Peacocks and Salamanders

I asked Carter for tips on a title for this blog, as it's just kinda a hodgepog happenings blog. He suggested, "Peacocks and salamanders." If nothing else, it made you curious, though it be potentially misleading...= ).

We love the weather where we live. For the most part, it's a mild version of all four seasons - just enough to get a taste without being fed up with the sweltering heat or feet of snow. One other great thing is we are in a valley and there is a decent amount of wind on a regular basis. Not enough that you get blown away, but just the right every now and again for flying kites! More than anything I love how kite flying captures everyone's attention, even my spirited (I am told that is the PC word...) energetic little Carter.

We were all impressed when Nathan got his new kite THIS high!

Carter was very focused and attentive to his kite flying, taking it very seriously.



What you do when your legs are pooped but you just aren't done flying your kite. New sport - seated kite flying!

Another season of soccer has started and it's been fun to watch Nathan's growing enthusiasm for it. The first season we had to force him to go to practice, even though he wouldn't participate, and he would only play in the games because there was a treat at the end. Now he just loves it and goes all out, running around, kicking "monster kicks", and getting sweaty (though, poor little guy, that's not very hard for Nathan to do! He sweats so easily...hate to see what happens when puberty hits!). It's been fun also for Matt to coach Nathan and have that time with him. Every year they pick their team name, this year they are the Turtles. Mostly because the girls wanted something pretty like the Ponies and the boys wanted something fierce...somehow turtles were a middle ground.

Coach Matt doing his kid herding, I mean coaching, job while Nathan joins the pack of kids running tightly around the ball.

Over Conference weekend we got to have my brother and his wife and three little girls down for the weekend. The boys loved having the to twin babies around, especially Luke (who is a baby fanatic, at least until he gets his own). The pictures aren't great because we are still using our video camera camera function (anyone have a point and shoot digital camera you love and recommend??), but it still captures a fun weekend. Carter still gets excited when he sees someone with two babies just like his cousins. We had fun pulling out princess plates and anything remotely girly (there isn't much).