My athletic boys

Well, we had Charlie's multi-sport class today, the last in the session, and again his coach mentioned how athletic he was. I can completely see it. He really does fairly well at most sports he tries. I think the combination of the sports he has tried, the gusto with which he attempts anything, and inherited talent (thanks Grandad and Daddy, didn't get it from me).

Ben seems to be doing the same with sports, doing well, although he has more of a sense of personal injury and a desire to avoid it than his brother. I think Charlie has had at least 3-5 bloody noses in the past week. If it wasn't for the fact that I saw how they all happened, or heard second-hand, I would think he had a blood disorder.

So, we'll keep up with the sports, keep hydrogen peroxide on hand, and know that we are lucky to have two "all-boy" little people living in our home.

Warm Minnesota weather

Yes, it does get warm in Minnesota. It was hard to believe it when we moved here back in February. It was very hard to believe it when I was freezing in the house in January, as the movers delivered everything and had the doors propped open for hours. I remember back to my call to Jamie, telling him I was going to need warmer slippers, as my feet were freezing even with fuzzy socks in the slippers. Turned out, my slippers were fine, although now slightly chewed from Duncan, and now it's toasty warm. I actually turned the a/c on as it was 80-something in the house and the dogs had started panting, water not helping the furry ones. Late as it is now, I think I can turn it back off and open the window tonight, yeah for second story windows:)
Today the boys got to run around in the twirly sprinkler and they even broke in the slip and slide Charlie received for his birthday. Besides regularly fixing the slip and slide when the water was no longer shooting onto the plastic, I weeded more.
I say weeded, but really I should elaborate. Our yard, well, a good bit of Rochester, is covered in dandelions. The soil here, unlike our old Florida, is not sandy and therefore impossible to pull a weed out. Our neighbor introduced me to this cool weed puller-outer he had. Turns out I'm an addict now. After a couple days using the borrowed "Weed Hound" I found myself in our local Menards (I'll go into detail in another post about Menards, Jamie can sing their commercial) purchasing my own weed-puller-outer. Mine is not a "Weed Hound" instead it's a pretty yellow, and works nearly as well, plus it was the only such apparatus there.
After several days of weed pulling, I have trash bags full of dandelions and a noticeable dent in the dandelions in the yard. The irony being, as you pull the darn things out, the wind blows the seeds all over, thus continuing the cycle. No wonder Rochester has so many dandelions, the wind factor is huge here.

So I said it was warm, it was, but for anyone who might wonder, or even mistake this as hot, I recall my 31 years in Florida. 80's are not hot when there is not the humidity and when there is a constant breeze. It's especially not hot when the kids are getting chilly from the cold sprinkler water and breeze, wanting towels when they aren't running.
It was so beautiful, warm, blue and breezy. I am so enjoying this weather and am really looking forward to the rest of spring and summer.

Staying Up to Date

So, I thought this would help me stay up-to-date, guess I still have work in that department.
Here is a run-down of our weekend.
Friday (I know it's not weekend, but still part of the craziness): Charlie had a soccer class make-up, I brain-farted and forgot about it on Tuesday. Charlie had school, we had Ben's friend Sam here, the pm kindergartner's were off school, they had a blast and I was able to get a little work done. Can't remember the rest of the day
Saturday: Ben had his soccer class; Jamie golfed (didn't like it as golfing w/ 20-30 mph winds is rough); I enjoyed the borrowed neighbors weed puller, very cool and worked on dandelion's; bowling birthday party (Charlie's 1st time and he beat all the kids the first game and he was the youngest); Charlie had his 1st golf class, did great, boy he loves that sport and continues to be athletic; Ben practiced chipping during the time, had dinner, and wrapped up the night.
Sunday: we were lazy, followed by an amazing wrestling match between the boys and Jamie and missed church, again, we need to work on this; Took Duncan to a new dog park where he swam for the fist time, loved the creek and was filthy; Charlie also filthy, slipped in and wet and muddy from the waist down, we got to follow a few paths through the woods there, Duncan ran and ran, boys collected all sorts of sticks, on the way out, Charlie tripped on a large root (busy studying his sticks) and got a bloody nose, covered wait up in blood; finally got a mower, spring in MN; had to get a new gas can, turned out the movers did not pack the ones in FL (note to self for next move); Jamie mowed, I continued being obsessed w/ the new weed puller (I bought one after having borrowed the neighbors); boys played, Duncan fell asleep in the yard, woohoo dog park; grilled dinner; Jamie bathed Duncan, boys showered, eventually I got clean and the night wrapped up with dvr tv.

Overall, busy weekend, but lots of fun.
Last week I started working on pictures and scrapbooking for the boys. I figured at some point childhood memories would be good. It was my first photo printing, other than Christmas cards in years, I kid you not. Digital has made me really bad at that. Hopefully w/ local prints for 15 cents each at the grocery store w/ childcare (yeah, I need to write a post about this awesome Rochester feature), I'll get better at this.

Ok, I will work on figuring out how to get photos on this thing and how to work on my writing so it doesn't read like a list. Sorry, I write very little these days and most of it really is my running to do list I keep. Speaking of, I need to get on that list and check on the boys. They have been very quiet and that is always suspicious:)

All my love to you guys:)

Let's see if this works

Ok, so I have heard of blogs, seen a few, and thought there has to be an easier way to share info and pictures than adding stuff to facebook and hoping for the best. First I thought, my mother-in-law does websites, we can do that. I did one for work before. Well, several months later and I still haven't downloaded the program, let's try this.

Hopefully this test run will work and I can actually get things going. Wish me luck!