Soccer shoes, soccer shorts, soccer balls, soccer...

James loves to wear soccer shoes. James loves to wear Shawn's soccer shoes especially. He will put them on and walk all over and try to kick the ball as best he can with shoes that are 5 times his feet. It is very cute to see when he will find a pair and he puts them on right away and thuds through the house.
James also loves his soccer shorts, he always asks to wear his "yoccer yorts" he has a hard time saying his "S"'s still. We are working on that. But I like that he still has his baby talk, or I guess his binky talk.

James also plays soccer everyday inside and out. We have about 12 balls lingering about the house and in the garage, so he is never short a ball. I tried to say no balls in the house-once upon a time, but that has been ruled out and I have to accept the fact that there will always be balls in my house being kicked in every direction. I don't plan on having to many expensive things on the shelves. The pictures I am a bit nervous about, but I guess I won't buy expensive frames:)

So proud to have a ball in his hands and at his feet

James also loves to wear soccer goalie gloves. We have one pair that he will put on anytime he can find them. If he can't find those he will put on winter gloves and pretend to be a goalie. It is so cute to watch him.

This is my favorite, I love the socks pulled up all the way!! And yes the stained onesie is a nice touch as well.

He is finally all set up for himself. For his Second birthday Chris got him a Barcelona Jersey, shirt and shorts and socks, and he has soccer shoes that fit him as well. And a brand new ball, of course. Our little soccer toddler.

Grandma Becky and Bob's Visit

We love to get visitors and we were so lucky to get all of them at once. We had Becky and Bob come for a week in June and then my parents overlapped them one day and they were here for a few days. There are so many fun things to do and see in Kansas City that it was a lot of fun to take everyone to all the different places. Hopefully we can get many more people to come visit us in the future! Can't wait for you to come back!Here is the clan before Grandma Becky and Bob hit the road in the morning on their last day here. It is a 10 hour drive back to Fort Collins. Not too bad in the Summer but pretty ugly drive during the winter.
Grandma Becky wanted to see Shawn play some soccer, so she went to one of his practices, here he is kicking the heck out of the ball:)

Like Father, Like Son...

This is what Grandma Becky did most of the time instead of watching the soccer, playing with James and Mike in the trees and in the dirt. What are Grandma's for- right?

I love this shot of his big belly stickin' out

Cooling off in the little baby pool.

I took them to the Union Station downtown and there are so many things to do there. Bob had remembered being there when he was a young boy and he wanted to check it out and see how it had changed. There are not as many trains going through there as there used to be. Here is a big train track that they have set up all the time, it is neat to see all the little displays around the track. The boys like to point all the weird things out that they can find.

There is this fun Children's Museum place called Science City that we were able to get free tickets while we were there. We were so happy to get those. I had no idea what Science City was and it was a great way to find out. They had so many different things for the kids to do and a lot of fun things for the adults to do as well. This is one of the optical illusions room, the boys thought this was so cool!!

This is walking through a blood vessel of some sort, or maybe the stomach, I can't remember
exactly, but it was interesting. James did not like it much, it was dark and kind of scary for him.

At the end of walking around Union Station we stopped at the diner and had a bite to eat, it was a lot of fun, especially when we finally ordered something that they had not run out of. I think Mikey went through 3 things before he could actually get it. They kept coming back and telling us they were out of that item.

My first Summer wedding

I was blessed this Summer with the opportunity to go to three wonderful weddings. The first was one of my good friends from elementary school, Ruthie Sherrod. She is still one of my good friends and I am very blessed to have her in my life. It was a beautiful Jewish wedding at Cheesman Park in Denver, Colorado on June 14th. I was so glad that I was able to come and be a part of that special day with her. She was such a beautiful bride and it was so fun to see her family and many old friends. Her and Josh, her new husband, look so happy together!! This was at her rehearsal dinner the night before, that was a lot of fun to get to meet the groom and see the families and how they are together, it was a fun night. This is Ruthie, Laurie and I. We were great frinds all through elementary school and Junior high, we had a lot of FUN times!!

The beautiful bride and her bridesmaids

Josh and Ruth under the Canopy after they were married.

Lots, and Lots of fun dancing!!!

Beautiful!!

James was there with me, I was lucky to have my mom there too, she took James on a walk when he started getting a bit too loud. He enjoyed walking around the fountains and all the fun structures and ledges.

Shawn's Soccer Tournament

Shawn had his first soccer tournament in Lincoln, Nebraska the first weeekend in June. It was a lot of fun to get to know the boys and their parents better while staying in a hotel for 2 full days and sitting on the sidelines for many hours. The name of Shawn's team is the Kansas City Fusion. They are in the 1st division in our area and they are pretty good!! They played 3 games and won 2 out of the 3.

Shawn is #3 and has bright florescent green shoes, so it is very easy to spot him on the field. He is very good with the ball and loves to play soccer and be with his soccer friends. They had so much fun that weekend I am sure they are very excited for the next tournament.

Here they are getting a pep talk from Coach Mo after one of the games. Their coach is very good about encouraging them and making sure they know their strengths and talking positive to them. Coach Mo also plays on the indoor soccer team that Chris plays on every friday night.

Here is cutie pie James siting on all our luggage while we are getting ready to leave the hotel. It was alittle challenging to have him there with all the coming and goings. He didn't quite get the sleep that he usually gets, but he did pretty good. Plus he is a bit hard to have at the games because he doesn't want to watch much, we are usually taking turns chasing him around the sidelines.

Here is Shawn right as he is about to make a goal. He plays center mid-field so that allows him to make plenty of goals- and he usually makes at least one a game if not more.

Here they are after running around the hotel for hours in between games. They played hide and seek and chase and whatever else they could think of. They also had a lot of fun going up and down in the elevator. We stayed at the Embassy Suites so there are a lot of floors and the elevator is clear so they can watch as they go up and down...

Here is a great team picture minus Shawn, he is the only one that had to look away. The sun was in their face so they look pretty good for all of them squinting. This was after their last game and right before we went to have a big team dinner.

We had a nice time at the dinner and at the end they gave the boys their medals and they were all wearing their tournament t-shirts. We went to Valentinos Pizza for dinner. They had an all you can eat buffet and the boys ate a lot. Mikey ate the most, the Fusion boys were all betting Mikey that he couldn't eat as much as he got - and he had no trouble eating it all. Then he went and got a bunch of desert to top it all off. It was pretty impressive. I have a picture, but I have no idea how to get it on here anymore, so use your imagination.