Spirited Saturdays

We took a couple of buds to the Ninja Warrior Gym as a joint bday party for Seth and Ollie. It had been a while since we had been there and it was so impressive to see what the boys could do, although there was some pretty sore muscles the next day. 

Seth and Baylor

Conquering the warped wall was high on everyone's priority list. 

Noey on the 4ish foot wall. 

Jon and Ollie on top of the 8 ft wall.

Seth getting to the top of the 10 ft wall.

These trapeze things over the foam blocks look so fun. Mostly it would be fun to fall, because ain't no way I've got the upper body strength for that. 

Christian's turn!

Another Saturday shenanigan, Ollie with buddy Jimmy at Jimmy's birthday. Joyland, even though you have a distinct derelict vibe, you never disappoint.  

Soccer Saturdays

Ollie helping out the Rays.

Coaching the Penguins has been more enjoyable that I anticipated.

Alternatively, coaching the Penguins has irked me more than I anticipated. 

My little team is so amusing, entertaining, and lively until they are hot. Or tired. Or hurt. Or distracted. Or thirsty. Or want to sit by their mom/brother/mimi. What do I expect? They are mostly 4, with one 5 year old thrown in. (And let's not forget my own 3 year old, which my friend Eryn has taken to calling a "young 4". lol) 

No regrets though! I've had more grins than eye rolls.  

 

Nolan; figuring out his weekend look.  

Saturday sleepover? Ying and Yang sleepers, for sure.

Summer Wrap-Up

Fall! You are here! I still have random pictures to post from the end of summer, I suppose now is the time? 

Noey napping with one of his favorites. 

Nolan's super hero koozies.

Play time!

Super awesome Lubbock pizza taste test party that Jennifer and Jess hosted.

Our favorites- Capital Pizza and One Guy's.

One of my sweet students made me Chicka Chicka Boom Boom cookies for meet the teacher night. 

Nolan thoroughly enjoyed them.

Jon work tripping.

Family Day!

It's pretty surreal to think about the state of our family a year ago. I doubt we even brought up family day as we weren't all even living together. This year Jon made some really good Ethiopian food for lunch and we went out to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner. Bonus: we forgot that Joe's had an playground.

Shiro, rice (pretend that's injera), and misir wat. So super good. Even the Ethiopians gobbled it up.

Jolly Juice!

Joe's

8 years ago, hard to believe.  

Fall Sports

Fall is in the air! Well, not really around here, but football is. And the Mot house is happily watching. Well, not really, just Jon and Ollie. If only I had a picture of Jon's fantasy football draft and the whole family would be represented in this post.

Seth has been asking to be signed up for karate for literally 4 or 5 years. The time seems right! He joined this past week and has been loving it. He is so proud of himself and is a very studious karate student. We are all cheering him on, although karate is not something Jon or I have ever been interested in. We can all learn along side of Premier's newest white belt. 

Nolan is participating in his first year of soccer! I may or may not have lied on the application as the league actually starts with 4 year olds. Again, the time seems right! I figured I better coach his team as I am the one who illegally signed him up. We had our first game this past Saturday, and the Penguins did so much better than I could have hoped! Since the kids are so young in this division, the coach is allowed to run around on the field with them. We could never have made it through the game without this provision (as no one knows what they are doing) plus I have 3 on the team that need to hold my hand for them to even stay on the field. Nolan was a champ, though! He scored once or twice, and even though our age division doesn't keep official score, I'm pretty sure the Penguins got the W.   

Ollie is playing on the Rays this year, and it's his first season of "real" soccer, complete with positions, goalies, and full-sized fields. Quite a switch for him, but he did awesome as well. Rays tied their game, 4-4. I also should mention that right before this picture was taken Ollie wanted me to time him while he ran a mile, as he is also training for cross country. 2 laps around our school block is a mile, and Ollie ran the first lap in 3 minutes, 15 seconds. The second lap took quite a bit longer as he allowed Nolan to run with him. Safe to say, I think he is going to make the cross country team. 

Nolan and Lincoln, ready for action! 

Penguin Power!

So strong! So fast! 

Back to School: Pre-K Addition!

Getting ready in the mornings with Ol.

Spiderman taking a little time off from the job. "If I grow up, I know I'll have webs." 

Ready for any playground we can find! 

Modeling his pride and joy, his new backpack. 

Nolan, 3's Pre-K, Mrs. Norman. We started on Tuesday and Nolan has loved it! 

And Someone Else is 36

You-wanna-know-what? 

I think this was the best birthday ever. 

It included all my favorite things; celebrations stretched over many days, dry ice packed Empanadas in the mail (admittedly, I didn't previously know these were some of my favorites), fun mail, homemade German chocolate cake, loving and mostly late texts, surprises from my guys, flowers, mimosas, gag gifts, Bunko parties, and sleeping in.  

Pearl lives just 13 miles from Maria Empanada in Denver, which was highlighted on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. She surprised me and baffled the post-office worker by mailing some to me on dry ice for my bday. You may not know this about me, but I really love leftovers and room temp food, so these empanadas were even better than I had dreamed. Jon was worried that we would get food poisoning because upon arrival they were no longer frozen and in fact not even remotely cold. I had no worries though. (Classic Enneagram 8 versus pretty much any other number. Too much confidence for anyone's own good.) No worries though, we ate delish food and did not get sick. Thanks, Pearl! My first Triple D experience was truly memorable!

We were also a house divided when Texas Tech had it's home opener against Montana State on my birthday. It was mostly hot and terribly miserable, but somehow the 36th year old birthday spirit permeated the air and made the 95+degree outing down right enjoyable.   

Jennifer gets photo credit for these masterpieces. Plus she was the one who bought the enormous powerades for us at the game that saved us all from heat stroke. She's good to have around, that one.  

Also, Ollie really wanted to dress up to celebrate. Oh man, seeing what he picked out for his "dress-up in my nicest clothes" makes me laugh. We went to Jason's Deli to celebrate such nice finery. Lol! 

Most killer German Chocolate Cake ever. Jon made it, we all happily ate it.  

Thanks for the love, everyone!