Caring Award!

Today Jacob received the Caring award from his school. Every month each teacher chooses one boy and one girl from their class to receive a special character award. They focus on different character traits, and Jacob received one for "being a person of character by being kind, compassionate, expressing gratitude and helping others". Way to go Jacob! I'm especially proud that Jacob received the award for caring. He can sometimes be a challenge for us. He is a bit stubborn and he has a little bit of a temper. Sometimes I think we're doing everything wrong with this kid, and then he goes and gets an award that has to do with caring! Wow, guess we're doing a better job with him than I thought. His teacher told him that she likes how he always says excuse me. He is a totally different kid at home, then when he's at school. :) We are proud of you Jacob! You are such a great example to others. We love you bud!

Here he is with his certificate outside of his school. No, that isn't sunburn on his face and neck. It's a shadow that's hitting his shirt weird and reflecting off of it.

The kids had early release so he was rewarded with McDonald's for lunch and playing at the park. Since they have to wear uniforms, he put on his cool new shirt after school and wanted to show it off with his certificate, again. Isn't he cute? :)

Batting Stances

Nick and Cole love to play a game where Cole imitates baseball players batting stances. He does pretty good impersonations and we finally captured it on video so everyone can see. Here is Cole doing his impressions of some pro ball players. It's pretty funny! ;)

This kid LOVES baseball!

Blue/Gold Banquet

Last Tuesday night was the Cub Scout Blue/Gold banquet. It was a Western theme and we had a lot of fun. Cole had to prepare and give a 2-3 minute speech on Wyatt Earp. Even though he hates speaking in front of others, he did a really good job. All of the kids were given a bandanna and a sheriff's badge to wear that night. I snapped some funny photos of the evening.

Here is Cole getting ready for the program to start.

Here is Jacob with the bandanna and sheriff's badge that they gave him. He's making a goofy face as usual and I'm not sure what look he was going for exactly in the picture on the right. Silly kid! :)

There is a family in our ward who was showing the kids how to rope a cow. They had a mechanical cow there and it was really cool. The boy is Jacob's age, and Jacob thought it was so cool that he could do that. He roped the head and then his dad roped the feet. It was pretty neat to watch that. :)

Here is Cole's speech about Wyatt Earp. He did a really good job with it. We are so proud of Cole. He is such a good example to his brother. Jacob can't wait for scouts so that he can do all the fun things that Cole gets to do. I'm sad that this is Cole's last year as a Cub Scout! He's going to be an 11 year old scout soon which means he will be going on overnites like the big kids do, boo hoo! Jacob only has 6 weeks left until he's 8 and then he'll be a Wolf! I can't believe how time is flying! :(

Valentine's Day

I've had kind of a crazy week this past week, so here are some updated pictures. Last week for Valentine's Day, the Love Bug (a.k.a. mom and dad) paid a visit to our house. The boys were given a book, gift card and some candy. They had a basketball game that morning, so grandma and grandpa came over for awhile after their game. Grandma even played Wii bowling with Cole, yes that would be Nene. :) That night Nick and I went out and they got to go to a friend's house. We all had a great time!

So excited over something so small, gotta love kids! :) Grandpa is sitting down in the background.

Cole looking so sweet on such a "sweet" day. :)

Jacob also looking so sweet and excited! :) Grandpa watching from the couch.

Jacob being funny with a sucker that is shaped like lips, haha. Grandpa is now asleep on the couch. :) We love our Boppy!

Cole and Nene (grandma) bowling on the Wii. So fun! We love our Nene too!

We didn't take any pictures of Nick and I going out that night. I'm sorry we didn't. Nick got me a gift card too and also my own Webkinz! Yes, that's right, my own. Now I can play with the kids. I've been having a great time decorating my pets room (all pink and girlie of course) and playing games against the kids online. I have to have some kind of girl around here that I can dress up in pink and go shopping for cute girlie clothes with. ;)

Hope your Valentine's Day was a great one and that it was filled with lots of LOVE!

New Spring Training Facility!

Our friend's company is building the new spring training complex for the Dodgers & White Sox. Darren and his son Alexander are big time baseball fanatics like Nick and Cole, so Darren took them on a tour of the almost finished facility. They had such a great time and they got to wear some cool safety attire that I think they made quite a fashion statement with. ;)

Here's Cole and Alexander. Check out their cool hats, glasses and vests. :)

The Dodgers hydrotherapy room.

Nick and Cole in the locker room.

View from Joe Torre's balcony.

Main Stadium.

Dodgers and White Sox owners' suites

On the left, the many batting cages. The right, main stadium.

Darren and Alexander in the team dugout.

Nick on the dugout phone making a call to the bullpen. Think anyone answered? :)

Thanks Darren! They had a great time! They told me how awesome it is, and now I can't wait until it's done so we can all go to a game. :)

New Addiction...

Okay, so I know that my post count was down in January and here it is already the 7th of February and this is only my 3rd post of this month. Truth be told, there hasn't been many exciting things going on lately. If I'm going to be completely honest though, I have a new addiction that seems to be taking up a lot of my time and is kind of a big time waster...Facebook! I have been having so much fun with it. I have found all sorts of old friends and even relatives that I haven't seen in a long time. I even made a lunch date with my girlfriends from high school, who I hadn't seen in about 15 years! I have found old college friends and old roommates too. If you haven't created an account yet, you should! What are you all waiting for? Get on Facebook and request to be my friend. We can chat and keep in touch that way. Oh and if you have teenagers who are on there, then it's a great way to keep tabs on them. ;) I must warn you though that when you do join, your house will be a little messier, you will go to bed a little later and your blog will most likely suffer. If you're against Facebook, then I promise to be better at blogging this month to keep you all updated that way.

http://www.facebook.com/

Naked Spiderman!

Jacob loves to climb on EVERYTHING! Every time we go somewhere, he finds something, anything to climb on. The other night as he was getting in the shower, he decided to scale the wall in the hallway. He was nekked, cause he was supposed to be getting in the shower. I wasn't going to post this picture, but I have to admit, I think it's kind of funny when I embarrass the kids, hehe. I blurred out his private parts and then I got his permission to post it. Jacob is NOT a shy kid.

His head is touching the ceiling! Yep, this kid sure does make us proud! ;)

What's in your pocket?

So the other day I washed the kids clothes. As I take them out of the dryer all sorts of goodies got left behind. I found money, a nerf gun bullet, a toothpick, a club card, and even a couple of rocks (they are rocks, not pieces of poo). Don't ya just love little boys? I guess I should clean pockets out first, but I just expect them to do that, yeah right. As far as the money goes, it's mine as payment for washing their dirty clothes. :) Have you all looked in your kids pockets lately? No telling what you'll find! :) Here's a picture of all the treasure I found, just from one day!

On another note, the big Superbowl game was this past Sunday. The Cardinals didn't win, but they played a great game. I have nothing exciting to blog about it. Nick had to work but came home before the game started. We barbecued and stayed home to watch it. I had the camera ready and waiting to video anything exciting in case they won. They didn't and so the mood in the house was a somber one. There is always next year and we will once again be rooting for the Cardinals!