Dallin is learning

When my dad is in football season so is Dallin. It makes my dad too busy to make it to one of Dallin's games and Dallin too busy to make it to one of grandpa's games. This Sat Dallin's season was over and my dad had one more game to coach so we made it a point to go show our support. More importantly my dad wanted to teach Dallin a few things. He is very lucky to have my dad on his side cause most coaches in youth sports are just dads/football fans which doesn't always make a good coach. This is his 5th season and he never learns much so my dad got him a pass to go down on the field. Each and every play he got to see bigger kids do it and see how to do it right. The team they were playing are very very good. The Houston area is a very competitive in football they have huge stadiums and enormous amounts of money to throw at football. Most people that are not from Texas are shocked at how nice the facilities are and how the community treats the football coaches like Gods. The school my dad is at is a little different. After hurricane Katrina a bunch of student athletes moved to the Houston area from New Orleans. Well the bigger nicer high schools tried to stay with the best athletes so they split school boundaries and my dad's high school kind of got what was left over. Which is great for my dad...he loves working with young boys and showing them how to grow and develop character. But it was hard for me to watch. Some of his players come from very rough environments so some of the parents were drunk and screaming and yelling obscene things at the coaching staff. Even worse they were embarrassing their sons out there playing hard. Some of the things these men were yelling were so cruel and wrong I wanted to back hand them. Yet my dad and the other coaches stayed calm and kept teaching and encouraging the players. Life is not simple or easy and 90% of what makes it so hard is dealing with people and trying to manage relationships. I love that Dallin got to see that aspect as well cause its prevalent in this sport. These boys will see that no matter who or where they came from they can become the kind of change they want in life. I can't tell you how many times I have been in some random public place and had ex players of my dad come up and tell me what a difference he made in their life. I am so proud to be his daughter words can't express. My kids love him to death.

Andrew and Dallin talking about the play that just happened

This is the cops trying to calm down one of the parents ;(

my dad ignoring the man

still trying to ignore the angry mob

Dallin was scared but Andrew was talking him through it.

Derek's Art

Now that Derek is in pre school he comes home 3 days a week with a folder full of fun art projects. I don't know if most moms share my sentiment but I love everything so much that I want to keep it forever! Feeling like I can somehow hold onto how cute he is at this age if I hoard all his belongings. However having watched the TLC show "Hoarding Buried Alive" I snap out of it in a flash and let it sit stuck to the fridge for a few days then trash it. I do take a digital pic of my favorites and that doesn't take up too much space or clutter up my home. I wanted to post these two just for memory sake on my blog. Love his work. To me its worth millions

Halloween 2011

Carnival Party

Derek and my niece Peyton have birthdays 3 days apart. And given they are so close to Halloween we figured it would be fun to have a carnival. The idea was to do it every year so when we started planning we went all out thinking most of the booths would be used over and over again. It was soo so so so much fun. Every single adult and child had so much fun. It was hard having the older kids stay at their booth and not want to go play but that was the only downside. Each kid got tickets at the start to buy candy and games. And there were no limits or rules to how often you could play and how many prizes you could win. We seriously had one kid at the fishing booth for over 20 min. Fishing up a storm.

The Balloon Lady

I had to do a seperate post for her cause she was the bomb! She does really good face painting and her balloon creations are like nothing I have ever seen. She makes these cute little bug braclets for babies....and her swords have the coolest handles. I mean she killed it. A big hit!!

The Slide

Yes! The slide gets its very OWN post because it was the BOMB!! If you go to a community fair or carnival you often pay and then wait forever in line with some drab ornery worker telling you to wait and then you can go down feel the rush the wind in your face and its over. Well these kids got to go over and over and over again. We had it rented out for over 5 hours and every single min was sooo worth it. My mom even went down it!