First Flag Football Practice

Brad is a football person, through and through. He loves a lot of sports--basketball, soccer, baseball, tennis. But football is the end-all-be-all. He comes by it naturally, his parents are that way too. Garrett has been the same, he has always thought football sounded like a blast. I am nervous about the full contact nature of the sport, so when X and L signed up for flag football, we decided to give it a try to. And it was extra awesome because Grandma and Grandpa Compton were here to enjoy it too :-)

Garrett LOVED the first practice. Brad is coaching, and the kids range from 5-7 years of age on his team. They have a lot to learn, but it was so fun to watch!

Garrett takes Brad's approach to sports--serious, ready to roll at a moments notice. He actually told his Grandma the night before practice about how he was nervous about if he would be able to throw and catch, and that he hoped he would do a good job. He showed both his excitement and his game face regularly during practice.
And sometimes, it actually looked like he knew what he was doing.

Other times, it was just too fun to get to rip off Xander's flag, whether he was supposed to or not.

Summer had fun too--I should have signed her up for cheer leading (and I'm SO not a cheer person), because she was running up and down the sidelines continuously, just for the sake of running. Nutcase. She did slow down long enough to get super cute with Logan, though.
Conclusion: I almost wish it was more frequent than every Saturday. We may be adding soccer on too, at school, but will have to see how it pans out. I hope Garrett continues to enjoy it, because the rest of us certainly did! And Brad didn't even seem to mind that it was 95+ out, he did great with the kids.

Summer, Version 3.0

It's seems impossible that Summer is three today!! It seems like just yesterday that she sped into our lives after 41 weeks of waiting.



Summer version 3.0 is a fun mix between girlie girl and wild child. She loves dresses, bows, and sparkly stuff, but will swing from the monkey bars and be involved in "gun fights" with the boys. She can be a total clown too. No matter what though, I high level of drama can be expected.


Summer version 3.0 has taken forever to potty train--shes 90% there, but also pretty much night trained. Definitely her own person, since Garrett was day trained at 2 but not night trained until 4. Its highly possible (please, please, please let it be so) that we won't be buying any more pullups once the ones we have are gone.

Summer version 3.0 is a total daddy's girl. I'm a second rate citizen when Daddy's around.

Summer version 3.0 worships her brother. Not that that's anything new. But the times when they play nicely together (versus fighting 100% of the time) are starting to come along more often.

Summer version 3.0 loves hanging with her friends. Especially the "boys", which includes Garrett, Xander, and Logan, our neighbor Jewel (who is 5 years older than her!) and her buddy Ava.
She loves Hello Kitty. Our house has been taken over by Hello Kitty. I don't really mind, ANYTHING is better than princesses!!

She's a trip, she always has something to say and is bossy as all get out. She's been a handful this past year, but I know the good days are just around the corner--all the "baby" things are almost over, once and for all, and there is so much fun around the corner.

Happy birthday baby girl!

Random pictures since school began

I have been absolutely terrible about keeping up with the blog. No free time. Potty training (STILL). Work. Kids. House. Produce. Working out. Blah, blah, blah!

Daddy and Summer being silly and "napping" in the hall.
Garrett with one of his many creations
And a robot he wants to enter in the Lego Club Jr. Contest this month.
Being silly with the cute hat they made at school for Patriot's Day.
Dress up one day shortly before school started.

Other random bits:
So ready for the fall TV season lineup to start. We booted netflix for their price hike. On our lineup for the fall--Castle, Bones, Psych, Survivor.

I finished reading Harry Potter series. Brad's started the books too. Garrett's last book was Goblet of Fire, I want him to wait a while to read the last three because are so much darker and take on more grown-up stuff than the earlier books. We're watching them.

The new trailer for Breaking Dawn is out and I'm so excited in the worst nerdy way. Only 2 months left to wait! I think I'll be re-reading the books again.

I FINALLY entered my first half marathon. Will be running the Miami Beach 13.1 in April. So stoked, but have a long way to go since I haven't been running much because of the heat.

Garrett is entered in flag football, which starts on Saturday. It should be fun. Brad is coaching his team. It may be interesting--its 5 players for team and the age range is from 5-7 years. Garrett is by far the youngest on his team and the oldest player will be 8 (!!) in November.

Summer is THREE on Sunday, which I can't believe. Grandma and Grandpa Compton are coming this afternoon, so we're looking forward to that.

I'm going to start prepping for the GRE so that I can test sometime either this fall or in the spring. We have a great tuition remission program through school, so once both kids are in school I'm going to work on a Masters degree--something I've wanted to do for a long time but have had to put off for obvious reasons.

First Day of Kindergarten (Better late than never!)

I have been meaning to post about Garrett's first day of Kindergarten for a while. I haven't for two reasons . . . One is time (I never seem to have any). The other is I am still just not sure how *I* feel about Kindergarten. I like his school, overall, and I like his teacher, but I'm not as in love with it all as I thought I would be. Things are going very slow, they are still reviewing letters, and I feel like Garrett is a little bored and definitely not picking up anything new. But whatever, review is necessary. We're just hanging in and hoping it will improve. He still misses his pre-K teacher. He loves his new teacher, though, and she really is great. Its just a little disheartening to me, I wanted him to LOVE school, but I guess its just the way it goes in the public school system. Suffice to say the jury is still out.

Even though this picture isn't that great, I had to include it because Garrett was super proud of the cute fishie he made for his teacher:

Best friends. They aren't in the same class, which is probably a good thing since they are together pretty much the rest of the time.My two favorite Kindergarteners.
Garrett at his desk.
And, like his father, he has limited patience for photographs. How did he learn to role his eyes so effectively at such an early age??? :-)




They did the most darling project associated with "The Kissing Hand". I received the most concise, complete summary ever given by a five year old of the book from Garrett, it was fabulous.



The diorama we did for "Library Lion"
And of course, Summer, who refused to be in the morning pictures, insisted "Take a picture of ME!"