Monthly Archives: February 2014

Cutler Is Reading!

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I had a parent/teacher meeting with Cutler’s teacher this past week and while reviewing his progress she showed me several words that he is now able to read by sounding out the letters.  I was a bit skeptical when she told me, but I withheld the skepticism and just smiled at the time.  Then on Friday a book was sent home with the instructions for him to read it to me so we put my skepticism to test and low and behold the kid can read.  Granted, some of it is him learning words from repetition, but when I found him getting stuck I worked with him on sounding it out and he knew what he was doing.  Below is a video of the finished product from tonight.  Very proud of our little monkey.

http://youtu.be/U-2iDi5f5LA

 

Boys Night Out

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With Melanie still out of town the boys and I headed out tonight for a Stars game. After an interesting experience taking them both to a Rangers game this past summer I swore I would never do this again. However, with Melanie out I figured I would give it another shot and in the end I was pleased with the outcome. Aside from Cutler’s constant button pushing it was a great time. Only way it could have been better is if Melanie had been there. We miss her.

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It’s Still Friday Somewhere

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So my calendar won’t show it on the site, but at least somewhere it is still Friday and so my streak of daily posts lives on. I would have posted something sooner, but thanks to Grammy giving me the night off by watching the boys I am just now settling down long enough to write a few words about absolutely nothing. I will share a photo of rookie from Dallas’ version of being vortexed and Mason enjoying a small flurry this afternoon. I’d complain about the cold, but ours is white mild compared to those north of us.

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Bullies Beware

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On Saturday night I took the boys to see the Harlem Globetrotters and on the way down somehow the discussion of bullies came into play and Mason started to explain to Cutler that if a bully was to bother him he should take three steps back and tell the teacher and to never confront the bully.  After Mason gave him the standard rules, Cutler made up, or at least I hope he is making it up, a story of a bully at school named Shark.  Mason told him that if the teacher doesn’t take care of him, he will have a word with him the next time he comes to pick up Cutler with me.  These are moments that I dream of happening where Mason shows how much he cares about his brother and is willing to look out for him.  It made me think of one of my favorite pictures and given it is Turn Back Thursday or whatever TBT stands for, I thought I would share.  This was the boys running through the sprinklers at Nana and Papa Herman’s house in July of 2010.  When the boys are at each other’s throats, I try to think back to moments like this to remind me that they do actually love each other.  🙂

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And here are a few more of my favorite pictures from that day.

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It’s A Boys World

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Melanie had to fly to Australia for what she claims is work this past Friday night and now the boys and are living the college life for the next two weeks.  This includes eating nothing but dip and burgers for the super bowl, ordering pizza, running from sporting event one after the other, and turning our underwear inside out in order to use them just one more time before having to do the laundry.  Ok, that last part is a joke…we just go commando.

At first I was a bit stressed at the thought of dealing with these two monkeys by myself for two weeks, but it is actually turning into a pretty good time…aside from missing Melanie terribly that is.  It started a bit rocky on Saturday, but after having several discussion with the boys that involved pleading for peace between the two of them, things have started to go really well.  That being said, it is still very early in the trip and we can not wait for Melanie’s return.

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At the airport hiding our apprehension as we said good bye to Melanie.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Last week while I was writing about our experience visiting a mosque, our much more intelligent and highly over educated former nanny and current cousin, Kobi, was writing about her trip to a French town that was wiped out due to the hands of the Nazis.  I have been meaning to share and so my apologies for not sharing until now.  Within the post Kobi, rather modestly, seemingly buries the lead.  She officially received her Master’s in something from London and even more impressive has taken her first step towards a career on the Holocaust lecture tour.  Very proud to call Kobi our family, friend, and a contributor to our boys’ early early days.  Not to mention, she is a pretty dang good writer.  It’s just a shame she hid these talents when I requested her nanny diaries series when living with us.  Congratulations Kobi!

International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Mason’s Turn

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Yesterday was Cutler’s beast mode day with two goals and this afternoon, before Seattle made a mockery of the Super Bowl, it was Mason’s turn as his hockey team won 36-1 or something along those lines.  We quit keeping score around 20, but apparently one of the other parents was running the full tally.  No goals for Mason though as he was playing goalie.  I’d love to say it was a difficult effort to steer away so many shots to keep them to one, but I think he had maybe seven saves.  I would place his beast mode in the ability to remember to watch for the puck if the other team happened to work their way down towards him, which in this case was very seldom thanks to a stellar effort from the entire team.  Below are a couple of videos, the first one of Mason’s total concentration taking a slight lapse enabling him a split second to wave at me while the kids were going after the puck in the corner and the other is the celebration that followed this victory.  I love watching these kids mob each other as if they just won the cup.

http://youtu.be/Nf20felW1Ts

http://youtu.be/r-jjrrPZcB8

 

 

Turning On The Switch

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Cutler is now 7 games into his indoor soccer season and despite playing somewhat aggressively he has not scored a goal…until today. Something happened and that somewhat aggressive went to full aggressive mode and he put in not one but two goals today and almost finished off with a hat trick but his buddy finished off his work when he got the ball to the goal mouth. Of course he waited untold Melanie was out of town, but at least he got it done. Hopefully he saves a few for when she returns.

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