Qualifiers

We had wrestling qualifiers today and our wrestling season ended up coming to a screeching halt. Both the boys place 3rd in their brackets which means that they can't go on. We're okay with being done, but kind of sad at the same time. My camera was acting up, so I got a picture of Beau on the podium but missed out on Brody...

Menahga Tourney

The boys had their last regular season wrestling tournament this past weekend and both did well. Beau won Mr. Congeniality on the mats, sporting a big grin and dancing the entire time in between his matches! Hey, at least he isn't full of tears when he is losing! :) He ended up with a third place finish while Brody mowed them down one a time to finish first in his bracket. His last match got a little confusing when he was wrestling a boy named Bodie and being reffed by a guy named Cody... They seemed to get it straight in the end though! :)

Car... Car... Car...

B loves anything with tires and a steering wheel and we are hard pressed to keep him out of anything that includes those two things! Cars, tractors, daddy's semi truck, the 4 wheeler, snowmobile, trikes - it doesn't matter! So, when Grandma Cindy stops by to drop off the preschool kids, his first stop is usually a quick run out to her car trying to get inside. Last week was the day... He figured out how to get the doors open!! So, I'm sure we will have to start taking our keys out and locking the doors or he might just start driving away... :)

Give it up!

So, our next big boy chore was to start getting rid of the pacifier... There's just that certain age where it has to go and it's never easy, but it has to be done. Braxton started his journey a couple of weeks ago (right after we got back from Arizona and got him healed up from his pneumonia) with a little snip of the end of the pacifier. He didn't really notice much and after about another week we snipped it a little more. This time was definitely noticeable! :) It went in his mouth, back out with a concerned look, back in and back out with a "broke?" while showing it to me. From this point on, he pretty much has wanted nothing to do with it... He did figure out that he could blow air all the way through it, which was a source of entertainment for him for a bit but then it got thrown down. Each night I gave it to him, each night he would give it a test run and each night he would throw it down. So after playing this game for a bit I asked him "is it broke?", to which he replied "yes". I asked him "should we throw it away?" and he ran to the garbage and threw it away... While it seems like it was a piece of cake, we still haven't been sleeping well without it, which is annoying to mommy and brother Beau who has to share a room. It was definitely the "signal" that it was bed time and he would lay down so wonderfully. Not so much now, but after almost 2 years of having a pacifier it's going to take some adjustment. He doesn't seem to miss it and we are hoping that he doesn't start going for the thumb like his sister did... Goodbye pacifier!!

Last birthday hurrah!

I swear, Bella has had more birthday celebrations this year then any of my kids combined! :) We finally had our rescheduled party today and the kids had a blast!!









Bella and Great Grandpa Claire (her namesake!)


A shot of the "partial" group...

traffic jam!

Found this idea on pinterest or in one of my parent magazines and finally got it set up at our house... The kids are loving it and it gives them something different to play with! Best $5 I ever spent!

Arizona

I found some cheap plane tickets online about a month ago and we decided that we needed to take a quick vacation to visit our Arizona family... We got to stay with Grandpa Jerry for a couple of nights, where the kids did a lot of hiking, golf cart driving, a night out at Organ Stop pizza and just hanging out with Grandpa. It was a lot of fun... Then we moved on to Grandpa Stacy and Grandma Cheryl's new house. Since they just moved a few months ago, we were all very excited to see their new place. Horse property in Gilbert means orange, lemon, grapefruit and pecan trees and CHICKENS to the Connor family... The kids had a blast chasing, holding and feeding the chickens and we were all able to enjoy picking and shelling pecans, picking and juicing lemons for lemonade and eating fruit right off the trees... We spent a lot of time just hanging out and playing, got in some more hiking and a lot of great eating!

With weather in the 70's the entire time that we were there, we were some happy tourists, wearing our shorts and tshirts the entire time we were there! What a great relaxing vacation!

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