. (yeah right!)  I have seen them jump through them also. :)  We know that mom and dad really stink at hula hooping.  Ethan is AWESOME!  his tongue always hangs out when he does it though.  Tanner and Brendon are hilarious when they use them.  I just sit and laugh at them. Thanks for the hula hoops grandma.

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Ethan had his first official friend party this year!  It was really fun.  He chose a few boys (no girls!)  to come to his party.  Which was a chore in itself.  It was fun to listen to him decide who he wanted to come and why.  He wanted to have a waterballoon party so i put adam in charge. :) Hee Hee!  He payed me back later by having the boys throw water balloons at me. :(   It was fun to watch them run, laugh and just have fun outside of their school setting. 

Sports, sports and more sports!

                                     
Gavin was an awesome goalie!  He had a ton of saves this year.  There were many games where it came down to gavins goalie awesomeness that won them the game. :)  He also played forward and had a couple goals.  I remember his first goal. He was soooo excited.  After the game he said "did you see my first goal, it felt awesome!"  




                                   

                                      

Ethan was a goal scoring machine!  He of course had a little advantage over most of the kids. For one he was huge compared to most of them and he also has 3 older brothers he has to fight with to even touch the ball.  So this was a piece of cake for him.  I had to put the picture of him with his tongue hanging out because that is what he looked like most of the game.  He was so focused that tongue just wouldn't stay in his mouth. :)

                                                    

                                                 

Brendon had a great season.  He hit 3 triples, so many doubles i lost track and 1 home run!!!  It was awesome.  He is definately a baseball player.  He didn't strike out until the last couple games of the season when he got into a batting slump.  Which really bummed him out.  He put a lot of pressure on himself, being one of the oldest kids on the team, to play well in every game.  Their last tournament game it was win or go home, Brendon had a chance to catch the final out to end the game.  He was in center field and the ball was hit in front of him. He had to sprint to get to the ball.  he dove for it and it hit his glove and bounced away. He was completely devistated.  The tears started flowing immediately.  The other team scored and won the game.  He had a hard hour after the game was over, blaming himself for his team losing.  It was heart breaking.  We had a long talk about how many of those balls he will miss in his life.  He will catch some and some just won't go his way.  I love to see how important the game is to him and how much he loves it. You don't get that upset unless you love what you are doing.  Hopefully it was a learning and growing experience for him that he can look back on and appreciate.  

Lazy

Ok so have haven't posted since......oh forever.  I have either been too lazy or just way to busy.  I should do it at night when my kids are in bed, but i kind of like to just veg in front of the tv or read a book.  So i have a lot of things to share and i am going to get busy before something comes up and I have to stop. 

FYI

So if your children come down with a very strange stomach ache that won't seem to go away, call me! I know what it is. Tanner and Ethan have had this horrible stomach ache for 5 days, with no other symptoms. No vomiting, no diarhea, no fever, nothing!  Tanner finally got a sore throat yesterday but Ethan just has a stomach ache.  Now that 5 days have gone by i finally was sick of it so i called the doctor. They had me come in.  Come to find out my boys have strep throat. WHAT!!!  So go figure a stomach ache = strep throat.  The doctor said that for some reason some kids get a really bad stomach ache when they have strep. They won't even complain about a sore throat just a stomach ache.  I feel horrible cuz i sent them to school all week cuz they just had a stomach ache that came and went.  Anyway now we have drugs and hopefully they feel better soon.