First Day of School!

The boys all moved to new schools this year, and yesterday was their first day back. The day went smoothly for the most part, but it's going to take us a while to get back into a good routine with early wake-ups, breakfast, getting dressed, lunch boxes, and homework.

Owen, 4th grade, Mrs. Adkins' class:

Cole, 1st grade, Mrs. Carter's class:

Jacob, 1st grade, Mrs. Carter's class:

Jacob was obviously less than thrilled about having to go back to school.

Disney 2013

We survived our first trip to Disney! I left my "real" camera behind so I could enjoy the fun without having to worry about losing or breaking it and without having to carry it around the parks. iPhone pics will have to do. :-)

Truthfully, the idea of planning for this trip was pretty overwhelming. It seemed that everyone who found out we were going to Disney had tons of advice (which we definitely appreciated!) and Pinterest is filled with links full of tips for Disney vacations. It was tough trying to keep it all straight and figure out the best options for our family. We knew we wouldn't need to schedule any character meals or plan around the times to meet the characters in the parks..that's just not something our boys have ever been interested in. Our only real priority was making sure the boys got signed up for Jedi Training at Hollywood Studios. Other than that, we agreed to go have fun doing whatever we decided to do at each park and not to worry about what we might miss. 

Owen fighting Darth Vader:

Cole fighting Darth Vader:

Jacob's turn:

The boys were troopers and did better with the late nights & miles of walking than we ever expected. They wanted to ride the rides non-stop, and we had to force them to take breaks to watch the occasional stunt show, fireworks display, and even to eat dinner a few times. They quickly found their favorite rides in each park (usually the "scariest" ones), and we used the Fast Pass system to let them ride as many times as possible. Star Tours was the one we rode the most - I think we counted 14 times!

After 7 days at Disneyworld we were all exhausted, so we decided to stop at the beach before returning to reality. 

All-Stars 2013

The last 5 weeks have been a blur of weeknight practices and weekend tournaments. We are finally starting to get back to normal, just in time for Owen to start baseball camp at LSU this weekend. This boy is all about baseball right now!

Hitting a triple.

Playing 3rd base.

Happy after a win.

In the dugout.

Scoring a run.

Concentrating before hitting a double.

Champions of the Cajun Classic!

Home run!! (I think this was his 7th of the season.)

Drinking "home run juice" like Mason Katz.

Lately

Home run!

I try not to brag about every little thing the boys do. We all know they're so awesome I wouldn't have time to talk about anything else if I did that. ;-) That said, I'm going to brag about Mr. Owen just a bit. He's been working hard on his batting this season, and last night it really paid off. His team had trailed the entire game and was losing by 1 run when Owen got up to bat in the last inning. There was one boy on base & they had 2 outs. That's a lot of pressure for an 8-year-old! He handled it like a pro, and hit a home run to end the game!

Jacob's turn!

The tooth fairy had to visit the Walters house again last night! Yesterday morning the dentist decided Jacob's tooth needed to come out since the adult tooth was in behind it & it wasn't getting very wiggly. Jacob's mouth was already numb in that area from a little cavity that he filled, so out came the tooth. Jacob did great with the extraction & was excited about the cash he knew he'd be getting from the tooth fairy.

After school I told Jacob & Cole that I wanted to take a picture of them together to show off their missing teeth. This is the pose they came up with. That's Cole outside with the scary looking expression. Excuse the filthy window, please.

 
This is more like what I had in mind for the picture of them together, although I admit their pose is much more creative. :-)