Smiling Jack

Nothing says 'fall' quite like Halloween. And nothing says 'Halloween' quite like pumpkin carving! Wonder Boy selected a great grinning stencil to be our starting point and we chose a pumpkin with a fairly head-like shape on which to make our master piece this year.



We were really impressed with the Boy's carving skills - they have greatly improved since last fall. He likely won't need our help at all next year (though he doesn't like to be the one to empty out the seeds and such so I guess we still get to participate).

We call our new pumpkin friend "Smiling Jack" and we hope the heat won't have him decomposed before Halloween actually arrives. Now .... to dig out the rest of the decorations and get them up as well!

Soccer is a snap!

Lots of athletes, especially the super stars, have little quirks, small rituals or other such routines when they are really in the 'zone' performance-wise. Michael Jordan would stick out his tongue. Karl Malone slowed things down and took his sweet time at the free throw line. Others count to ten or cross them selves before entering the boxing/martial arts ring. The methods may vary, but the effect is the same - it's about focusing on the task at hand and rising to a new level of play/effort.

Wonder Boy is no different. A few years back, he had to learn to snap his fingers for a school performance. He worked really hard at it and even had his moments when he thought he would never get there. But by the time the performance rolled around, he was a snappin' fool!

It wasn't long after that performance when we noticed that, in the moments when he was really on his game on the soccer field, he was constantly snapping his fingers. When the action is tense, when he is focused on his goal (yes, pun intended) you will always find his fingers a-snappin'!



Snap away, big guy! Your game is ever evolving and so are you! Just keep at it!

Here is a quick video with a few of Wonder Boy's most recent soccer high lights:

Game 3 High Lights.

Double Digits

Ten years. A decade. It's kind of hard to wrap your brain around - how 10 years can fly by so fast and drag all at once.

For some, ten years can seem like a life time. For others a mere blink of an eye. How is that possible? I can't explain it, but I am certainly feeling it right now as we celebrate Wonder Boy's 10th birthday!



When Wonder Boy was a baby, a more experienced mom told me (after a long and sleepless night) "the hours are long, but the days fly right by." I took her at her word that day because all I could feel at that moment was the exhaustion and the weariness of life with an infant. But today, her words speak right to my heart.

Life does fly right on by when you are busy living it. And while it seems to me that our Boy was an infant just a few days ago, my memories of what life was like before he came into our world feels like ancient history.

I suppose that is how things work in this world. The Earth keeps spinning and we keep living. And from time to time we stop and ponder where time has gone as well as look ahead to all there is yet to come. Birthdays are a good time for that.

Happy Birthday to our big kid! These first 10 years have been amazing and the next 10 promise to be an even greater adventure for us all! Thank goodness we get to do it together.