Boy of Fall

I heard a new song by Kenny Chesney today entitled "The Boys of Fall." Well it's turnin' to face the stars and stripes It's fighting back them butterflies It's call it in the air alright, yes sir we want the ball And it's knockin heads and talkin trash It's slinging mud and dirt and grass It's I got your number, I got your back When your backs against the wall You mess with one man you got us all The Boys of Fall . It would make a good concept for a scrapbook page of a high school football player.

Liam, obviously, is not in high school. He is a football player, though, having just completed his first season of touch football. The kids were coached by Gustavus players and did rushing, passing and recovering a fumble drills. They each had the opportunity to play offense and defense and play games against the other teams. Liam's preferred position was quarterback, although I think he would've been just as easy happy standing there trash-talking the other team.

Another Year at Little Saints

Today was Cole's first day at Little Saints Preschool, this year in the 5-day program. We're probably nuts, but he enjoys it and keeps up with the rest of his class.

Jeff was golfing in a tournament today, so Cole hung out with Grandma in the morning who then brought him over to St Peter. I left work for long enough to walk him into school. We took a few pictures; he didn't need me at all, of course. He's good. Grandma picked him up after school and then returned him this evening, along with Liam.

As usual, Cole didn't bring home any projects. He also didn't want to talk about his day. I learned from his friend Nora that she played with the cash register, though.

I want to be helpful

Being helpful has been a recurring theme for Liam over the last month or so. He has offered to weed, sweep, cook, act as a waiter (that one was particularly cute). He's also fond of our replacement washer and dryer and likes to do laundry himself. I watched him take clothes out of the dryer today and was very impressed when he even cleaned out the lint screen. Jeff gets annoyed with me because I never do that. I guess Liam's learning from the right parent!

First Day of First Grade

Liam (and we) have been anxiously awaiting the start of first grade. We signed up for his conference a few weeks ago and found out a couple of his friends would be in his class. Yesterday, we met his teacher Ms Walters who seems very cool. We even played school yesterday afternoon. (I think he got a kick out of calling us Kim and Jeff.)

This morning was rainy and crazy at South, but we still got our pictures taken and made it in on time. He put all his stuff away, chatted with a couple people and was off as a first grader. He's going to have an awesome year!

Hangin' with the Grandparents

Today we all traipsed off to the Almelund Threshing Show. They had huge amounts of rain over the last few days, so it was very muddy. Fortunately, it was warm and dry today and the boys were good about walking carefully. We saw a bunch of tractors, including the tractor parade that we watched for 70 minutes before leaving with no end in sight. We watched the saw mill and the big engines and some threshing. Mostly, though, we hung out with Mom and Dad. All of their work Thursday evening was blown away, basically, so they spent most of the morning resetting their stuff. Liam was very helpful. I think his first statement to Mom, in fact, was that he wanted to help. He wrote out tags, moved things, announced to people looking that it was 10% off (today, but he wasn't sure about tomorrow).

A Slimy Bug

I was paying bills this morning when Liam rushed into the room very excited. "Look, Mom, a slimy bug!" Cole was two feet behind. It didn't look particularly slimy to me, but Liam said it's sixteen or so legs were quite sticky. After taking a few pictures, I told him to put it in the garbage. (I like bugs, but not that much.)

Liam thought the garbage was a good idea: "There's lots of food in there. Bugs like garbage. I have seen bugs die. He walked under a box house, pushed up the little part that stuck down and then got squished. I hope a black widow wouldn't do that. He might make the bottom of the box poisonous."

Golfing

It was another nice day in the backyard, so Liam pulled out his golf clubs. After some errant shots, I helped him adjust his grip and his stance and he started hitting it fairly well. His last two were very nice; one even had some lift.

At supper, Liam told Jeff, "I hit two shots on the same angle. One shot up in the air. It was one of those cool shots golfers do. I bet you have those shots sometimes, Dad."