Soccer

Today was Kale's first soccer game.....
and he scored his team's first (and only goal).
The parents started cheering, and I don't think Kale's grin could have been any bigger.
After his grand first goal (only a few minutes into the game) he quickly began to tire out from sprinting up and down and up and down the field....
and I'm pretty sure he fell at least ten times....
and I'm also pretty sure about seven of those times he was tripping over his own teamates.
But, there were a lot of smiles and a lot of laughing, and treats afterwards....
so all in all, I think Kale would tell you it was a pretty great game.

On a side note....
Miss Bailey was my "special helper" at the grocery store today and got "pretty princess pink nail polish" for doing a good job.  She kept say, "Oh, Mom, it's bu-la-ful-a," which is how two-year-olds say "beautiful" :)

Our Roly Poly

First Day of School

I didn't think I'd feel  so much emotion about Kale's first day of kindergarten.  I thought that since he was so darn excited, I'd just be excited, too.

I swore I wouldn't be one of those parents who gets all worked up about the whole thing. 

At least, yesterday I did.

Today I feel like we've suddenly hit the "play" button and there's no pausing and no chance to rewind.

And that makes me a little sad.

But you know what?  He came home today and said, "Mom, it was even more fun than I thought it would be!"

And really, who could be sad after a comment like that?

So, don't worry.

I think I'm going to be okay :)

Out And About

Dain and Miss Shay dancing....we have a dance party just about every night.  The kids take turns picking songs, so our play-list generally includes a lot of the Zach Brown Band and Justin Bieber.

Kale's showing off his tooth (and note for the tooth fairy).

A fun night at the Douglas County fair.

Royals baseball game (that unfortunately got rained out).  My cousin, who is in charge of food services at the K, let us share a suite with some other family members! (I know, I know, we're spoiled)

Kale's Blastball games....soccer practice starts this week!

Changes

Lots of things are changing around the Hammerschmidt house, and to be perfectly honest, I'm having a heck of a time keeping up!  Let me start by issuing a disclaimer early....there will be no pics with this post because I don't have time to wait for them to load.  Maybe I'll upload some tomorrow (but more likely it will be a few days).

Mr. Kale is all geared up to start kindergarten in a couple of weeks.  He finished up blast ball last week (thank goodness....blast ball in this heat would have been AWFUL) and he starts soccer in September.  Over the last few weeks he's lost not one, but two teeth!  It really helps him look the part of of a kindergartner ;)

Bailey never ceases to amaze us with her hilarious antics.  This morning she crawled into bed with us and not-so-quietly read stories, sang songs, and did everything in her two-year-old power to make sure we did not get to sleep past seven.  Miss Shay has taken to rolling and officially entered the "if I can reach it, then it's going in my mouth" phase.  Both girls will be starting daycare tomorrow.  They'll spend 3 days a week there and the other 2 with Grandma Hammerschmidt because.........

I'm headed back to the classroom!  I'll be teaching fifth grade at the oldest school in Lawrence (built in the 1920's).  It is a "charming" building (that's a nice way of saying we have plaster walls and window air conditioners), but in all seriousness, my room is huge and in a lot of ways reminds me of my Grandad Sutton's house in Greensburg, which I love :)
Despite all the changes to our schedules, we've found time to do lots of fun things as summer draws to a close: a trip Hutch to visit the grandparents, walks on nature trails, a trip to the Gardner pool and the Douglas County Fair to name a few.  Dain and I even when out for a little date night yesterday and stayed up until ELEVEN THIRTY!  That's unheard of around our house :)

I'll try really hard to get pics posted tomorrow....or at least this week....hopefully.........ah, who am I kidding?!  I'm sure they'll get posted eventually :)

A Little Church Story

This week I've been helping teach the kindergarten/first grade religous education class at our church (3 teachers for 7 kids....it's fantastic....and some thing that we only dream of in the "real" teacher world........) but anyway, we've been having lots of fun, and they wear Bailey out in the toddler room, which is pretty cool, too!
So, a funny story about Kale....


His class is learning about the seven Sacraments we celebrate in the Catholic church. Yesterday we were discussing the sacrament of baptism, and one of other teachers told the kids they were going to act out a "pretend baptism" and they could take turns pretending to be the priest and blessing a classmate pretending to be a baby. She assigned one kid to be the priest, one to be the baby, and told the others to pretend they were at the baptism. The kids immediately starting calling out things like, "I'll be the dad!" "I'll be the mom" "I'll be the sister" and so forth. In the excitement of the moment my sweet Kale called out, "I'll be God!" :)

Go big or go home, right?!

Summer, Summer Time

Kale finished up swim lessons several weeks ago.  One of his favorite things was going down the big slide at the end of each session...the ear-to-ear grin on his face when he got to go by himself the last day was PRICELESS.  He also got to jump off the diving board (into the instructors arms) one day.  You should have seen the majority of the moms' reactions on the side.....sheer panic.  One lady actually took off around the pool to stop them from sending her daughter in.  I probably would have panicked, too, but I was too busy trying to corral a certain wild, I mean spirited two year old that I'm pretty sure would have led the charge off the diving board if I'd given her the chance ;)