Really, Really Misc.

Jacob's art teacher is super talented, and super into making extra money. So she puts on those paint party things. She also goes to the same church as we do, so she uses (rents?) a room in the church. A friend and I went to the last one. **This woman (the friend, not the art teacher) and I went to high school together. We were what I thought was "church friends" for a month until she mentioned us in high school memories. Goodness.  I have turned into my mother.**    I am planning on giving mine to an old employee who is getting her first house next month. Nevermind that I look like total crap. It had been "a day."

 I truly don't even remember taking this, but love.

That is Gonzo. I was trying to take the picture below it, and he raised up and sniffed the camera just as I pushed the button. Dork.

 Again, love. This is really Batman's castle. But if you are awesome little boy with an awesome imagination, it doubles as an army base.

Bob and Hallie. 

Notice his eyes are completely covered. Not sure what look he was going for...

 These are all pics Jon takes while riding his bike.

 Jon built (yes I said built) a bridge with random misc. wood we had lying around (why do we have misc. wood lying around??) on the trail he frequents.  He named it "Jake's Bridge."

 The bridge. Not a very good pic but you get the idea. Apparently there was quite a dip in this section of the trail. Nevermind the city of Memphis owns this land and a random person took it upon himself to put a bridge there. He's a tax payer!

 He really liked these yellow flowers...

 Football boys being silly on picture day. This is what was going on while waiting on each other to get pics made. Love.

At a football game...I think Morgan took this with my phone.

Have I mentioned I love our coach? We parents made him a shirt when we made ours-it has #01 and Coach on the back. And he wears it. I don't know if he actually likes it or just wears it to be sweet (because at the first game, before the shirts had come in, he wore an NFL Giants Jersey...). I think it is more to be sweet. Awesome.

Of course Morgie had to have a shirt!

 Is it just me, or do I look a lot like Zack in this pic?

More being silly...

The "silly" team pic. Guess which kid is Jacob? That's right. The one who decided "silly" meant to stick his head behind his teammate. Which is why I sneaked up behind the photographer and took this rather than ordering it...  **side note: why is "sneaked" correct and not "snuck"??? It really seems like it should be the other way around...

 What was left of Jacob's glasses after he put them on the trunk of the car the Thursday afternoon before practice, and before the Friday that he was out of school-which caused me to NOT look for them to do his homework before practice, so I drove off, not knowing they were there... His backpack was on the truck also, but lying really flat since they didn't have school the next day, and I didn't notice it either. When we got home from practice that night, a man called and said, "I live down the street from you, and I found Jacob's backpack in the middle of the road." (Our phone number and address are in his agenda book because one day a random kid was walking down our street, completely lost. He was supposed to be walking home but couldn't remember how to get there. ALSO, he did not know is number or address. So that is when I put our info in Jake's because I can totally envision that happening to my child..."wait, where am I??") That was how I figured out that the glasses and backpack were not in the house. Interesting how that all worked out don't you think? He NEVER puts his backpack on the trunk of the car. He ALWAYS brings it in. This ONE day, the day we didn't have school the next, he changed it up. UGH, MURPHY'S LAW SUCKS.

 So once upon a time a girl saw a movie called "While You Were Sleeping."  She loved it. And for some reason one of the things she loved about the movie was that the main character's dad had given her mom "the world," which was a light-up globe. So when that girl was pregnant and walking through Office Max one day and spotted a light-up globe, a.k.a. "the world," she decided it MUST be bought and put in her baby's room.

Years later the awesome little boy who sleeps in that room will be in the habit from baby-hood of having this light on. He will also own a used iPod.  He will use this iPod to take a picture of his "earff light" and send it to his mom while they are both lying in separate rooms, in separate beds. Her heart will be happy.

The End

 Melissa and Nicole, this is especially for you two:

 So, as I have noted before, Jacob is pretty good in math. He's no prodigy or anything, but pretty good. So when he gets a somewhat "bad" grade on a math sheet, I take notice. AFTER I FIGURED IT OUT FOR MYSELF, I sat him down and went over it with him. During which he started crying out of frustration and asked to be home-schooled so he wouldn't have to do "dumb stuff anymore," and he could "reap his harvest. Like Adam and Eve."  ??????  That's what I was thinking too. He explained to me it was all Adam and Eve's fault that he had to go to school in the first place because they used to live in Eden, where they didn't have to do any work, but they messed it all up for all of us when they ate the forbidden fruit and God threw them out of the garden, telling them that from then on they would have to labor and grow their own food. Duh.

Jacob had 3 pairs of sandals this summer that fit him when we bought them. He grew out of all of them by the end of summer. These are generic crocs because the same thing happened to a pair of real crocs earlier in the summer (bought on clearance from the year before, don't worry).  Thank goodness cool weather is here!

Ok, for some odd reason blogger wouldn't let me title this. But since it is just a bunch of random stuff, I will be ok. Also, there is a serious crime against chronological order going on in this post.

Jacob and good friend Calvin at Incredible Pizza for Calvin's bday party.  Jacob and Calvin have been friends for about 3, maybe 4 years. They took karate together.

Random fort built around 8:00 one night. It's never too late for a fort.

Morgan spent the night and wanted to play Phase 10.  Since Jacob's attention span is definitely NOT long enough for that, and he knows it too (see previous post on my boy's self-awareness skills), he decided to play UNO with Gonzo.  The book is there to hide Gonzo's cards-when Jacob and Morgan play each other, they can never hold all of their cards in UNO, so I prop up books or whatever so they can lay their cards down. Notice the attention to detail Jacob gave this whole goofball idea: he's even holding his cards backwards. One time I even heard him say, "Gonzo! Wake up! It's your turn!"  Oh, the boy.

Jacob with friend Calvin and Beau getting ready to play lasertag. Jacob looks like a giant. 

They all had names in laser tag. Jacob was Ace. That's right. The one in last place. Again, the boy knows he can't aim (no throwing the football, remember?). Or perhaps it is because he couldn't see since SOMETHING happened to his glasses...

I know I post a million pics of my dogs on Facebook, but their personalities crack me up. This is the one who was abused before we got her. Right here she is on our bed, on the blanket we call, "The Fluff."  She will lie in it all day. With her face buried. How does she breath??

I make generic bday cards with Jacob's and Morgan's pics on them for them to put with presents when they go to friends' bday parties. I needed to make new ones, so I got them to pose with this hat. Morgan's pic cracks me up because of her smile: she looks like a Jack O'Lantern.

 The sweetness.

Morgie's first time for real s'mores. 

Jacob at the bday party, riding a motorcycle.

That's right. We made origami Yoda and Darth Vader hand puppets. Who says I'm not crafty??

Jacob playing the same game that he was obsessed with on the cruise, with a random kid. 

Several years ago, Aunt Debbie was cleaning out old junk and let everyone go through it to see if they wanted anything (junk gets moved from household to household in this family).  We snagged this, I think originally for Abigail to wear to school on "fave sports team" day or whatever. It fits Jacob now. We have added a paint stain to it. We will pass it on to Lily and Anderson soon :)

And Jacob's pic that will be on cards for friends. Awesome.

Stationery card

Simply Charming Birth Announcement

Find hundreds of cute baby birth announcements at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Teehee ;)

 Why yes we did get "Mama" shirts made :)   There are more Mamas than this, but for some odd reason they didn't order a shirt. Well, after seeing this fabulousness, they had me ask the company if they could place another order ;)

That's Jaybob in the middle. He's kneeling. He's wearing his jersey. 

Team running through the banner the cheerleaders made.

Sorry it is sideways....not really sure how we managed that one...

Football, Fair, & (As Always) Misc.

Sorry, there will be a lot of football pics on here for a while...it's just so fun!! Last night's game was the first official game and I was really nervous for two reasons:  1. We were playing a team that we lost to in a practice scrimmage-they are quite serious, apparently have the most serious 7-8 year old team coach EVER, and also have a kid who is almost as tall as Abby on their team. So their strategy is for him to basically just stand there, right in the center while kids from the opposing team swarm around him trying to knock him down, and he watches for the ball. Once he spots it (which is done pretty quickly because of his height) he heads toward it and tackles the player carrying it. Yea. Michael was calling shenanigans all night long (referring to his height and supposed age).  2. The team we played in the Jamboree this past weekend was, well, bad. Poor things. We beat them 28-0. So I was afraid our team was going to go in with a false sense of security. They did. We scored NOTHING the first half. Were down 16-0. Barely gained a yard because of Giant Kid. So during half time, our coach gave a pep talk like only he can: "If you guys don't score at least once, I'm going to make you run the entire hour and half at practice on Thursday!"  Well, it worked!! The other team didn't score at all the 2nd half and we scored twice!! We missed both attempts at the extra 2 points, so we still lost 16-12, but it was very exciting. And the kids really felt good about themselves for coming back. AND JACOB!! He is a tackling machine. He said in the beginning of this whole experience, "All I want to do is tackle."  And the boy knew. He is not good at passing, catching, or running the ball. But he is good at tackling. I have always said it is good to be self-aware. Makes life less stressful. Anyway, coach put him in front of Giant Kid for the 2nd half, and Giant Kid was stopped in his tracks on several occasions!! Oh, we were freaking out.

So each team has cheerleaders, and of course ours are the most awesome!!  They made this banner and our guys ran through it!! Love it.

That's him on top of the tackle.

On top again.

He is in the line, third from right if you count the guy standing. At this point he is in front of Giant Kid. I wish we had gotten a pic of how tall that kid is...

Morgan grabbed Jake's helmet and put it on. So of course Jacob grabbed the facemask and tried to hurt her. Naturally... (Note how GROSS Jacob is)

 After he hurt her he posed. So sweet...

This is just a pic from practice. Jacob is the one in the middle looking toward us. Just so cute.

Jacob was invited to go to the fair with a friend (the friend is behind him). Which is good because we probably would not have taken him because it is SO HOT this week. Gag. Even better for me, the friend who invited him was going with his dad, so it would have been weird for me to go...so Jon went. AWESOME.

 

Jacob drew this at school. How freaking adorable.

Jacob's first project of the year was to do a poster on the planet of his choice, draw or print out a pic of the planet, decorate the poster, and WRITE four facts about the planet.  Jacob picked Jupiter, which was great because it is a nice swirly-looking planet.  So Jacob painted Jupiter (with guidance, of course).  Then HE picked which facts he liked best from a website we found (his fave was that in an old myth Jupiter's dad was Saturn, and his brothers were Neptune and Pluto.  Fun).  Then HE decorated with all the stickers. Two things about this-First: he was not with me when I bought the supplies for the poster. I just decided, why? Why put myself through that?? He would have been like, "sure, whatever" everytime I asked if he liked something, and then he would have inundated me with "how much longer????"  While I was shopping though, I totally thought of Nicole and Lily, and how much they will enjoy shopping for project supplies in the future :)  Second: HE DID ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ON THE POSTER. I saw a lot of posters on the walk to school that morning, and I saw a lot of printed out pics and printed out facts (even though the directions specifically said to WRITE out the facts). I did not see everyone's grade. But those printed out people better not have gotten perfect scores like my baby did...