Summer Happenings

We've been out of school for a couple of weeks now. After the first week of fighting and boredom, I went online to see how many things we could sign up for. Jack had a week of swimming lessons. He was able to jump off the diving board and swim to the side, without assistance, but he needs another week of lessons. I just don't really have the money/desire to drive to lessons for another 5 days and sit and wait. It was a little painful. We went to the pool yesterday and he wore his life jacket. He wanted to take it off for a bit, and stay in the shallow lazy river. He can touch the whole way. I grudgingly said yes. So then, he comes running back 5 minutes later and says, "Mom, I was pushed into the deep end and was drowning. Will (his best friend) saved my life." Great. Now put back on your life jacket.

Tristan missed out on playing Jr. Jazz basketball last winter, because of his own dumb choices and has been looking forward to playing this winter. In my search for things to do, I saw a 3-on-3 Jr Jazz fundamentals league this summer, for cheap, through the community center. Done. I signed both boys up and we started last night. Oh.. I will have to try and video Jack playing. He's the smallest kid on the team, but I'm going to say, the most enthusiastic. He was SO INTO IT! It's man-to-man defense. So Jack is hopping foot to foot waving his hands all around. He came over during half-time so pumped up! "Mom! I'm having a great time!" I've never seen such an agrressive 6 year old player. He made 4 baskets too. Tristan played too, but, as you can imagine, he's more subdued. He made a few baskets, but his league is better and it's a little tougher. Tristan just wants to be able to make unlimited fouls on the other players. Nice. I don't know what to say to that.

Jack is signed up for tackle football in the fall. He's so excited. He and Brian picked up his pads, pants and helmet last Saturday. Brian said they got in the car and when he looked in back, Jack was already dressed in all of it... including the helmet. Jack then proceeded to wear all of it, including the helmet, for the next 3 hours, at least. He was watching TV and I could see sweat rolling down from his head in the helmet.

Tristan is in the middle of a 5 day video game/ computer programming camp at the University of Utah. He's in heaven. I wish I had a gagillion dollars to sign him up for everything he would like to do. Alas, I do not. He's learning how to program his own computer game. He then comes home and works on designing games upstairs on the computer. He also wants to talk about his games and his programming. a lot. He's so smart. He got 100% in math on the state testing and a 98% in English. He also got straight A's all 3 tri-mesters this year. He's getting his Bear badge, 2 arrowheads, a bead, a beltloop and the baseball pin tonight at pack meeting. Don't worry, he's not perfect. He has a temper and has angst (read: drama) a lot of the time.

Hudson is cute and full of life. He's currently sitting up at the bar eating his favorite food of "Jogurt". Vanilla jogurt to be exact. He wanted "Mo fish", but I'm all out of goldfish, so he settled on yogurt. He LOVES, LOVES Dora the Explorer, much to Jack's dismay. Hudson calls it "Backpack". I know you can hear it in your head, in a whiny voice, "Mo backpack....momma... mo backpack" etc. He loves to be outside and thinks he's as big as his brothers. He hits whenever he's not happy. That includes other people and himself. When he goes to timeout he puts both hands over his face and buries his face in the carpet in shame. It's VERY dramatic.
He loves his Daddeee. He follows Brian around the whole house calling, "Daddeee" whenever he's lost sight of him, or if Brian happens to not be looking at him. I think it's pretty funny, but apparently it wears on Brian's patience. Hudson has renamed all the kids. He calls Jack, Jach. He actually says all 'ck' sounds, 'ch'. (i.e. chichen,) He calls Tristan "E". We don't know why. Tristan hates it, but it's his name now. "E, E, c'mon. E play with me." He called Coleman "O" for a long time, but Coleman has worked non-stop trying to get him to say "Coleman". I think it's working.
Speaking of Coleman, he's busy with high school football. He goes every morning from 6:30-9:30. He then comes home, eats an enormous pile of food, showers and naps. He's pretty helpful around the house and occasionally babysits for us. All of the boys have summer chores that they're supposed to do. We've been fairly good about it. No one likes the dog poop scooping chore, or the dishes. Yeah, me neither.