That Great Canadian Pasttime

So we're doing it without ice, most of the pads, helmets, or skates, but my boys are carrying on their dad's heritage by playing floor hockey this fall. Solomon played last year, and this year Thad gets to play as well! I'm not coaching this time to see if that helps Sol, he and I have butted heads a bit when I've coached his teams. They seem to have a fun coach, so hopefully this will be a great season for them. Here are some pictures I wanted to share with you:)

He's such a fun little man, really!

Lest some people look at the video of Ezra saying "my sad," (if you haven't, check it out, it's really funny!) I wanted to let you know that he is really a fun little guy. He is always doing funny things, even though he's getting into the troublesome two's, and likes to try to be ornery sometimes. He loves to smile and is learning to talk, which I think is about the cutest time ever! He has been doing so much better this year, not two years removed from his hospital stay and continual getting sick every two weeks. We're so thankful to God for his health, even though we still get a little scared when he starts to run a fever... So here he is, our little ball of fun!

Harvestfest

Today was supposed to be rainy all day. Come to think of it, yesterday was as well! Hurricaine Ike is supposed to come and give us a bunch of rain, but so far he's held off. The city we live in has an annual festival where they have a parade, games, food, and fun stuff for the kids. We got up in eager (some of us) anticipation of it and drove off to check out the parade (all of us but Sol, who is at Grandma P's house this weekend). Turned out the parade was cancelled, and the whole event was moved to a different park. We killed some time at that park, playing on the playground until it all started, and then hung out there all morning. It was a sunny and humid day, certainly not the rainy day we'd been anticipating! Here are some pics of the fun we had!

Apple Picking!

We spent Sunday afternoon picking apples at a little orchard south of St. Louis with some friends from church and wanted to share some pictures with you!

Sol climbing a tree for some good ones, before I reminded Rhonda that we were told not to climb the trees!

The older Keating boys with their cute little sister Rebecca

The Bailey and Keating boys having lunch before we got started

Ez and Rebecca enjoying the wagon ride on the hayride!

The Spoors joined us for apple fun!

Ezzie loved to take little bites out of his apples...

Eli had to see how many he could find on the ground, until I made him stop that!

And Thad had me help him get some tall ones!

Maybe you'll join us next year??

Broken...

I got up and took the boys to the school I work at for the 7th grade boys football game this morning at 8:30AM. Ridiculous hour for a football game, but not surprisingly, we didn't have much problem getting there on time :) We stayed almost 90 minutes which was about as long as they could last, daddy catching frogs was the most entertainment they got out of it all! Alas, we came home, and as I was pitching some empty cups in the trash can I discovered the marble chess set that had been given to me by a teacher at my last school. Turns out, Ezra had gotten near it and knocked it off the shelf it was on, breaking the board and many of the little "men."

After venting my frustration for a few minutes to no-one in particular but to everyone who happened to be around, I sat down and read a bit. Reading a book called The Shack right now, which my dad read to my mom while she was recovering from surgery a few months ago, and which they bought for all five of their kids in hopes we'd love it like they did.

At any rate, I have to say, one of the negatives about having 4 boys is that things just get broken. They love to see how much something can take before it breaks, or sometimes they just like to have mangled toys, like poor Billy Blazes, who lost one leg accidentally and recently had his other leg amputated for Sol and Thad's "enjoyment." At any rate, as I look back on my chess set, I remember that it's just a chess set, with little monetary value and not even close to as much importance in my life as each of those little boys who seem to take turns breaking my "stuff." It's just stuff.

I'm loving The Shack. Almost done with it. You should read it...

First Day!

Today was a big day in our family. Eli Jon is finally big enough to go to Preschool! Today was his first day and he loved it! He talked afterwards about getting candy to eat and playing with the Power Rangers, riding bikes outside and eating all together and saying the preschool prayer! This is a well known prayer in our family, it's the "God is great, God is good..." with a big "YAY!!" as loud as you can at the end. Sol and Thad both went there and loved it, so it's really fun for Eli to carry on the Bailey name there!

Labor Day Weekend!

Eli didn't do much behind the boat, but he loved reading in his spiderman pj's!
Thad and Ava on the zip sleds
Ez and Rhonda on the saucer

Sol doing a great job waterskiing with Jared

Sol and Tami on the kneeboards
Rhonda and I slaloming (before she let go of the rope!)

We spent one last weekend at the Lake of the Ozarks with a bunch of family playing in the water this past weekend. I wanted to include some pictures of the fun for your enjoyment, plus I think that people like pictures more than they like reading stuff anyways! Sol did a great job enhancing his waterskiing ability, even started by himself, and Thad learned to ski this weekend! I'll have pictures of that when we get them, we had a slight memory card issue at that time unfortunately!