Football Signup and Minicamp

This year Ray is coaching the Flag Panthers. Malachi and Seth are going to play on his team. So will cousin Koda. Jada wants to play too. But for now Ray just wants her to cheer with Samara. This will be my first year coaching. I applied to be the cheerleader coach and Yvette is going to be my assistant.

Isaiah and Trejan will be playing tackle football. They will be coached by Uncle Jack. I guess our days will be long during football season this year!

After signing up, the kids had to run drills while the coaches wrote down their times. This is for the draft so the coaches can pick what kids they want.

Our kids were hot and thirsty after all those drills. And what a convenience, the ice cream truck was in the parking lot. I bought a small popsicle for everyone and they all cooled off in the shade.

Westlake Park

We decided it was time to branch out and try to find a new fishin' hole. Ray did some research and learned that the best local lake for catfish was Lake Lewisville.

We looked at a map of Lake Lewisville and found the name of a park to try. It was great! We went on a Friday so it wasn't crowded at all. We were surprised at how cheap it was, only $3 for all of us! And they even gave the kids complimentary coloring books and crayons.

We found a nice picnic table right by the water and set up. We had lunch and then fished right next to our table. Sweet! We were fishing in the shade! We also looked at some of the books we recently checked out from the library.

After a while, I took the four youngest and we headed to the beach area to swim. It was just a short walk away. We had a blast in the water and it gave Ray and Nehemiah a chance to fish without little "helpers" and constant cries of "I'm snagged!" or "I can't get this fish off my hook!" or "I hooked my own shirt!" or "Help me hook this worm!"
On our way to the water we found a dead fish which we promptly inspected using a stick. We also saw a catfish head. When we were in the water we saw several grasshoppers. Samara and I caught them and put them on our heads. We declared ourselves "Grasshopper Princesses"! All of us looked closely at the grasshoppers and talked about how long their legs are and how far they can jump. We talked about their antennae and how they can sense things compared to how we sense things. We also talked about where grasshoppers live. Seth and Samara assumed they must live in the water since that's where we found them. Isaiah and Malachi knew they lived on land and explained it to the twins. One of the big ones jumped on Seth and scared the crap out of him! Poor baby! He's the most squeamish around creepy crawly things and they always seem to head for him! We saw some minnows swimming around us and wondered what other things were swimming close to us. The kids wanted to know why there were cold spots in the water which was something I couldn't explain. We performed tricks for each other, stuff like handstands and flips. Malachi got some water up his nose and said he wished he didn't have a nose. I laughed and told him that then he couldn't smell and that would be weird! We made jokes about all the situations he might be in where he would hate the fact that he couldn't smell, like smelling good food or cake, or freshly cut grass, or poop! We all had a good laugh about that one.
Since this was only a day use park, we had to leave by 10pm. When darkness came Malachi caught a small toad. Samara loved it and wanted to bring it home with her.

We stayed as late as we could as you can tell. Here's Nehemiah's silhouette still fishing in the dark.

Happy Birthday Jada!

Jada turned 5! To celebrate we went to the Rosemeade Rainforest Pool.

Here's me and Jada standing peacefully.

Suddenly, a downpour!

Caused by this:

Here's the gang hanging out in the lazy river. (Which Jada called the "Lazy Liver". Guess we've been fishing too much lately. She knows Uncle Ray sometimes uses liver for bait.)

I love this pic of Jada and Yvette:

Malachi and Isaiah racing down the slide:

Now it's the girls' turn!

Watch out! Nehemiah will spray you!

Peek a Boo!

Cousins

On Father's Day all the cousins on Ray's side of the family were at Grandma's house.

Nehemiah (14), Jalen (13), Trejan (7), Isaiah (7), Malachi (6), Jada (5), Seth (3), Koda (3), and Samara (3).

Imaginary Play

I love to watch the kids use their imagination. Just the other day they were playing outside with several of the neighborhood kids. I saw some of them on the trailer "casting" out different ropes and dog leashes. They were pretending that the trailer was a boat and they were fishing. Some of the other kids would crawl around on the ground and then tug on one of the "fishing lines" pretending to be fish. They would go through all the motions of trying to reel in the fish. Sometimes they would ride their bikes around in the yard. Isaiah told me they were pretending that the bikes were jet skis!

Cherokee Cycle Park

Last Saturday we drove down to Milano, TX to visit the Cherokee Cycle Park.

The first thing we noticed when we got out of the truck was the dung beetles. All the kids gathered around to check 'em out while Ray and Nehemiah unloaded the trailer.

They are incredibly strong! We saw a single beetle rolling a turd twice the size of himself. And what is really weird is that they turn backwards to roll it, with their front legs and head on the ground and their back legs up against the turd! I tried to get a good picture but this is the best I could do.

Isaiah recently got some new riding gear so using the Hand-Me-Down-Method so common in this family, Seth got some new gear too! We're still working on getting Samara some pink gear. She's waiting patiently. She was so excited to wear this helmet. It was hot outside but she refused to take it off even when she wasn't riding!

Malachi, Seth and Samara, relaxing between rides:

Nehemiah ready to ride his dirtbike:

Nehemiah took Tina for a ride on the 4 wheeler:

This place has lots of trails but not a lot of jumps. Which was ok with me, since I won't be jumping anyway. But the boys had to practice some jumping. I had a little trouble getting the timing right but here's some pics a captured of them on a small jump.


You can only see Nehemiah's front wheel in this one but I like the shadow:

After Ray taught Tina how to ride, she didn't want to get off. Here she's taking Samara for a ride:

While Tina was out riding, Seth took her shades. I had to snap one of him looking cool!

No, Malachi didn't really drive this one. He did go for a ride on it though. But you should have seen him on the Yamaha. (The small white/blue 4 wheeler in the other pics.) He was riding it like I've never seen him ride before. He said he had it full throttle in the field area!

When I saw the twins on the fallen tree, I couldn't resist a snapshot.

We had a lot of fun! It's been a while since we've been riding. And it was fun to go somewhere new!

Since we didn't bring a tent we decided to get a room and splash in the pool to cool off. We stopped at a little cheap motel in Waco. Since I didn't swim, I was able to get a few more pictures. Yay!

Malachi jumping in:

Malachi holding on to the side of the pool:

Seth jumping in:

Two at once:

Tina and Samara:

Nehemiah doing a front flip into the pool. (Yeah, he landed just how it looks he will, on his back! He said he was glad I captured it because he wasn't doing it again! It stung!)

Cannonball!

Splash!

Another cannonball!

Leapfrog, anyone?

And what would a trip to the pool be without someone "playing dead"?

Another Reason Why I Love My Husband

I always know I love him but from time to time he does something that reminds me all over again. Recently we were headed out to the pool toting along a few extra kids, as usual. We had not yet had lunch so we stopped by Little Caesar's to pick up some $5.55 Hot and Ready Pepperoni Pizzas to take to the pool with us. I stayed in the car with the kids while Ray headed inside to buy the food. I saw him walk over to a van that was parked a couple of parking spaces over and start talking to the driver. The lady's van wouldn't start. Ray lifted her hood and began inspecting. Then he pulled out the jumper cables from the back of the Suburban. He jumped off her van, refused any payment and went inside to buy food. Well, before the lady was able to drive off, her van died again. Ray came back outside and explained to her that it may be her alternator but patiently pulled out the jumper cables again.
I was so proud of him for helping her out. Not that it's unusual, he always stops when he sees someone in need. But that doesn't make me any less proud. Not to mention the fact that the kids witnessed this and learned a lesson in kindness.

BMX Riding

Isaiah has been working on jumping his bike on his friend's ramp. He wanted me to take a picture of him.

Think she'll do it?

Here's a picture of Bruce jumping it too:

More Coppell Fishing

We went fishing again in Coppell. This time we took Marcus, Bruce and Trent.

Seth caught the tiniest fish ever:

Malachi caught the biggest fish of the night. Unfortunatley I didn't get a picture of it because my hands were all messy and I didn't want to touch the camera. By the time I was ready to take the picture, Ray had already helped Malachi get the fish off the hook. But we did measure it. It was 16 inches!

I tried to take a picture of a spider web on the pier but it didn't come out too great. But I still like the picture anyway.

Brotherly Love

Malachi has had a loose tooth for a while now. He was very excited when he finally pulled it out. The only problem was...he lost it. He dropped it somewhere and couldn't find it again. I told him to look for it so he could put it under his pillow and I went on about my business. When I finally walked into the kids' bedroom that night, I heard Isaiah consoling Malachi. They didn't know I was listening. Malachi was crying because he was not able to find the tooth and he thought that the tooth fairy would not bring him anything. I overheard Isaiah say, "It's ok Malachi, when I lose my next tooth, I will give it to you."
I thought I was going to cry too!
I reassured Malachi that the tooth fairy is magic and that she would still be able to find his lost tooth.
Luckily, she did, and Malachi woke up to find $5 under his pillow! (Dang, that's a lot of money!)

Making a Car

Since Seth took off his training wheels, Malachi has been playing with them. Malachi decided he wanted to build a "car" with a piece of wood and some training wheels. Ray and Alex helped him decide how to do it. Malachi went to Home Depot with Alex and picked out some screws and washers to build it with. Alex built Malachi's design with Malachi's input.

All done...except for the paint:

Now to test out the finished product:

They spray painted it later but I didn't get a picture.