T.J.'s Practices...

I am really impressed with T.J. and how far he's come with 3 weeks of football. He's hitting harder, running faster, and understanding everything so well. He really likes it. The hardest part is having practice every day, plus school, and homework. Football and school have become his life. He has no time for anything else. He's happy it gets him out of scouts, but it doesn't leave any room for down time. Once games start though, it will go down to 3 practices a week plus games every Saturday.
Our practices got moved to the field by our library in Riverton. It's still about the same distance. I like being right by the library because the boys can go check out books and read while we are right there, plus stuff gets turned in now so hopefully no more overdue fines.
Here's some pictures and movie clips from this week's practices...

Watching from the side lines. See how close we are to the library.

What we do during some of the practices.

My favorite thing to watch!! T.J. is like this solid, steady steam train that comes busting in. He's doing really good at this. He doesn't run the fastest, but he's got the power to make up for it.

So very thirsty. They have to take their helmets off to get drinks so they can cool off a little more.

They played their first scrimmage game yesterday against another B team. Our team CREAMED them!!! That's when Jared was really impressed with our coaches. He could see just how much more work and training our boys get. I love our coaches. They are so upbeat and positive for these boys. Plus, they are very organized. We start right on time, each coach knows exactly what they are doing, and we end right on time.

Jared giving tips from the sideline. I wish so bad he could have coached this year.

Coach had every kid take turns on each play giving each member an equal chance to play.

T.J. was not afraid to hit this team. He was definitely more aggressive. I think he isn't as much with his own team because he doesn't want to hurt them. T.J. is right in the middle. He has just a touch of green on under his jersey.

I love this picture even though you can only see part of it.

Warm ups today. One of the coaches kid is helping this year train ours. He was playing last year and got his head cracked so he can't play this year. (Scary!)

Jumping Jacks. They call them Wolf Jacks for the Riverton Wolves.

T.J. has been so excited for this practice!! His team was playing a scrimmage game against Brodie's!!!! That's T.J. blocking Brodie! They had it set perfectly so he could block him! He was so excited.

T.J. blocking Brodie.

And again.

And again. Both T.J. and Brodie are good at blocking. T.J. came out and said, "Brodie's a lot easier to block then I thought he would be." I said, "Ya, cause you've got 50 lbs. on him." Haha!

They did good against this team. We tied them. I think we could have done better but our team didn't seem to have their hearts there tonight. Probably cause of the heat and humidity today. It's been a hot one. So glad we moved to this park with more shade for everyone.

Jamie, Cherie and Jim came to watch this scrimmage.

More water.

I love this football!! I don't understand it very well but I can see myself getting very hooked on it. I'm already cheering at these scrimmages! It's so cute watching these boys out playing real football. I love hanging out with our boys. I'm so glad we had 3 right in a row. I love boy stuff. I love boys period!

Making Sauce

I LOVE to cook. Most people look at me like I'm crazy when I say this, but I really do. And when I say I love to cook, I mean those types of dishes that take hours to make because of the many steps, and the awesome flavors that come out of it. It's a science to me. I love taking something and making it better.
One of my favorite things to make is spaghetti sauce. Our friends that we used to do rodeo with are Italian. And every Sunday this spaghetti was their family dinner. For years when they had extra spaghetti left over, they'd call us or Jared's dad and tell us to come get some. And you better believe we'd rush right over. It was like a contest between us and Jared's family to see who got the spaghetti. It's that delicious!!
So one day I got smart and decided I wanted this recipe, hoping Freida would share it with me. And she did!! I was so excited to make this. It takes me 2 and a half hours to make this, and 4 hours of simmering, but it is so worth it! Besides spaghetti, we also make extra meatballs and use some sauce for meatball subs. Oh so yummy!!
I made this sauce today. It's a great recipe to make and put into smaller dinner size bags and in the freezer for future dinners. And with football practice every night, I need something I can just throw together fast.

First we start with this huge thing of tomato sauce. And that's not all I put in. I do two more smaller cans, plus two cans of tomato paste, plus water. I told you this makes a lot of sauce.

Fry this all up and that's what gives the sauce that good flavor. Mmmmm!

Add in some spices.

Some chicken.

And 56 meatballs.

And simmer. This big pot is almost full of the most delicious smelling sauce! Simmer for 4 hours on low or it will burn with all the meatballs on the bottom.

With sauce this good, it's no wonder there's no leftovers. And spaghetti leftovers are the best!

I love this sauce. It's time consuming, but so worth it.

Recess

Hunter told me today he and his friends are now chasing girls at school during recess. He used to chase that bully kid that punched T.J. but he's moved on to girls now. (It's funny to think a first grader was chasing around this 5th grade bully kid!) First thing I asked Hunter was, "You aren't kissin' them, are you?" I was very relieved when he answered, "No," with a turned up nose towards the idea. But then he said, " My friend did though." Oh great. Hunter's the one I worry about with girls. Cody and T.J. could care less about them. But not Hunter. His two best friend's are girls. I can't believe I'm already having to tell him not to kiss girls. Heaven help us with this kid!

Our 11th Anniversary

We made it... today was our 11th wedding anniversary! (I didn't have any doubts, I promise!) I can't believe we are already here. It doesn't seem like it's been 11 years, but it has. Guess that's what happens when you are having fun!
Because T.J. now has football practice every night, we decided to go play during the day. What we didn't plan on was Hunter coming down with pink eye and staying home from school. Thank goodness my mom said she'd watch him while we went 4-wheelin' so we had a little time to our selves.                                                             We went to lunch at Red Robin. I've never been there before (shocking, I know.) It was really good. Hunter tagged along on our date for lunch. He was so funny. He knew it was our anniversary, but he thought since he was going to lunch, he could pick the place to eat. He thought he was in charge (like always). But then after lunch he said, "Pretend I'm not here." I said, "Why? Because we are on a date?" He said, "Ah huh." But then he kept right on chattering away until we pulled into Grandma's. Funny kid.

Playing tic-tac-toe with Dad.

I think Hunter was having a little too much fun on our date. Knowing him he'll try to come again. I love this picture of these two.

I got some kind of a spinach chicken wrap thing. It was so good! Jared had some kind of pineapple burger and macaroni and cheese.

We stole my Dad's Kabota and went 4-Wheelin' up to the end of YellowFork Canyon, hiked a bit, then drove down and drove up Rose Canyon before going back to get Hunter. This is one of our very favorite things to do on our anniversary - go 4-Wheelin'. We didn't have much time today to go around a huge canyon so we settled for a close one. But YellowFork has turned into one of our favorite places to go. It's nice and close, and pretty.

Jared took this picture of me in the rear-view mirror. We were just leaving my parents in the fun kabota.

Look how much water is still coming out of the canyon. usually by now it's just a trickle, but we got so much snow this past winter that it's still coming down pretty good.

Us by Dad's Kabota. I love driving that thing.

Our shoes were full of stickers by the time we got back from our hike.

My cutie.

I can honestly say I love Jared more today then I did when I met him, and I never thought that was possible. He is my bestest friend. We were talking as we were 4-wheelin' and I told him that I found myself  because of him. I can't imagine my life any other way. Ya, there would be a few things I might change here and there, but not Jared or my boys. I love my life with them. They are my world. I love my boys. I love my Cowboy. I love you Jared. Thanks for putting up with me these last 11 years. Thanks for making me so happy. I love you. Happy Anniversary!

Sunday Dinner at my Parents House

Dinner at my parents house usually means.... 

Hanging out while we finish making dinner.

Spending time outside. Love my Dad's barn. There's no animals in it. Just 4-wheelers, his train, the bobcat, the mini track-hoe, and John's weight set. I love looking at this thing against the open mountains behind it with a perfect sunset. So relaxing.

The TrAiN!!! These boys love Grandpa's train! They usually ride with Grandpa and take turns driving up the road or down in his fields. This time Grandpa was in the house and it was Cody's turn to drive. Let's just say he loves going fast (if you can't tell by his body language. He sits forward when he floors it to make it go faster).

Stopping for a picture.

And then they take off again. They didn't stop driving around 'til dark.

Usually it's some one's birthday month so we have dessert for them. This month was Jared's. So for dessert he had his favorite chocolate pie from Marie Calendar's.

Love this kid! (His pink eye was starting to come on. Poor kid.)

MMmmm, chocolate pie.

My crazy brother John. Dinner's always mean lots of pictures, too. I get my addiction of taking pictures from my parents. My Dad started taking a lot when my parents got married, then my mom picked it up, and now us kids.

Jamie got a hold of my camera. Someday this is going to be a good picture to use against her, I just know it! 

Don't have any pictures of Jeff this time. He wasn't able to come. Another story for another time.

These boys love playing with my siblings. John loves to play in the sand box with them. Tonight they built a cool sandcastle. Hunter was inside playing the WII with Jamie.

I love watching the full moon come up over the mountain from their house. It seems so close. And I love how it lights it up outside. Makes driving home and spotting the deer much easier.

We only have dinner up at my parents once a month, but it's fun. Lots of work at times with my mom's health issues, but it's fun. The boys can't wait to go back and play on Grandpa's toys some more.

Should I Be Worried?

My boys love watching the discovery channel. They love learning about animals. Last night we watched a few minutes about bears in Russia. So this morning they were excited to turn it on and see it was about snakes and how deadly they can be when they attack. First of all, GROSS! I HATE snakes with a passion! Second, they had it on while they were eating breakfast before school. How can you eat and watch something like that?! I was getting sick just listening to it as I made their lunches.
On the show they started talking about some kind of a Viper snake. It was huge! And it had diamond patterns on it's back in bright green and yellow. Hunter comes running into Cody and asks, "Did you see that snake? It's beautiful!" I looked at him like he was crazy. He said, "What?! It's cute!" Oh my gosh! Even Cody said no to that and Cody is into that stuff. But a few minutes later I hear Hunter say, "That's freaky outy." That was a little better to hear then how this snake is 'cute'. Cody and Hunter started talking about getting a snake but believe me I put a stop to that one. I'd never sleep again knowing one was in the house. It was bad enough when I found a Gardner Snake downstairs one morning as I was going to put wash in. Somehow it came up through a drain pipe. Luckily Jared was home so he could get rid of it. But only after he tried shoving that thing in my face. I hate snakes with a passion. Those creepy, slithery, hissing things give me the shivers.