GOOOAAALLLL!

Last Saturday started the new soccer season. This is Brett's second year and Kate's first year. The way that they divide the kids, they're actually on the same team this year, which is especially nice since Todd is coaching!

All lined up, listening to coach's 3 rules

Pretty excited, so far - the pink princess soccer ball and pink soccer shoes certainly help the excitement :)

Yep, didn't take long... there's the pout-pout face

Back out there, thinking about kicking it in the goal

New jerseys are on - she's number 2 because we call her "Kater-2-tater"

Doing some drills - to be fair, the other kids in her line are already 4 and she just turned 3... she's small, but not THAT small!

Brett had to be literally coaxed OFF the field... taking a water break with Memere

Todd picked her up and put her on the field - hence the pout-pout face

Todd (coach) trying to get her to kick the ball to Brett

He finally took her leg and physically lifted it, kicking the ball to Brett - later that day, she said, "I kicked the ball to Brett during the game!"

Brett, as expected, LOVES soccer again this year!

Celebrating with the other team at the end of the game - GO DOLPHINS!

PlayNation

We spent Friday morning with the former Shining Stars (Brett's class from last year) at PlayNation in Morrisville. It's a big inside park, basically, with a big bounce house and a big bounce slide and lots of other play equipment. In a nutshell, it's a mom's nightmare, but the kids have a great time, and I did get to socialize with some of the other moms, so it wasn't all bad! Kate was less clingy than last time - she actually went and bounced in the bounce house, without me, even when there were other kids in there. Brett ran off the second we walked in the door and didn't look back. Every now and then I'd see this little pack of 4 year old boys whiz by me and I'd assume that Brett was in that pack somewhere!

Kate and another little girl - she wasn't even 2 yet, but could've easily eaten Kate for breakfast, I think!

Kate wanted to go REALLY high on the glider - she didn't care that there were about 3 or 4 toddlers swarming her, waiting for their turn!

Brett did stop long enough to eat lunch... gotta love the two of them hammin' it up for the camera!

WPWTW

The Wedding Party Without the Wedding (WPWTW) 2010 pictures are posted! Go check them out! www.wpwtw.blogspot.com. Enjoy!

Art, by Brett and Kate

I finally took the time to collect the kids' artwork and sort through it. They had two large boxes stuffed FULL from the last 2 years of preschool. It was insane how much artwork had accumulated in our house. I took pictures of some of my favorites and started another page. I don't really expect people to really take a look at preschool artwork, but it gives me somewhere to store the memories without having to actually store the art itself. It has been safely stored by the City of Raleigh trash collection. If you do want to take a look, the link is on the right hand side of this page. My goal is to add to the page as art finds its way into our house. That way, once it's done hanging up on our bulletin boards, it can be "filed" by the City of Raleigh :)

Mini-Me's

The kids and I took advantage of a free Saturday morning and headed down to Willow Springs to visit my college roommate, Caroline, and her kids, Hannah and Nathan. Caroline and I have been friends since the 8th grade... we were 13. Now we're 30. Do the math. That's a LONG time. No matter how long it's been since we last saw each other, it seems like we haven't missed a beat. Hannah and Kate are 2 days apart. Who would've thought, 17 years ago, that we'd have daughters only 2 days apart from each other. Craziness.

There is a very nice, fenced in, park about 10 minutes from their house, in Angier, so that's where we headed. We made sandwiches and had a little picnic out there too since the weather was actually fairly nice. It was only 85, compared to the 95-100 degree temps we'd had lately!

Kate & Hannah waiting for the lunch

Watching the ducks

Hannah and Brett played well together too

Baby Nathan

Still watching the ducks... the kids didn't want to leave

Driving home, I had NO idea where I was... I was just trusting the GPS. Suddenly, we came to this ice cream place called Sunni Sky's that all my Campbell P-School friends raved about. When you go to school in BFE, these things are important! It's a cash-only, mom & pop ice cream shop. They make their own ice cream and they have 90+ flavors! I decided we had to stop to see what the fuss was all about. Let me tell you, it might've been the best ice cream I've ever had. Even Brett (who normally does not like ice cream at all), devoured it with Kate and me!

WPWTW Preview

I haven't had a chance to sit down and really go through the 400 pictures from WPWTW (Wedding Party Without the Wedding), but here is a little preview of the fun (and chaos) that took place last weekend in Northern Indiana!

The girls - Reagan, Kate, Gabby, Greta, and Stella

Belly Buttons! Brett, Stella, Gabby, and AJ

The boys - Jeff, Jon, Todd, and Manuel (missing Kerry)

The whole gang, minus the Beard Family

Hey Chicago, what do you say?!

This has certainly been the month of traveling... first a week at the beach with our families, then home for a week, and then THE midwest trip. We covered Raleigh to Cincinnati to Chicago and everywhere in between! We were gone for 11 days total.

Day 1 - Leave at 7am and drive to Cincinnati. We did not count on the MASSIVE amount of delays that we were going to encounter on the way up, but we still made it in time for dinner and a visit with the Foley Family. Shellie and Todd played club soccer together at Marquette. They have 2 girls, Lauren and Kelsey. Lauren is going into 1st grade and Kelsey is just a few weeks younger than Brett. Kate LOVED their very GIRL toy room! Brett loved that he got to sleep in Lauren's room while she shared a room with Kelsey.

Day 2 - Drive from Cincinnati to Rockford, IL - no traffic issues this time. Yay!
Day 3 - Magic Waters Park in Rockford, IL


Kate LOVED the kiddie pool section - there were tons of things for her to run through, climb on, and slide down all by herself. She was technically tall enough to ride some of the bigger slides, but she was NOT interested!




Brett liked this section too, but he was more easily bored with it


He was really excited about the wave pool though


Kate thought the waves were pretty fun too




Brett's first time down the tube slide... here is is at the very top, moment of truth, which slide to go down???


Almost their turn!


Chillaxin' on the Lazy River


Sprinklers are fun


I can bribe this girl to do anything as long as I offer Cheetos!


Touchdown dance, I think


The friendly Octopus... as Kate will remind you this is not the mean Ursula octopus from "The Little Mermaid"


Back to the kiddie pool... playing while Mom and Dad wait in the LONG line for the new ride. Trust me, Kate, the ride was worth the wait


Sleepy girl

Day 4 - Rainy day... Todd and I had some errands to do, so Grandma and Grandpa took the kiddos to the "inside park" (aka the play area in the mall)




This is the new favorite activity... find the tallest point and jump!





Day 5 - CUBS game! Todd, Brett, Sandy, and I left Rockford fairly early and headed into Chicago. We parked near Gino's East (our dinner stop for that night), rode the train to Wrigley, watched the game, and took the train back. We had GREAT seats (9th row, behind the visitor's dugout) that Todd sort of lucked into through Ebay, even getting them at less than face value! Brett will tell you that his favorite part of the entire day was the train ride and singing "GO CUBS GO" because the Cubs stomped the Brewers that day - 15 to 3!








About 30 seconds before the rain started... in the 2nd inning and all the way through the game. We got lucky. It never downpoured, so the game never got delayed!


One of the rooftop spots to watch the game... these sausages are apparently at all of the Brewers home games!






Home Run!






Don't be fooled... this only lasted about 30 seconds, tops!


At Gino's East, leaving his mark... B-R-E-T-T

\ \
Proud of his graffiti


Mom's turn!


Dad using this as an opportunity to makea political statement


Are you surprised!?


De-li-cious!


Brett agreed

Day 6 - Discovery Center in Rockford... for those of you not from the area, it is very similar to Life and Science here in NC, even with some of the exact same exhibits!








Learning the physics behind the pulleys




She can baaaarely reach!






Milking the cows... which Kate will tell you is milk for the cows to drink




Learning about the parts of the pig... oink!






Kate's on TV!




Trying to see how high I can make my own bubble


I think that Brett's was more impressive!








What kid doesn't love a water table... I mean, seriously!


Making their "pizza"






Kate wanted to eat her pizza in the doghouse


This was, by far, Brett's favorite part of the whole center


Mr. Mechanic


Kate's checking the oil perhaps


Operating heavy machinery




There was this crazy spiral staircase in the middle... you could climb up it like Todd is doing


or climb through these little holes in the ground like the kids convinced me to do


Another water table... this one was much bigger and outside


That night we went over to the Molina's to eat dinner and meet their new baby, Lucas. The Beard family joined us and we had a nice (not quiet) dinner outside on the deck while the kids all ran around the yard. Yes, for those of you in NC, the weather was nice enough to eat outside.... that's unheard of down here in August!


The boys... Todd, Manuel, and Kerry

Day 7 - We were supposed to go up to Milwaukee to visit our friends, the Mularski's, but we just couldn't get the schedules coordinated this time. Instead, we hung out in Rockford that day and went to Festa Italiana at Boylan High School (Todd's school) that night with Grandma and Grandpa and the Beard family. It worked out well since they weren't going on the WPWTW trip this year that we got to spend a little extra time with them and their 2 girls at Festa instead.



















Days 8-11 - WPWTW... next post coming soon!