another successful season…

Young Flanagan added another trophy to his collection yesterday.  His third and most successful  season of soccer with this team has come to a close.  I’m trying to remember how many seasons of soccer he has played now, I want to say this was his seventh season!  Wow!

Yesterday we wrapped up the season with a way too long Round Robin Tournament.  By the end of the day Young Squire was sopping wet, filthy, muddy, exhausted, and teetering on the edge of a behavioral meltdown.  We pressed through and made it out alive, not just he and I,  but all of his team mates and opponents.  It was a long day!

My personal MVP award of the day goes to this little girl, a classmate of Young Flanagan.  She did an amazing job of reminding the team that whatever behaviors they demonstrated on the sidelines would be copied by my son.  This includes playing in the mud puddles, tackling team mates and opponents, running around, dumping water on team mates, etc…   I love when I witness this type of leadership amongst his peers.  Children who know first-hand just how quick my boy is to copy a behavior, good or bad.  She saw a situation spiraling out of control and tried to fix it before it exploded.  Unfortunately the day grew too long and he sat in a mud puddle, choked an innocent player from another team, and dumped a  bottle of water on a group of his team mates.  All done in the blink of an eye with Mom running across the muddy, puddle-filled field in an attempt to squelch said behavior.

By the end of the tournament this is what my daughter looked like:

I didn’t look much different!  But hey, it was a great season and Young Flanagan has demonstrated to EVERYONE that he deserves to be out there just as much as the next kid.  He’s really getting the game and succeeding; one goal, several assists, and numerous corner kicks later, watch out MLS – here comes Crazy Nut!

home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Hellllllooooooo from the top of Table Rock in Boise, Idaho!

Okay, so I’m not really there anymore.  Several weeks have gone by and it’s no longer 85 degrees and sunny like it was in this photo.  Nope!  Had the first frost, wood stove is a roarin’, garden has been harvested, fall is here!  Yup!  Just like that!  Badda Bing Badda Boom.  Summer was about a week long and now?  Now,  – it’s fall.  Time to embrace those crisp cool..er..freezing soccer games and think about Halloween costumes.

Had an absolutely fantastic time in Idaho with my sisters.  We hiked, went for long walks, rode bikes around town, ate delicious snacky foods outside like this:

…shopped, had massages, laughed, went to the movies not once but twice….it was wonderful.

Thank goodness for unlimited texting as my daughter fully embraced her new phone and we all stayed in contact the entire trip.  I have now fully embraced texting, it’s what all the cool kids are doing, and understand the efficiency behind it.  Still feel sad for today’s teenagers that they won’t ever experience the kitchen phone and it’s mile long stretched-out cord stretched just another inch so you can fit into the closet and finally have some privacy to talk for hours and hours about the really important stuff in a 13 year old’s life.  My sister’s and I laughed about how odd it would be for our mom to suddenly appear after having died 19 years ago, and see all of us typing these messages into these little devices that then go out into space and appear on each other’s devices.  Technology.  Crazy stuff!

In other news…

THIS adorable little boy scored his first goal in soccer!  What a moment that was.  It was a true goal, not a set-up, not a “let’s let the cute little boy with Down syndrome and autism FINALLY get a goal”, just an old-fashioned well-earned soccer goal!  Not a dry eye on the side lines, everyone knows how long we’ve waited for this moment.  The ball was closest to him, he ran to it, got behind it and gave it an amazing kick – a beautiful cross for those of you who watch soccer – it hit another player and then ever so gently rolled right into the goal!  Everyone was on their feet and not a second passed before Young Flanagan had his arms in the air and ran to mid-field where his team and coaches rushed the field for a million high-fives!  And where was my camera you ask?  Why in my purse of course, it all happened so fast.  It was a priceless moment.  A Kodak moment.  A Kleenex says bless you moment.   A proud mommy moment.  Since that goal, he hasn’t missed a beat, he’s had several assists and a few shots on goal and now he’s embraced the corner kick!  Soccer is a great sport for EVERYONE!

Lastly, exciting things are happening…

Sweet Jayne Handmade has arrived!  More info will be available soon….stay tuned!

catch up…

So here’s what I made for the Alewives Fabric Craft Swap.  A couple of belts and watchbands!  It was fun to see all the different things that people made for the swap.  I was lucky enough to call Rhea’s quilt my own for about 5 minutes before someone stole it…but in the end,  I came home with a cute pair of hand knit socks!  I was hoping to come home with something I couldn’t make for myself and socks would definitely qualify there – I can knit a scarf and that’s it.  I really wanted Rhea’s quilt but I was a big girl and didn’t cry and happily went home with something else to keep me warm.  I think my belts and watchbands may be re-gifted by the recipient down the road but I could be wrong.  I had lots of compliments on them from other attendees but they went home with an older lady who didn’t seem to embrace patchwork quite as much as I.  But hey – I could be wrong!  It was fun to hear the lady next to me say, “I’ve seen that belt somewhere before……..”, pointing to the belt I was wearing!  She had seen it on my blog after clicking on the link to my blog from the Alewives blog.

*********************************************************************************************************

What else………..

Made myself some new kitchen towels.  I was sewing some for a wedding gift and decided I needed some too!  Super easy and super-cute if I may say so myself!

********************************************************************************************************

Spent the last two weeks driving back and forth to Farmington, Me for the Autism Society of Maine’s yearly camp, Camp Summit.  Young Squire had a great time and was paired off with a fantastic counselor.  Each camper is paired with a college student going after a degree having something to do with Autism -  Little Man’s counselor is getting a degree in Rehabilitation.  She was full of energy and smiles and made camp a great experience for my son.  Two weeks of commuting for two hours a day was getting a bit old towards the end but it was so worth it to have the chance to be a part of such a great camp.

********************************************************************************************************

This sunflower popped up in my windowbox of all places!  I believe this had a little something to do with the birds that visit the feeder near there!  A little tall for a windowbox but fun to look out the window at!

These gorgeous flowers have bloomed in my garden.  I don’t know what they are though, they were given to me by our CSA as extras…love ‘em whatever they are!

Squash, zukes, cukes, and carrots are a staple in the garden this year.  Sadly, I believe I’ve been hit by blight in the garden and my tomatoes look very questionable.  I’m not dealing with it well.  A summer with no tomatoes????  UGH!  I just shelled out another $5 at the store for organic tomatoes!  What the *$#%!~  Clearly I haven’t come to terms with it yet.  Damn blight!

********************************************************************************************************

It’s easy to forget about the tomatoes when you wake up to this!

Went to visit some dear friends last weekend in Rangeley, Maine.  Everytime we visit there it’s as if I’m seeing the view for the first time – it’s breath taking.

New to this year’s visit was waterskiing and tubing with the Hot Dog!  Look at my oldest boy go!

I had gone back into the camp for a few minutes and when I came back out, THIS is what I saw!  Is that my baby tubing  behind a boat on a deep-water lake?!?  Why yes it is!  Apparently he wanted on after watching everyone else do it.  The big kids were very cautious and the boat didn’t go too fast but if you ask my older kids they think Young Squire could have handled FASTER!

********************************************************************************************************

Last but not least….Young Squire lost his third tooth!  Yes, he’s almost 10 1/2 and it’s been close to two years since the first two came out.  He was a champ about it – I had to pull it out after giving it several days of hanging on by a thread – it was clearly bothering him or he would have made a stink I guarantee.  I need to take a picture of the space, the new tooth is already coming in.

That was lots of news to share, lots of pictures too, thanks for hanging in there – I was so overdue.  School starts in 9 days, the countdown has been officially started on the kitchen chalkboard!  With the start of school comes excitement for me because I will finally have some time to get caught up on some very overdue organization around here.  You should see my “to be filed” pile – embarrasing really!