Tuck's First Golf Camp

Tuck has come of age and is old enough, now, for Golf Camp at Rocky Ridge. He was excited that his buddy Dane was there too. It rained on Monday morning and they had their lesson inside, putting into a coffee cup. But the rest of the week they practiced their chipping, putting and driving skills outside. Friday was the skills competition and he came away with the trophy for closest chip to the pin in his age class. He even had the closest of all 60 kids at Camp, only about 2' away. Needless to say, Daddy and Papaw were pretty proud. And Tuck is pretty proud of his trophey. 

Rocky Ridge Golf Camp 2014. 

Tuck is third from the right on the front row. 

Football Skills

This morning we had skills assessment for the upcoming football season. Tuck will play flag football again. This year he will get in on all of the pregame practices so should be better prepared than last year. 

I was prepared to be there for a while. I had drinks and snacks; toys for Kora; my lawn chair. I was imagining running, throwing, pushing, and agility stations with kids waiting in line. 

Turns out they weighed him and timed him in a 40 yd dash. That was it. 

I was a bit disappointed but I guess it isn't pro level yet. 

Mothers and Sons

I am now in love with this post about Mothers and Sons.

I remember being pregnant and imagining my future with Tucker.  I imagined rocking him to sleep every night. And then I imagined sitting in the stands at his football games in my North Montgomery sweatshirt with “Tucker’s Mom” on the back and my cowbell in my hand, cheering through the whole game and being hoarse the next day.

And then Tuck was born and I indeed rocked him to sleep every night, often holding him well after he had fallen asleep.

Then the reality of mobility hit me.  I never once imagined that one little toddler boy could move so fast and get into so much trouble.

And I never imagined the conversations I would have with him at age 4, and wonder where he comes up with these ideas.  One day we were on the way to Missy’s and from the backseat Tucker tells me: “Mommy, you need to drive really slow on my way to school and then really FAST when you are at work.”  I asked: “Is that so that I can spend more time with you and less time at work?” “Yup” he answered.  “You are such a smart boy, Tucker.” “Yea… I know”

And yes, I did slow down.

Christmas 2010, Age 3

Mother’s Day 2011

Tuck’s 4th Birthday

Mother’s Day 2012, Age 4

And now you are 5.  You have now finished swimming lessons, your first season of basketball and are starting your first season of baseball. You are full of questions, like: Hippos and people and dogs are mammals; what are zombies?

5th birthday

You are riding your bicycle with just one training wheel and only use it randomly.  You are about to graduate from NMHS’ Early Learning Academy where you have done so well, getting “green lights” for weeks on end.  You are such a good big brother and, for the most part, get along well with your sister.

I am so proud of you and I can only look forward to what comes next and continue to search for that cowbell.

Jess

We did it.  We got a dog.  We had discussed what kind of dog we would like to have.  TJ wanted another Border Collie, just like Tess, but there would NEVER be another Tess and I knew we wouldn’t have the time to train another BC.  We discussed and dismissed so many that we just couldn’t decide and therefore never made a decision.

Until a friend from Southern IN posted a picture on Facebook of a little dog that had been dumped at their place.  Something drew me to her and so we made arrangements to pick her up, sight unseen.

She sat just like this for the whole 2 hour drive home. On the way TJ came up with her name, Jess.  I loved the tribute of having it rhyme with Tess.

She has LOVED the kids from day one.  She is so gentle and patient with them.  Me, on the other hand, she is only tolerant of.  She will come to everyone else and will come to me only for treats, and even then she is obviously hesitant.  But in my defense, I think she was abused and I think it was by a woman.

  It’s a good thing she’s cute because only 3 days after picking her up she went into heat.  This was new grounds for both of us.  And it turned out that we had to wait a month before we could take her in to get her fixed.  So 3 weeks later I called to schedule it and they told us to go ahead and bring her in for shots first.  And at that appointment we got devastating news.  Jess had a bad case of heartworms.

So we had a decision to make: let her suffer an early death or treat them with two powerful rounds of wormer.  I had tears in my eyes but we were already so attached and she was so good with the kids, so really there wasn’t a choice.  Is that not the cutest little face?!

The heartworms and the treatments have made her lethargic and she has been on restricted activity for 2 months.  But now we are at the end of the treatments and now start the maintenance of prevention.  And she is now SO full of ENERGY.  She will just run laps around the house and yard.  I think she will be great at agility if we can ever get her to behave on a leash or trust her not to run off.  She has quite the nose and is always sniffing the wind.

The kids have been good about cleaning the yard and keeping her fed.  Sometimes they are a little to generous with the treats.

And she is in the middle of everything we do.  She has acclimated into our lives.  I hope she thinks we are a better fit than her previous unknown life.

She is finally, now, starting to accept me.  She loves being brushed, which is good since she tends to carpet our carpet with her hair.

And she is just so patient and keeps watch of the goings on in the neighborhood for us. 

We have had Jess for three and a half months now and she is settled in well to the Hinds household.  I am sure there will be many more Jess stories to tell.

Easter 2013

This was the first time I have braved coloring Easter eggs with the kids.  We used Kool-Aid and food coloring because I had those on hand. 

The kids enjoyed it.

And our final products ended up ok.  The brown ones were actually grape Kool-aid.  We won’t use that flavor again; they looked bad and they tasted like grape boiled eggs.  Not good.

Then we went to Papaw’s for dinner and the annual Easter Egg Hunt. 

The Easter Bunny hid all of Kora’s under sticks.

She almost didn’t have a big enough basket.

And then she enjoyed the fruits of her labor in the Gazebo.

Tuck’s were hidden a little bit more challengingly.

I know he circled around a couple of them multiple times.

But he loved racing around the front yard looking for them.

He finally found the one in the mailbox.

And settled in to inventory the booty.

It was a cool day but the kids had fun and we ate like kings, of course. 

Tucker’s First Basketball Season

 

The winter of 2013 was Tuck’s first experience with basketball.  He played at the Boys and Girls Club.  All of his teammates were new friends; none of his classmates from ELA played this year.

The first practice was like herding chickens.  I admire Coach Hesler for taking on this seemingly insurmountable task of taking these fledgling players and creating players out of them. 

But with each practice they all gained confidence and new skills and soon they were suited up and took on the part of a team.

The first games looked like the kids were in a firing line as they all lined up on defense with their hands in the air, all in a line directly under the basket. But after just a couple of games they figured out how to guard (but not steal).

And soon Tuck went from rolling the ball and catching up with it near the free throw line to actually dribbling it down the court. (I apologize for the poor photos but the iPhone in poor light and quick movements were not cooperative).

Can you see the dribbling skills?  Daddy worked with him in the basement after we got our basketballs aired up properly.

Just look at these defensive skills.  His Mamma taught him those.

He wasn’t happy about being benched but he was relatively good about taking his turn.  The kids usually got to play 3 quarters which were 10 uninterrupted minutes.

I wish I could include a video but I haven’t mastered that yet.  It really is amazing to see their improvements.

Coach Hesler, Dean, Carson, Aiden, Joe, Sam, Marie, Tuck and Lane.

Way to go Tuck.  We are impressed with your improvements and we all look forward to many more successful seasons.

Secret Agent Training Site

Last weekend the kids were getting stir crazy from being cooped up. The cold weather (20's with sub zero wi d chills) is keeping us from much play outside.

So off to Pinterest I went and found a treasure of a site. And this is what we ended up making.

The kids crawled, high stepped and had an overall good time. And it lasted for the whole weekend. Luckily we didn't need that section of hallway.

Tuck’s First Basketball Practice

It’s begun.  Tuck has entered the World of Sports.  We signed him up for Micro-Basketball at the Boys and Girls Club for 4 and 5 year olds.  It’s going to be like herding chickens!

 

He is a pretty good shooter but his dribbling skills have something to be desired.  Of course he hasn’t had much practice over his few 5 years because all of our basketballs are low on air.  It seems we can find either the needle or the pump but never both at the same time. 

He told me last night that he was going to score 130 points and they would all be slam dunks.

It’s going to be a good 10 game season and we are all looking forward to it.

Halloween 2012

This was a big year for Halloween.  The kids are old enough to do some pumpkin decorating on their own.  I still could not come to terms of Tuck and a knife so he still had to resort to painting his pumpkin. 

These two look a lot alike right?  It’s hard to tell the talking head from the pumpkin.  And they are both just so darn cute.

And this was one of my big holidays for successful Pinterest inspiration.  These mummy juice boxes were a big hit and the Frankenstein green pudding cups went over well too.  But somehow I failed to get a picture of those.  And don’t you love Kora’s dismembered leg.  I think it adds to the Halloween gore.

We went with a Star Wars theme for Missy’s annual backyard party.  Last year TJ told me he would grow out his beard and dress up as Chewbacca so I held him to it.  But somehow I missed getting a picture of him.  2 days before the party Tuck started dragging his heels about dressing up so we had to go rent the movie then he was totally on board with being part of the theme.

Kora made a convincing Yoda.  Her coat is an old bath towel and her hood started out as a polo shirt.  The ears turned out a bit droopy but I was still proud of my attempts.  And she won “Cutest Costume”.

Can you even tell my attempt at Princess Leia?  I think I totally nailed the braids.

And here is Luke Skywalker.  His favorite part was the pool noodle sword. 

And what would a good fight be without a sword wielding Yoda?

Missy had her party on Saturday since Halloween falls mid-week.  So we got to dress up again on Halloween day.  It was going to be a fight to get them back into their Star Wars costumes so they both decided they could be Cowboys.  Doesn’t he look like a real bad guy?

These are the kids new authentic Texas cowboy hats that Grandma Deb brought back from El Paso.  Aren’t they just the cutest?

Kora was mad that I made her put her boots on the right feet before we left.  It was pretty chilly that night so we made a pretty short night of it and walked two blocks of Main Street.  The kids still ended up with a pretty good stash of candy.  Kora was pretty scared of the Stay-Puff Marshmallow family and wouldn’t you know that we would run into them at least three times. 

I think this may have been my final year of getting to choose the kids costumes.  I am sure next year Tuck will have plenty of opinions of his own.  I guess I had a good run.