Tennis Pro

This summer Carter and Graham both took tennis lessons from "Tennis Dave" at West Homewood park. They really enjoyed it and Carter decided he wanted to continue this fall. So every Monday night, we trek out to West Homewood and spend an hour and fifteen minutes watching kids hit "rally balls" back and forth. Tennis Dave is an amazing coach - he teaches techniques through games and fun activites so that the kids are constantly encouraged and actually improve. Our friends, the Estes family introduced us to Tennis Dave this summer. Below you see Lane (who I understand is not such a bad tennis player himself) helping Carter with his swing.

Notice Carter's tongue hanging out as he concentrates on making contact.

Haircut Time

On Saturday, all four of us got much needed haircuts. Carter and Graham have decided to grow their hair out in preparation for Halloween (stay tuned!), so you can hardly tell that they got any hair cut. Here they are browsing through magazines while waiting on Mom and Dad.

Fun with the cousins

So football season is underway and Kelly and Dan scored some sweet tickets to the Auburn LSU game last weekend and I got to keep Jackson and Harper for the day. Carter and Graham joined me at 7 am and pretty much entertained their cousins all day long. If you ignore the red eye in these pictures, they're really pretty cute. Notice the Avery children decked out in their War Eagle attire.

Soccer Star

So Graham had his first soccer game last Saturday and he scored two goals. In this soccer league, we try not to keep score, but Graham was VERY aware that he scored the winning goal. He was so way cute. I'm not quite sure where his athleticism comes from but we're just going with it. Carter started tennis yesterday and starts dance today, so stay tuned for pictures of him...

A Budding Artist

As our fall gets underway, the chaotic dance of after school activities has started.

Graham is enrolled in a Young Rembradts drawing class and playing soccer while Carter is playing tennis and taking jazz and ballet. Today I thought I would share a picture of Graham's first drawing - a beautiful ladybug. It's on display at his school with others like it.

As soccer, tennis and dance begin, we'll post other pictures of our boys in action, that is, if we can catch them...

School Daze

We're closing in on our second full week of school - 3rd grade for Carter and kindergarten (or as Montessorians call is, Extended Day) for Graham. Here are some pictures from their first day on August 28. Notice Graham is ready to be Harry Potter ready to play quidditch.

For those who are interested, Carter has determined that this year, for his science collection, he will be working on rocks and minerals. We're almost through his first report which is due tomorrow.

In Extended Day, Graham is getting used to contracts. At Montessori, students have contracts with their teachers to accomplish a certain number of lessons at their own pace in about a week to ten days. Graham was a little nervous about the prospect of deadlines, but he finished his first contract two days early. What an overachiever!

Our Favorite Lake

Each time we go to the mountains, we spend at least a full day at Cliffside Lake. There's a mile hike around the lake with a creek along the way that they boys like to play in. This year they built a dam with sticks and rocks. Then we swing and play on the beach for a few hours and enjoy a picnic lunch before leaving. We successfully ran off an old woman and her daughter during one of our two trips there this year. Although we didn't really fish here (you have to have a license and a trout stamp, whatever that is), Carter and Reggie did enjoy playing Go Fish. And Graham discovered an inch worm which he held very gently for several minutes. Aaaahhh nature...

The Bear Series

We spent a lot of time talking about bears. We never really saw one, a live one, that is. But the boys had a good time posing with stuffed ones. In this picture on the left, you'll notice they have their native american outfits on and they have successfully hunted a bear for dinner. Whatever it takes to keep the peace...