Baby Beck

Ben has enjoyed taking the Kidz Love Soccer class through the city several times now. His soccer skills have just gotten better. His only disadvantage is his height. He is a head shorter than a lot of the kids, but still manages to keep up and make quite a few goals. He loves going on a Saturday morning just with Daddy in the BMW. Steve had to help out for Youth Conference for church one Saturday, so Mommy got to come and take some pictures. He is old enough now (4 years) to start the soccer league through the neighborhood park. Both Ben and Josh have their first games this Saturday. Should be fun to see them play (too bad they're in different divisions and not on the same team).

Steve used to call Ben "Baby Beck" after David Beckham. He got to go with Steve to Beckham's U.S. MLS debut in D.C. a couple years back. We are going to a LA Galaxy game this month and hopefully Ben will get to see Beckham play again. Check out a video of Ben's soccer skills when he just turned two years old here.



This is the famous "Kids love soccer" chant they do after each class. Steve does this with Ben when he says goodnight to him at bedtime.
Some fun at the playground after class.

Monopoly

Josh loves to play board games. There is a toy loan program at the neighborhood park where you can check out a toy and return it a week later to check out a different one. Ben always picked out some sort of super hero figure (Power Rangers or Spiderman) and Josh always picked out a board game. This is typical of their personalities and preferences. Josh's favorite game being Monopoly which he funnily pronounces it Monoplio (I guess that is his 1/8th Italian coming out in him). He also always asked for the Nilson boys to come over and play whatever new game he had checked out. It made for some good family fun too. (Even Coco wanted in on the action.)

Josh's end of first grade

Josh received an award at the end of the year assembly for reading. He really improved his reading skills throughout the year. I wish he had wanted to read more for pleasure. We tried the reading program at the library this summer. He only qualified for the first level prize on the chart. I told him if he kept reading I would get him a prize at the dollar store for each level he got to (he would have gotten a prize for each level at the library instead if he would have done it during the summer break).



His class had a very cute end of the year performance. Josh was very cute. Here's a slideshow of some pictures and a couple fun videos of Joshy.

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Note:Sorry about my poor video taking skills. I was trying to keep track of Ben and Evan while I was filming. Hope they don't make give you motion sickness watching them.

My cute boys

I forgot a couple of Josh's baseball pictures from the last day when he got his trophy. I also took a couple pictures of Ben and Evan. They were too cute to pass up.

Josh receiving his trophy from his coach.

These are very cool trophies that are more like a toy. All the boys loved playing with them. I love their dusty hats in this picture.
Ben showing off his baseball ring and his cute self.
Evan looks so grown up in this picture. I'm thinking this might be a glimpse to how he will look when he's a teenager. Such a handsome boy!

Let's Play Ball

Josh played for the Mariners this year for t-ball. He did a great job in the outfield and did well hitting the ball when they did coach-pitch. Good job Joshy!

Our Friend the Ladybug

One day in May Josh found a ladybug. He decided he wanted to keep it, so we got out a jar and cut some slits in the top and put it inside. Then he decided that he wanted to play with it. We got it out and Josh and Ben took turns letting it crawl on them. Inevitably the ladybug crawled away where they couldn't find it anymore. Josh was distraught. He started crying and was saying that the ladybug was his friend. I reassured him that Josh still had his brothers and if he wanted a pet he already had Coco. He didn't seem to care and was still sad. Yes, he eventually got over it. Fast forward a few weeks to a day at the beach in Ventura. Ben found a ladybug. He got really excited and declared that the ladybug crawled to the beach and found them (with all the innocence and enthusiasm of a three-year-old). Inevitably the ladybug crawled away this time too. I'm looking forward to the next time their friend the ladybug crawls back into their lives.

Spring Break '09 Revisited

Somehow I skipped over a couple of things we did over Spring Break way back when. We visited Steve's sister Kimberly up in Bakersfield and visited the little zoo up there. We also spent a very sunny afternoon at the park and played football with friends.