Has it really been since August?!

Wow!  Time is just flying by and I can't believe I am so far behind on this blog!  I don't even know where to start!  We have been having lots of fun and staying very busy.  We finished a great flag football season for both Max and Blake.  They LOVED being on the same team.  Next year will be Max's last year of flag and then he will have to decide if he wants to play tackle.



Are you ready for some FOOTBALLL??!!



Blake learned a lot this year and liked playing with Max most of the time.  On the first play of the season, the coach gave Max the ball and he took it all the way for the touchdown.  Blake got the ball the next time they were on offense and got his flag pulled.  He didn't like that so much and started crying.  There's no crying in football!!  After he pulled himself together, he ended up scoring 3 TD's that game.  Max was still in his cast so we didn't let him play too much that game.

Max was so happy when that cast came off and he could play!  He loved pulling flags and would come out of nowhere to catch the guy!  It is really fun to watch!  He is very quick and scored loads of TD's!




The Team!!



Blake, Max and their big bro, Dave

Dan and David both helped coach this year.  Dan was traveling in China for the last day of games so didn't make this picture.  We are so thankful that David is able and loves to help coach.  The head coach is a guy that I graduated from high school and college with.  It is a small world in Morton!
 


The Family!  Thanks everyone for coming!

 We had quite the cheering section for one of the games in September.  It was the weekend of Max's 7th birthday party so Austin, his girlfriend (Stephanie) and her daughter, Aurora, came from Ohio.  Grandma and Grandpa Shoemaker were here visiting from Nebraska for the week .  Kara, Pierce and Reuben came to stay for the weekend.  My parents and David were also around for the activities.  We had Max's birthday on Wed, a soccer game on Thursday night, Blake's program at school on Friday, football on Saturday morning and a roller skating party on Sat afternoon.  All of us went to church on Sunday and then on to Tanner's  It was a great weekend!  The only problem was that a boy in Max's class broke his leg at the party!  Not good!

After Blake's program.

The Kindergarten classes study the monarch butterflies and have a "Butterfly Parade" for the families. They sang a bunch of songs and recited poems.  He did great!  His teacher says that he carries the class!

Kara made these amazing cupcakes for the roller skating party!  I am always amazed by her baking/decorating talents.  Thanks, Kara!

Austin, Stephanie and Aurora picking apples at Tanner's.



We LOVE Tanner's!!

So that is a little bit about September.  I didn't have any good pictures of Max playing soccer.  He loves both football and soccer and can't decide which is his favorite at this point.  He is continuing with indoor soccer on a 9 and under team so most of the kids are quite a bit bigger than him, but he is just a fast as any of them.  He starts basketball tryouts next Saturday.  Blake is also playing indoor soccer and scored 5 goals in the first game.  He was very excited!

We always have plenty going on in our house!  More on October...hopefully very soon!!  There you go, Kelly!

1st Day of School and Fun with Friends

1st day Sept 07 - Too cute!

What happened to my little boys??!!

Max - 1st grade

Blake - Kindergarten

Very full book bags!!

Best Buddies...sad that summer is over!

Max at his desk...it was a very crazy morning and didn't get a picture of Blake in his room.  Sorry B!

Great kids and so much fun!!

We are now in the middle of flag football for both the boys and soccer for Max.  He has been able to play in the soccer games, with bubble wrap and a sock covering the cast.  They have their first football game on Saturday and we are keeping him out of the games until the cast comes off...which is Wed.  Hopefully, he will be cleared to play.  Max has done awesome in his soccer games and we are looking forward to seeing Blake play his first football game on Sat.  Bring on the Fall!!

Last weekend of the Summer

We decided to squeeze in a little vacation the last weekend before school started.  Thanks to my best friend Alicia and her husband Jim, we were able to spend a couple nights at their place in Chicago and see some sites.

We arrived Friday night and had some great Lou Malnatti's pizza!  We got an early start on Sat morning and arrived at the Shedd Aquarium when they opened the doors at 8:00a.  It was a very busy weekend in the city as the Air and Water Show was taking place.   By the time we left, the line to get in was extremely long!

Loved the sea turtle!!

We were in the front row for the dolphin show and this little guy walked right in front of us.

Up next was the Field Museum.  We tried to pick and choose what we wanted to see and the dinosaurs were at the top of our list.

Here is Sue the T-Rex!

A little sunny...but a great view of the city!

Our final stop of the day was the Willis (Sears) Tower.  We had bought a City Pass online a few days before and were able to take the "Fast Pass" and move to the front of the line.  I can't tell you how much time this saved us!!  We were at the top of the tower as the Blue Angels were flying for the air show.  Unfortunately, we were standing at the wrong window to experience the fly by right by the tower, but it was still neat to see them.

Max and Blake standing on the Observation Deck.  Dan wouldn't come near it!

We met up with Jim and Alicia for dinner at an English pub with over 90 different types of Scotch.  Dan had a couple that he hadn't tried before and we had a great dinner.  We stopped by an ice cream shop on our walk home and Blake had Merlot Chocolate Chip.  I tried it and it did taste a bit like wine.  He didn't realize what it was until after he ate about half of it.  We were giving him a hard time about drinking wine and that he better behave on the walk back to Alicia's.  We told him he needed to walk in a straight line and make sure the cops didn't stop him and smell his breath.  He was really worried about it and ran upstairs to brush his teeth as soon as we got home!

We left Jim and Alicia's early on Sat, after a great breakfast!  We headed to Porter Beach at Indiana Dunes.  A couple of friends recommended this beach and it was perfect!  The boys played out in the waves on their body boards for hours and loved it!

Daddy helped Blake make an Indian Chief

We left the beach around 2:00 and headed to our hotel near Gurnee.  It felt good to get there at a decent time and relax a bit.  I took the boys to the pool for a little while and Dan had a little nap.  We were all hungry, but had no idea where to go for dinner.  We found this place called, The Shanty, which was excellent!  It was a casual steak/seafood place that has been featured on The Food Network.  We were told there would be about a 15 min wait, but it ended up being an hour.  That meant that we didn't get a table until about 8p.  We were so hungry!  The food was delicious.  Blake got a big salmon and devoured the whole thing in about 5 mins.  Unfortunately, that salmon came up all over the bed at about 2a!!  It was disgusting!  We got everything cleaned up and were able to get everyone back to sleep.  We didn't want to miss out on our last day of vacation.

Blake felt fine in the morning and was able to eat a little breakfast before we headed to Great America.  Luckily, we decided to go on a Monday and the lines were not too bad.  Max was just an inch too short to go on some of the bigger roller coasters.  We had a great time!  We all got soaked a couple times on the water rides and the boys loved it!

My cousin and his son, Quinn, were able to meet us for a bit and we went to the Hurricane Harbor water park inside Great America.  We didn't get to spend near enough time with them but it was nice to see their faces for a bit.

It was a great weekend and wish we could have several more.  It is hard to believe the summer is over and both of the boys are in school full-time.  Blake tells me everyday that it is really bad that he doesn't get to see me very much!  I agree!

Max's first (of many) injuries

Max broke his left pinky finger on Wed night.  Dan and the boys have been spending hours in the backyard getting ready for flag football evaluations this Tuesday.  Some of our neighbors were over for dinner and then a friendly game of 2 hand touch.  It was 3 kids against 2 dads.  Max was sprinting for the end zone with one of the dads running as fast as he could to catch him!  Max dove for the touchdown and landed right on his finger...he got the touchdown!!  He cried a bit and then decided he was ok to play a little more.  I could tell that he was in pain, but he was trying to be really tough.  The next play, Blake and Max crashed into each other and hurt the finger again!  We aren't sure exactly which collision caused the break because both of them looked bad!  The game ended and the neighbors went home.  We decided to put some ice on it and see what happened in the morning.  It was swelling a bit and turning black and blue.  Max had a horrible night sleep and when he woke up, his finger and hand were really swollen and colored.  We went to see the pediatrician at 9:45 and were sent for x-rays.  He confirmed that there was a break and sent us to the orthopaedic doctor.  They put on a splint and asked us to go to a different office and set up surgery for tomorrow.

The orthopaedic doctor said that there was a break as well as the finger being angled out.  He needed to push the finger back into place and the best way to do that at Max's age is to put him under, push the finger back and put on a cast.  This turned out to be a lot more serious than we thought!!  We were told to be at the office for surgery at 6:45a on Friday morning.  We finally got home from all these appts at 3:30p!

Prepped and ready to go!  We were told the surgery would happen at 7:30a.  Finally, at 8:00 they were ready.  After such a long wait, Max was starting to get a little anxious with various nurses coming in and out asking him the same questions.  When they asked him to come with them, he hopped right up and went.  I was so proud of him! He was asleep with the gas in just a couple mins.  The surgery lasted about 5 mins.  It took him a little while to wake up and grandpa and I were called back to see him.  He was a little tired and his finger hurt a bit, but did great.  Thank goodness that my mom and dad were here to help.  My mom came to the house to stay with Blake and take him to breakfast.  He would not have liked being there!

Max has to rest for at least 24hr and then we go back on Monday to get a waterproof cast.  He is really having a tough time not going out to play today.  It is beautiful outside!  Luckily, he had a surprise visitor come and spend the afternoon with him!  Thanks Layne, you made his day!!

Max is signed up for a soccer camp next week, soccer practice is starting, and flag football evaluations/practice are happening too.  Clyde is coming for a visit and we were hoping to do a lot of swimming also.  Luckily, I think he can at least do that, but will be in a cast for about 4 weeks. Then, we aren't sure how long it will be until he can start up with the sports.   We were all looking forward to the upcoming sports seasons, but know he will be back at it very soon!  I'm sure we will have many more of these accidents!

Summertime Activities

Yep, once again I am so far behind in blogging I don't even know where to begin!  Summer is flying by and we are having a blast!  Last summer was a little lonely for us just moving  back to the states and getting into the swing of things.  This summer, we are really enjoying friends, family and the craziness that goes along with summer time activities.  Max and Blake have friends to play with this summer instead of just being with each other.  They still are best buddies though and I can't get them to stop laughing at each other some days!  Here are a few things we have been up to...

Lots of baseball....

Dan was the coach of Blake's t-ball team - The Timber Rattlers and assistant coach for Max's team - The Indians.  They both did great and really improved throughout the season.

Next up..frog hunting!

Bullfrog hunting in a pond at our hotel in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend.  This is my cousin's son Quinn with Max and Blake.  This led to quite the interesting adventure for the boys.  A couple weekends after this experience, Dan decided that they really needed to do some serious bullfrog hunting.  We have a pond across the street that is just filled with them.  Luckily, Dan purchased this great "Instaboat" from our wonderful friend Jeff. (Yes, Tina this is the very first time we have used it!  It was a great investment!)   They waited until it was dark on a Sat night and took flashlights and a garbage bag with them.  Dan rowed the boat, Blake shined the flashlight into the eyes of the bullfrog and Max scooped them up and put them in the bag.  They had a great system.!  Needless to say, Dave, Kara, Pierce, Max, Blake and Dan enjoyed some delicious fried frog legs the next day for lunch!  (Nope, I didn't try them!).  I'm sad to say that I didn't get any pictures, but these frogs were enormous!

These are the frogs that are left in the pond!  Ryan is our neighbor and dying to go on the next bullfrog adventure!

Blake turned 5 in June!  I told him that he just couldn't do it, but he did it anyway!  We had a few friends over to celebrate and he had a great time!

That Sunday, our friends invited us to their lake house for the day and the boys had a blast....

swimming, tubing and fishing!

We celebrated Father's Day a couple days early because Dan and I left for our 10 year anniversary trip that weekend...thanks Daddy for being an awesome Dad!

Kelly (our best sitter from England) came for a visit and helped my parents take care of the boys while we were gone.  Thanks Kelly and it was great having you stay for awhile!  We miss you loads!

Dan and I stayed in Jackson Hole, WY and visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park for a few days.  It was an amazing trip with the most beautiful scenery!  We are standing in front of Jenny Lake in the Grand Teton National Park.  Thanks Mom, Dad and Kelly for your help with the boys so that we could go on this trip!!

One more celebration for Blake with his brother, (soon to be) brother-in-law and big sis!  This was the day of the frog leg lunch!

Now on to swim lessons....our town has a brand new pool this year and we are loving it!  Max has really improved on his strokes and diving.

His new trick is flipping off the diving board!

Blake is doing awesome in his lessons too and loves to dive off the low dive and jump off the high dive.  The boys have been in the same class this summer for each session of lessons and are learning a lot and having fun!

My sister and her family arrived from AZ just before the 4th of July.  We are enjoying their company for 2 weeks and are keeping the kids very busy!  This was the best picture I had .... sorry Mom!

David joined in the firework celebration with us too!

My niece...isn't she just so stinkin' cute??!!

Up next, basketball camp...

Last Friday, each of the boys were asked to bring a parent or sibling with them to camp.  Luckily, I was able to recruit David for Max and Grandpa for Blake.  I was the picture taker!!

Everyone had a great time...and we got our picture in the local paper too!  The camp is from 8-10a for 2 weeks and then we have swim lessons at 11:25.  There have been some rough mornings but they are very excited when they finish the camp each day.  This is our first experience with basketball and I'm thinking it won't be the last!

A couple of their best buds!!  (Holli,...Drake needs to be in this picture!!)

We were able to catch up with some England friends last Friday.  Thanks Amy for offering your home and pool!  Corrina...it was great to see you back for a visit.  Marti and Amber brought their kids along too but we didn't get a picture before they left.

Off to a baseball game....

and then.....

SLEEP!!!!

This is what happens when Dan is away!  The boys completely take over my bed!  I've been letting them fall asleep in there, but you can obviously see there is no room for me!  Daddy would NEVER let this happen so they think Mommy is the best!