One less tooth

Karsten didn't have school yesterday, so the boys spent the day with my parents.  Several times during the day, Karsten complained that his loose tooth was bothering him, and we were all surprised to see how loose it had gotten.  He has been showing us the wobbly tooth for a while, but it still seemed to have a long way to go.  It was barely hanging on last night, but he didn't want to try and pull it.

It was super loose this morning but he still didn't want to try pulling it. I had a feeling he might loose it at school and I wasn't sure how that would go, but I knew he would get upset if we tried to pull it before school.  I'm all about the path of least resistance in the morning!

Sure enough, when I got home from work, Karsten proudly showed me his special tooth necklace that he got from the school nurse.  He was pretty excited to show me his missing tooth.

This is his seventh lost tooth - looks like the Tooth Fairy is making a trip to our house tonight!

Computer Practice

Karsten has lots of experience using the ipad or our phones, but he hasn't spent a lot of time using our computer.  At school, they do some activities with computers and the kids have to log in.  The teachers asked parents to work with them on typing their name and getting familiar with the keyboard and mouse.

We ran through Karsten's sight words, then he wanted to show me the Super Kids books, the online books they have as part of their reading curriculm. Next, he asked for a clean piece of paper on the laptop so he could type.

Learning where the keys are will take some time, and I forget how awkward a mouse can feel when you aren't used to it.  He's off to a great start and we'll keep practicing!

Makeup Royals Game

Since Karsten had a stomach bug when we had my extended family's outing to the Royal's game, he asked if we could go to another game.  Hard to resist that request since he was so disappointed to miss the first game.



We lucked out with a beautiful night at the K.  We thought this game might be the game where the Royal's qualified for the American League Division Championship; however, it actually happened the night before.




There was great energy at the K - everyone was super excited the Royals were going to be playing in the postseason again.


This little guy turned into a bottomless pit at the game - he was hungry every 10 minutes!


Karsten was using his eagle eyes to watch for Cain - his favorite player!


Turns out, we never got to see Cain or any of the main players.  Since they had qualified for the ALDS the night before, they were resting all of the main players.  The boys were bummed - Liam kept saying 'If they let Hosmer play, we would win!'

Directory photos

We had family pictures taken for the directory at church.  When we were walking into the building to, I told Scott, 'We are NOT buying any photos.'

As soon as we looked at the proofs, I knew I would eat my words.  The photographer got some great photos of the boys, and I can't resist those adoable smiling faces!

Here is the photo we chose for the directory.


This one may have worked better if Liam had on black pants so they blended with Scott's shirt - I feel like the first thing you see is Liam's pants.


And here is the cuteness I couldn't resist...






This one of Scott and I didn't turn out too bad, I just prefer to be on the other side of the camera. :)  

Flag Football

When Scott came home from a new family playgroup this summer and told me he told someone that Karsten would be interested in playing flag football, I was like WHAT?  Don't get me wrong, I love football, especially college football.  But, I don't want my little boy being the guy tackled at the bottom of a pile of guys.


When I asked his friend Sam's mom if he was going to play, she said he was and we decided Karsten would have fun, get to try a new sport and meet some new friends at school.  Plus, as Scott kept telling me, it's FLAG football, they don't tackle each other.


I'm so glad we went for it.  There is a great group of kids from his school that he's getting to know better, and it's been a good chance for us to get to know some of the parents as well.


Plus, how adorable is this.  Coach Joe is going over the plays with the offense and they're all carefully watching.


Their first game was a tough one - Karsten's team has two first graders on it and the rest are in kindergarten.  Many of the kids we'll be playing against will be in first grade.


They take turns playing different positions so they each get practice.  Today was Karsten's day to play center.


Good game team - can't wait to watch how much fun they will have this season!

Liam's second soccer game

Liam was ready to play soccer again, he got into the warm up and was doing a great job kicking the ball.


Then, he realized he had pockets.Somehow the pockets seemed to distract him and he was more interested in walking around with this hands in his pockets than he was with running to get the ball.


He just wasn't into soccer today, he would walk along right next to Scott but didn't try to get the ball.


Today was Karsten's first flag football game, so he and I left Liam's game early in order to make it to Karsten's game on time.  When we were getting ready to leave, Karsten went over and got right in Liam's face and said 'I have to leave for my game but you have fun playing, okay.  Mommy is coming with me but Grandma and Papa are here.'  It was just about the cutest thing I had seen all week.

Red Thursday

It was Red Thursday today, and a few Chief's cheerleaders and staff were at my work today selling Chief's flags with the proceeds going to Children's Mercy Hospital. I was in a meeting room on the first floor with my back to the door when this guy jumped into the room. I think I jumped a mile and my coworker had a good laugh! After that, he was kind enough to stay for a minute so I could take his photo.

Sunday mornings

I love Sunday mornings. We have a leasurily morning since we don't go to church until late morning.  This give us time to sleep in a bit and spend time together. After breakfast, we practiced Karsten's sight words (Liam helped) and the boys played Legos.


While we got ready, the boys built a quilt road in the hallway.  Then, they decided all of their stuffed animals needed to join them on the quilt road.

Laundry Surprise

When I moved the clothes from the washing machine to the dryer, rocks kept falling out of the handfuls of clothes I was grabbing.  Plink, plink, plink was the sound as the rocks fell out of the wet clothes and onto the steel drum of the dryer.

By the time I had pulled all of the rocks out, I had a handful of clean rocks.  I think Liam collected these treasures at school and brought them home in his pocket. Guess we'll need to start checking pockets before we do laundry!

Liam's First Soccer Game

After two years of sitting on the sidelines watching Karsten play soccer and baseball, it was finally Liam's turn.  He was so excited to play, and was even more excited that Scott was going to be his assistant coach.


When the head coach didn't take charge or seem to have a plan, Scott took charge!


First up, a little warm up with follow the leader!


Some dribbling drills - check out Liam's tongue as he concentrated!


Then the head coach suggested that the parents come out and kick the ball with their child.  Karsten said he would help Liam so he was Liam's partner.


So stinkin cute - and when did he get so grown up!


During a break, Karsten wanted Scott to know that if the little kids got tired, he could play for them.


Scott got all his steps for the day in during the game since he was on the on the field running with the kids the entire time!  Liam did well, he would kick the ball if it was in front of him, but he wasn't big on trying to steal it from someone else.


When Liam wasn't playing, he was able to explain everything to Papa. :)


Go Liam, GO!


Liam said he had fun and his favorite part was chasing the ball around. Success!

Sunflowers

Last year we learned about a beautiful field of sunflowers that was only about 25 minutes from our house.  We went twice last year and were amazed by the amount and beauty of the flowers - sunny, yellow sunflowers as far as you could see.


The farmer's wife posted regularly about the status of the sunflowers, and when she predicted this weekend as the start of the two week blooming period, I knew we had to check it out.


Social media has made the sunflower field very popular.  There were so many people there when we went on Friday night - there were families with tiny babies doing newborn pictures, engagement photos, senior photos...you name it and a photographer was shooting in the field.


There were plenty of families like us, out for an adventure and hoping to get a few good photos.


There were sunflowers of every height - Liam was ALMOST as tall as this one!


Karsten was thrilled that he WAS taller than this flower.


It was still pretty bright by the time we got there, so we stayed in the area shaded by the trees.  The boys remembered meeting a farm dog last year and were on the lookout for the dog as we roamed around the field.


There were so many people in the field, it was tough to make sure you didn't have people in your background or that you didn't walk through someone elses photo.


Normally, if you told me I should walk in a field between rows of flowers that came up to my sholder, I would tell you that you're crazy.  For some reason, I'm willing to brave this field to take photos and enjoy it with the boys.


We asked a nice lady if she would take a family photo for us.  The boys were a bit more interested in watching everyone elses family pictures rather than posing for ours - oh well, still a good effort.


This one sunflower in the middle was turned toward the sun while the rest were facing away from it - way to be brave and different little flower!


I just kept snapping photos, with over 1 million sunflowers in the field, there was no shortage of beautiful subjects!


When we parked, I picked up my camera to get out of the car, and it rattled.  My camera rattled?!  I looked at Scott in a panic - what could have happened to my camera between our house and this field?!  I took the lens cover off and discovered that it had shattered.  I thought it would be as easy as taking off the lens protector, but it had gotten jammed into the lens an I couldn't get it out.  We ended up carefully removing all of the glass shards so I was still able to take photos. It was quite a scare!




Another family photo shot - this time we chose a bad spot and got some major shadows.


The farmer's wife posted on her Facebook page that people are welcome to take flowers and they ask for $1 per flower.  We took a few with us and left our donation - I really hope everyone who took a flower left a donation so the farmer can continue to have these beautiful sunflowers for everyone to enjoy.


There was a wagon at the corner of the field that was the perfect photo spot. Two adorable boys and sunflowers as far as you can see - perfect!


I love this one - it shows their personalities and how much fun they have with each other.




What a fun night exploring the sunflowers - we'll see you again next year, sunflowers!