

I was once voted "Most Likely to Be a Soccer Mom" by some of my counseling colleagues back when I was working and the prediction has now been fulfilled. Connor and Spencer have officially become little boys and are playing on a soccer team with our local YMCA and loving almost every minute of it. When we first signed them up, I took them to buy their shoes and shin guards. It was in the afternoon when we made our purchases - they put the shin guards on immediately, wore them until bedtime, then put them on first thing the next morning and wore them until after their first practice when they had to take an afternoon nap. Can you say, REALLY EXCITED! Ryan and a good friend of ours are coaching the team and the boys are doing really well. There was a bit of an adjustment from practices where everyone has their own ball to games where everyone is trying to get one ball. Let's just say there were tears and lots of hurt feelings. However, things are looking up and they had an absolute blast at their last game.

In early September, Ryan and I took the kids and Cooper hiking near our house. We had so much fun and the boys loved investigating all the things the woods had to offer. Graycen was too interested in the hike to take her nap, but she had a great time even though she had to be tired. While we did not stray from the trail, Connor and Spencer managed to get themselves covered in those little tiny seed ticks.......well, Spencer only had a few, but I probably picked at least 30 off of Connor with tweezers. He was such a brave little trooper through the process. And Cooper, well we didn't even bother to check him - Ryan gave him a wonderful chemical spa treatment in the dark that night to take care of any little pests he may have brought home. Needless to say, we learned our lesson and will be applying lot's of bug spray the next time we venture into the great outdoors!

We had to get one Finnegan jersey to support our fellow Samford alum....
