Don't move....they're getting along!! But I had to get a picture of it! Avery decided to hide her face, but Benjamin came out of the cave they had built to give me a better shot of him. Thoughtful, huh? This was the first in a long succession of forts last week. They got bigger and more elaborate as the week went on. One day I had a lot to do on the computer for one of the various projects I have taken on, and they played in that fort all day, with only one fight! Granted they had every single piece of furniture they could physically move from the living and dining rooms, but I didn't care. ALL day!! It was nice. I like it when they play together like that. Makes me miss my brother, and I hope that they remember the times they got along more than the fights. I do.

That's not jelly!!!

Eljiah and I have taken on a bit more than we can chew lately. He was asked by a friend of ours to help coach flag football, and now he's been asked to coach tackle as well. It was bad enough when Benjamin was going to play both, now we're coaching/team mom-ing both of them. The first flag practice was tonight and of course, it overlapped with tackle tryouts. I went on to flag practice to show Coach Dan (our friend) that we did support him and we would come when we could. Avery is not being very patient with this whole process. She is excited that she gets to go to dance tomorrow though, and she gets to sign up for soccer soon. Because we aren't busy enough yet. Anyway, we were sitting on the metal bench watching the end of practice (without a child practicing, remember!) and Avery starts talking to me about peanut butter and jelly. I know the child isn't hungry, we just ate! She was going on and on about someone spilling their jelly and how she's going to take a bite. I look over just in time to see her swipe her little finger over a pile of dried up purple bird poo and in one flash stick that same finger IN HER MOUTH. I scream out "THAT'S POOOOOOOP!!!!" as her finger is touching her tongue. And smiling. As I'm freaking out. The only fortunate thing in this is that the bird poo was dried up and nothing solid actually hit her mouth. Germs, however....I sprayed water in her mouth and made her spit probably five times. Then we did the whole hand sanitizer thing. She was very calm during the whole process, but once I was done cleaning her up, it hit her that she had just licked bird poo. She started freaking out and crying and got pretty upset. I was able to snap a pic once she calmed down. And yes, this is how she was dressed for the practice. We just got home brushed teeth really, really well.

Benjamin gets his gear!

Benjamin was given his pads for his first season of tackle football this past Saturday. He was very excited and insisted on trying everything on.

Elijah thought it would be a good idea to show Benjamin that it really doesn't hurt to get tackled and hit while wearing all that protection:

Elijah, however, wasn't wearing any protection!!!!

Then of course he had B strike the Heisman trophy pose:

Getting the helmet off is much harder than getting it on. His ears were hurting pretty bad!

He's very excited, try-outs are tonight!!

Pics from Elijah's past

Here are some pics from Elijah's mom's photo box that I scanned and touched up. This one is his Grandma and Grandpa Pickren (his mom's parents):
Here is Sandy and her four. From the left it's Joey, Tony, Sandy, Julie and Elijah. Clearly it's Christmas, and this was taken at their house on Dyson Circle in West Palm Beach. No one looks very happy, despite all the presents everywhere!

This is baby Lige, and according to his mom, he's only a couple months old here. She says two or three months.

This Fourth of July we went to a friend's house for some water fun and then a cookout. The kids had never played on a Slip and Slide before, and Malinda really wanted to get one for her girls so they got one and Benjamin was really the only one who could really get it. It took him a while, but once he got going he was an expert!
Malinda's girls weren't too hot on the Slip and Slide, so we ran out and split a baby pool that sprayed water to keep at her house. The girls really did have a blast in it.

Elijah got the fun job of shucking all the corn for the cookout, and after we ate we all enjoyed some sparklers and Malinda's dad brought some mild fireworks:

Avery of course had no fear of the sparklers, but Maddie wasn't a fan. They ended up going back inside. Everyone else had a wonderful time, though!

The kids were exhausted and filthy by the time we got home, and it really was a nice time. Too bad they didn't sleep past 8:00, and only today did they really sleep in enough to make me think they caught up on that missed sleep. I got up to quiet at 8:30!