Tree Hunting and Fall Pictures

OK, we finally got a whole bunch of pictures downloaded. The first batch was taken at my parents house this past weekend. The boys had a ball playing in the leaves in their back yard.
The second batch is from our trip to the mountains to cut a Christmas tree. On the way home, we stopped at a play area and spent some time playing in the snow.


You'll probably notice that Cameron rarely smiles nicely in pictures. 9 out of 10 shots are like this.


Cade sees no reason why he shouldn't be up on the roof with his brothers.


Cade helped decorate Pa and Tootie's tree.


This is what our boys look like most of the time.


A rare, nice shot of all 3! Notice Kevin got his braces off!


Playing in the leaves.




Moving the ladder is a tough job. It's a good thing Pa had a lot of help.


Cade loved sliding down the hill. He rode down with us several times.


Cameron and Kevin in a race down the hill. It sure looks a lot flatter in the picture than it did in person.


Kevin about to get whooped by his dad in a race down the hill. I must have been doing Mach 3 at the bottom.


This was Cameron's last ride for obvious reasons. Kevin got a front row view of the crash.


Cade held down the step stool while I set the tree.


Kevin


King Cade


Kevin helped Pa drag their tree back to the truck. Where was he when I needed help?

Da Family

Da Boys

More Random Pictures

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. This year it was just the 5 of us so it was quiet (relatively speaking - we do have 3 boys running around) but it was nice too. Dana made a wonderful meal that included everyone's favorite dish and everything tasted great.

We drove up to the mountains on the Sunday after Thanksgiving to cut our Christmas tree. My parents went with us just like they do every year so we make a nice family day out of it. This year we were lucky in that it snowed several inches in the area on Saturday. The kids had a ball playing in the snow. Even Cade enjoyed making throwing snowballs and sledding down the hill. We took those pictures with my parents' camera so I'll post those when I get them downloaded.

So once again, we don't have much to post in the way of pictures. Most of the those that we do have are pretty grainy because we still haven't made the effort to get a better camera. If the fact that these poor children are growing up with only 2.1 megapixel (or whatever) images to document their youth just tears you up inside, please feel free to make a small contribution to the "Help Mike & Dana Get a Better Camera" fund. Paypal is accepted. Just kidding.

The boys helped decorate the tree. Cade already has bedhead and he hasn't gone to bed yet.

Cade also helped me set up the tree.

Cade likes to ride the skateboard down our driveway.



Here's the one picture we took on our trip to cut the tree. I know you people in other areas of the country will laugh but snow is hard to come by around here.


Here's our house this Christmas. It isn't blurry because of the camera it's because I didn't use a tripod.

Extra Pictures to Share

No photos again (darn it) but I have to brag about my boys' soccer games this weekend. The coolest moment in Kevin's game was when he broke through the defense at midfield and ran down the field with 3 kids hot on his heels. He kept the ball perfectly under control and took a shot over the goalies head and to the left. I really don't think he was expecting that at all beause he was crouched down low ready to pounce to either side. Kevin played goalie the second half and fended off all shots. His team won 2-1.

Cameron's team actually played together as a team for once and also unofficially won their game (the league doesn't keep score). Something in Cameron snapped last week when he broke out of the pack and dribbled down the field and around a couple of kids to take a shot at the goal. Until that day he usually either stepped on the ball or tripped over it when he tried to dribble while running. This weekend he dribbled up and down the field and around all the players like he's been doing it for years. He even scored 5 times! To top it off he made a dramatic save by sliding into the ball to keep it out of his goal right near the end of the game. His team "won" 12-11.

Ok, enough bragging. Here are some miscellaneous pictures that I took recently. Nothing special but some of you might like them.




This balloon flew right over our heads at a recent soccer game.






These pictures were taken from our upstairs porch a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the full moon rose too far north this month to be able to crop the houses out of the view.

Halloween and Soccer

Bear with me, we have a bunch of photos too cute not to share.


Pumpkin carving time! Cameron wanted a Clone Trooper from Star Wars this year.


Kevin wanted the grim reaper on his pumpkin to match his costume.


Dana handled the carving duties for the Clone Trooper. you can see a horrible draft on the back of the pumpkin.


Ready to get some candy!


This is what our house looked like for Halloween. Like our homemade tombstones? The entry way was kept dark and I sat in the corner with my own grim reaper costume. A strobe light and fog added to the effect. Some people screamed when I grabbed them, one kid threw most of her candy all over the porch, another stabbed me repeatedly with his sword... I even scared some of the parents! I had a blast. Next year I plan on having a night vision camera to record it all.


Not sure what to say about Cameron here.


Da boys.


After watching me work on the car, Cam decided he needed to jack up his 4wheeler and work on it.


Cade thought long and hard about what to put on his pumpkin.


Kevin is now the goalie for the second half of the games. He's doing a great job.


Ain't no stinky girl gonna score a goal on my boy!


Imagine how fast Cam would be if he quit watching his shadow as he ran!


I like this action shot of Cameron. I don't have any pictures of it, but in his most recent game he scored 3 goals!


The morning games are starting to get a little chilly.

October = No Pictures

I know, I know. We've been slacking off this month. Not that we haven't been busy or had things to share. It's just that either the batteries were dead in the digital camera or we used the 35mm and haven't developed the film.

Such was the case for Cade's birthday. He turned 2 on October 12th, but we had his birthday party the weekend before. My parents and Dana's dad were here to help us celebrate. I'll post those photos probably late next year when I get the film developed.

Cameron's team finally unofficially won a game 2 weeks ago while Kevin's team finally lost a game yesterday. Kevin's team's schedule was changed due to a big mismatch so they played a team that is at a higher level. It was actually a very exciting game and they only lost by 2 goals. After the other team scored 3 times in about 10 minutes the coach pulled the goalie and put Kevin in. He played great in that position despite very little practice.

Last week, I went with Cameron on his field trip the local corn maze. I only took a few pictures but all the kids had a blast.



Cam is the one with the Yankees hat.


Cam the Cow


Cam the Cowboy


Cameron's OTHER pumpkin (I think we're up to 8 pumpkins now)


These next few pictures aren't anything special. I took these for the kids while on travel to San Antonio last week. One picture I wished I had taken was on the approach to the airport in SA. I was looking out the window as the plane started to bank and saw the shadow of the plane on the clouds below with a bright circular rainbow around the shadow. Unfortunately, my camera was in my checked luggage so I can only tell the kids about it, not show them.



You don't see trucks like this on the road every day. That's a Mercedes with about 2 feet of ground clearance. And don't worry. I wasn't looking at the camera when I took this. I just pointed the camera at the rear view mirror.


The view from my hotel room on the Riverwalk. My reservations were at the Howard Johnson Plaza but I couldn't find the place to save my life. Turns out the hotel is now called the Riverwalk Plaza. You think they'd update their dang advertisements!


This is at 10,000 feet just west of San Antonio.


I think we're about 200 miles out of El Paso here. Not quite as green.


I wanted to take a picture of the clouds for Kevin but there wasn't one single cloud in the sky on my entire trip back.