a new sheriff has come to town...

and that sheriff is soccer.  we have been taken over by soccer practices, soccer games, soccer gear, and soccer schedules.

this is a whole new world to us rutherfords.  you see, we're sort of homebodies.  content to hang out without much of an agenda.  man, has our world been turned upside down!  not only does the new school year have us busy, we felt a little overwhelmed more than once this past week with this sport called soccer.

now don't get me wrong.  we're excited to join the ranks of soccer moms and dads around the world.  and we did have fun cheering our boys on both in practice and at games.  what we have to adjust to is being gone two nights a week and no longer having a lazy saturday, and did i mention the paraphernalia that has invaded my home?

we've been quickly schooled on soccer shin guards, socks, shorts, jerseys, water bottles, balls, back packs, cleats, mid-game snacks, post-game snacks, chairs, blankets, sunscreen, bug spray, and ice chests.

but all of that is worth it when you see the smiles on burrito's and noodle's faces: priceless!

between both boys, we had 3 practices and 2 games within a 4 day period.  burrito is on the little monsters team and noodle is on the tigers team.  burrito plays 4 on 4 with a goalie and noodle plays 3 on 3 with no goalies.

noodle's first game was on saturday at 10am.  we didn't know what to expect with a team of 4 year olds and this is our boys' first experience EVER with soccer.  so you can imagine our surprise when noodle made the first goal for his team in the first 30 seconds of the game.  he then went on to score 4 more goals!  his team won 7-4.  yay noodle!  he's number 5 if that helps finding him in the pictures below...

burrito's first game was on saturday at 12:45.  again, we didn't know what to expect with his team either.  several players on his team have played before and played together, so we may be at a little disadvantage starting out this season, but burrito is a fast learner and really LOVES to run around!  his team did great and won his game 4-3.  burrito had several opening kick-offs and at one point, kicked to score a goal but the goalie caught the ball!  nevertheless, he had lots of fun!  burrito's number 4!

we have practice this week but no games this weekend due to the labor day holiday.  i am partly sad and partly happy about this!  ha! 

john's impressions of the games:  the soccer fields are like putting greens! 
my impressions of the games:  i realized (too late) that i yell (loudly) a lot!  i'm a little embarrassed and will have to tone it down a bit! :)  i just love cheering on my little men!

go tigers and monsters!

first day of school part 3: noodle

go here to read part 1 and here to read part 2!

d day arrived with much loathing and trepidation.  not for the boys, but for me.  today my sweet baby boy started pre-k.  as john was helping noodle button his shirt this morning i just about lost all control when i looked over.  how can it be that my baby boy is old enough to go to school?!?!?  see for yourself...doesn't he look so like a little man?

i am thankful that noodle was totally excited and ready for his turn.

on wednesdays the boys have chapel and they have a special chapel uniform they wear.  they looked so cute together dressed alike for school.

noodle thought he was big stuff walking in to class and didn't really need me.  see how far ahead of me he was?  john met us to walk in noodle for his first day too, i just didn't get a picture of him.

with the new building, the boys have the advantage of having all new classrooms and all the perks of having a school built for little ones.  the pre-k room is very cheerful and bright.

noodle settled right in to his spot at the "bee table" and immediately began working on his color sheet.  he has the same teacher burrito had for pre-k so this set me more at ease.  nonetheless, it was very hard to leave him there until 3:00 this afternoon.

what did i do all day without kids?  a little retail therapy.  sorry john.

it was such a joy to pick them both up this afternoon and to hear about their day.  we went to sonic and bought some slushies to celebrate.

noodle, i am so proud of how big you are now.  you once were quite a mama's boy and not interested at all in leaving me behind.  i am so glad that you were really happy to start school today.  you are so smart and can already read all the books burrito learned to read in pre-k.  you have a great memory and know lots of sight words.  you are only one of two boys in your class (there are 8 girls), but i know you will make lots of new friends.  you are one of the oldest in your class, and i suspect that you will quickly become a leader.  you are athletic, sensitive, a touchy-feely boy and you love being around people.  i am so glad that you are my son, and you will always be my baby boy.

first day of school part 2: burrito

if you read this post, you'll understand the title to this post.

today was burrito's first day of school.  i don't do well on the first day of school, but i did manage to not have a total breakdown most of the day, and certainly not in front of an audience, so i feel i've accomplished something!

i am thankful that burrito does not share my reservations.  he was completely excited and ready to go.

here he is outside our home on his first day of first grade.

and here we are walking him up to the new school building.  the school delayed classes for the older kids to help alleviate traffic and parking issues so john was able to walk him in too! (that's burrito with the star wars backpack in front of john and that's noodle holding john's hand.)

burrito is outside of the entrance to the grammar school.  there are several entrances to this building and above each one is a hebrew name for God.  this one means "Jehovah my Shepherd."  love it!

and here he is in his very own student desk.  the look on his face says, "mom quit taking pictures of me.  this is embarrassing!" 

and this is a picture of what i discovered on meet the teacher night that made me want to pull him right out of school.  his own locker.  in a hallway.  in first grade, people!  i can't take it.

and here's what the boys thought of the lockers.  you know, the coolest thing ever!

so when i picked him up today these are some of the things he said:

"we didn't even have rest time and boy am i exhausted!"

"we had recess at 9:20, french at 9:40, lunch at 11:20 and music at 12:10."

"i like mrs. s.  i think she is good."

burrito, it seems like just yesterday we were bringing you home from the hospital.  i cannot believe you are 6 and in first grade!  you are becoming a good reader, even though you get easily frustrated.  you love people so much that we call you our social butterfly.  you are always watching people and things that go on and never miss anything!  you have so much spirit that it doesn't surprise me that you are a good sleeper.  you are a good friend and good brother and you love Jesus which makes me the most proud.  i love you my little first grader!

more swimming cuteness

this week has held an abundance of fun!  today we had the privilege of hosting our aunt and cousin.  and because it was 5000 degrees outside again, we decided to have another swim party.

now i must warn you, the cute quotient is astronomical so be prepared! :)

first up is a trial run picture with noodle and cousin porkchop.  they posed pretty well.

so then we brought burrito in, and this was the best pic of the day.  3 boys all smiling and looking at the camera, no simple feat!

now don't be alarmed by this picture.  i promise burrito is not trying to choke the baby.  he was "helping" him look at the camera! ;)

who knew a scooby doo ball could be so fascinating?

cousin porkchop it was so fun having you over to play today.  sorry for all the mothering and accidental splashes in the pool.  your big cousins really do adore you!

a fun playdate

today was so fun!  we had our sweet friend from school over to play.  she was in burrito's class last year and will be in his first grade class this year.  i felt a little less outnumbered with another girl in the house, ha!

we went to storytime at the library (the last one for us because school starts next week!), ate lunch and because of this

we did this!  well, not we in the sense of including me...i just sweated to death while they swam.  you would think by now, after doing this all summer long, i would be able to tolerate the heat a little better.  nope.  i sweat like a man.  i know, i know, t.m.i.!

they had a blast sliding down the slide into the pool and were kind enough to let me capture their fun on film.  well, not really film since it's digital, but you know what i mean.

this is burrito

this is our sweet friend

and this is noodle

they played so long and hard, that after we came inside and read a few library books, they were starving!  so we ate a snack and watched scooby doo to end our playdate.

thanks sweet friend for giving the boys a fun afternoon and for leveling out the playing field for this outnumbered mama!

first day of school part 1: john

because of our delayed start in school (the new grammar school building is almost done, but not yet), the big kids (5th-12th grades) started school today without the little kids (preK-4th grades).

so all that to say, today was john's first day of school!  and in keeping with rutherford tradition, i had to take his picture!  isn't he handsome?

john's report of how his first day went?  fabulous!  really? with a little more conversation, i discovered why.  he was obnoxious and silly with the students all day, and they loved it.  he even admitted that he got less and less accomplished in his classes because he found himself playing to his audience and enjoying it a little too much!  ha!  guess that comes with the territory when you are teaching 7th and 8th graders!

how did we cope with john away to work?  we made 36 angel food cupcakes...

so that we could eat these!

not to mention we played legos for 3 hours straight, played a mean game of scooby doo memory (noodle won!), read 8 library books, and swam outside in our little blow up pool.  and i even managed to get 4 loads of laundry done and put away.  hooray!

on the agenda for tomorrow:

chocolate cake with chocolate icing!

bedford splash and goodbye summer

believe it or not, today marked the end of our summer.  august 2, the end of summer, that just seems crazy!  but it's true in our house.  john starts inservice tomorrow at school.  while the boys and i have 2 more weeks together, it's just not as fun without john around.

but before everyone gets too sad for our early back-to-school start, let me assure you that we ended our fun summer together on a high note. 

we all agree that this may have been the best summer yet for the rutherfords.  no sickness, no trips to the emergency room, a trip to austin and a beach vacation, home projects completed, new carpet installed, a summer of learning and being together at a happy pace....it just doesn't get much better than that for us!

so how did we decide to celebrate?  a trip to bedford splash!  we've been a few times before in summer's past but we hadn't been this summer yet.  i didn't know what to expect as far as how crowded it might be today, especially since the high was supposed to reach 106 degrees!  we were pleasantly surprised though.  it was not crowded at all and with the boys beings one year older this time around, i felt like we all enjoyed it more. 

because i don't have a waterproof camera, i didn't get many action shots, but trust me, there was lots of action!  we were all completely exhausted after 3 hours of swimming and sliding and playing.

if you've never been to bedford splash before, you should really check them out.  i think it's pretty affordable for even large families, and they have a wide variety of things to do for a wide range of ages.  and they didn't pay me to say that, ha!

so that's how we celebrated the end of our summer.  a new season is just around the corner.  i am not so sure that i am ready!

grapevine botanic gardens

we've been to this fun little park in grapevine before.  we call it the spider web park because of this:

adjacent to the park is a cute little botanic garden that we've never taken the time to explore until this past week.  it's so fun!  i regretted that we had never checked it out before.  and being the photo-crazy mom that i am, i whipped out the camera while we there.

no botanic park is complete without a water fountain!

noodle took this picture of john and me.

the boys are standing in front of a butterfly garden planted with flowers that attract butterflies.

and the best part of all was the water pond complete with huge koi fish!

they even had fish food for a quarter and the way these fish went after that food suggested that no one had fed them lately!

it was just beautiful and we had fun exploring a little piece of God's creation.

another before and after

my mom and i found this little mid century step end table at a garage sale at the beginning of the summer.

the price: $5.

i brought it home, tried to find a place for it, thought about painting it (cause you know i love to paint!) and then decided to try and sell it.  when no one seemed all that interested in it, i revisited the idea of painting it.

so that's what i did.  the black legs and gold metal trim were in vintage condition.  the gold trim was rather splotchy in places, showing a bit of surface rust and just general dirtiness.  because the laminate top is in great condition and is a light, brown color, i thought spray painting the metal areas an espresso brown color would look nice.

now i have to pace myself when it comes to spray painting.  i get so excited about seeing the transformation, i want to zip through the spray painting and not take the time to do it right.  this table was particularly challenging to my not-so-patient self because i had to prime the metal surfaces before painting, not to mention the pain-staking job of taping off the areas that i didn't want painted.

so when the big reveal came, i was quite excited to see just how much better the table looked. 

i brought it back into the house and took pictures of it beside our sofa in order to relist it for sale.  one problem:  when john saw how much better it looked, he decided that we should just keep it instead!

slowly but surely, our collection of mid century furniture and accessories is growing.  we just love it!