A random list of stuff that hasn't been mentioned in other posts recently

1.  Will signed up for classes for JUNIOR HIGH a few weeks ago.  We won't find out his official schedule until August but he picked Spanish, a combo of shop and home ec, life skills and something else as his electives.  He only gets three of them so we'll see what happens.  Junior High.  Crazy huh?

2.  Reina is finishing up the first Harry Potter book. She tried reading it last year and couldn't get into it.  Some of her friends this year are big Potter fans so I think that's helped peak her interest.  She knows some of the plot points of future books from hearing her brother talk about it but she seems ready to tackle the whole series.  It's fun for me to read along with her again. 

3.  Glenn and I are playing co-ed volleyball and it's been a lot of fun.  As I type this, Glenn is tossing a volleyball up against the den ceiling over and over and over again to practice his serving technique and I only want to mildly murder him.

4.  It's -12 degrees right now and that's without the wind chill.  The chickens are snuggled up in their coop with a hot water bottle and we'll put another one in there before bedtime.  It seems to work pretty well and the bottle in the coop this morning wasn't even frozen. 

5.  We have a remodeled kitchen!  We are waiting on more piece to be completed before posting all of the pictures but we have new paint on the walls, a new counter and backsplash and a floor.  We're putting the finishing touches on a kitchen island and then we'll be finished.  We've had about two weeks with limited kitchen access and I didn't think I'd get sick of eating out so quickly.  I also really missed the sink. 

6.  Will's elementary basketball team won the city championship for the second year in a row.  It was a really exciting game and the boys were super excited.   

7.  Reina designed a poster about Lewis and Clark and included a mountain lion.  Naturally. 

8.  Last weekend, we watched the UW Cowgirls play a great game in Laramie.  The game was honoring cancer survivors and raising money for a cancer center there.  Reina wrote this sign for her Aunt V.  

9.  We had a funny moment after the basketball game.  Will didn't come with us because he had a friend's birthday party to go to.  Reina was in line getting autographs and we thought it would be fun to get the team to sign a poster for Will.  One of the players wrote "To Will, love the Wyoming Cowgirls." I laughed and said something like 'he'll die of embarrassment' but somewhere along the way, the players thought I was saying that Will was going to die.... and it got all weird.  We quickly corrected the conversation and got everybody on the right track.  AND we were wrong about the poster, Will was excited to hang it up on his wall. 

10.  We can't wait for baseball. 

A bunch of pictures of Will playing football at UW

Last weekend, Will had the chance to play on the city's all-star tackle football team.  The team was comprised of a few players from each regular season team, there were about 20 kids all together. They practiced for two weeks and then played a few teams from across the state/region last weekend in Laramie.  Will's team's first game was on Friday night and they played under the lights on UW's field.  What a cool opportunity! Glenn and I both took a bunch of pictures and it was hard to whittle them down to a reasonable number to put on the blog but here we go.  

Will is #23 and getting ready for the kick-off.  

On defense. 

Lined up and getting ready for a tackle.  Will helped make a goal line stand.  

Will is the second player from the right with black socks.  

Getting the defensive play from the coach.  

He obliged me with a post-game picture on the field.  

On Sunday, the temperatures warmed up and Will's team played in the sun against a team from Billings. 

Will played on the defensive line during this game.  Here he's lining up to play nose guard.  

Getting ready for another kickoff - Will is at the front of the line.  

Looking serious at halftime. 

Post-game team picture at mid-field.  

#23 with his biggest fan

No wait, this is his biggest fan.  

Will and his teammates from his regular season team.  

Will and his Grandpa Pauley who traveled up from Colorado with Grandma Pauley to watch him play.  

Elementary football season is officially done.  Now we turn our focus to homework (Will are you reading this?) and get ready for basketball. 

September is for football

We have football coming out of our pores.  Flag football, tackle football, college football, Broncos.  Well actually, there's a lot going on in September.  Dance classes, piano lessons, hunting trips, work trips, end of season gardening, races and football.  And baseball.  Most of us are all in on the last week of the baseball regular season.  Go Rockies!  And all of the teams that need to beat the teams that the Rockies need to lose in order to make the playoffs.  Yes, that last sentence will make little sense to anyone else but at least a few of us are carefully keeping track.

So back to football.  Will is playing tackle and flag.  I don't have any pictures of flag yet but those games are after school a few times a week and Will is playing center like he did last year.  He finds flag a little low-key compared to tackle but I think he has fun with his friends.  I don't have any tackle pictures either but Will is having a pretty good season.  He's playing linebacker and tight end and has played every snap for the last two games. 

 Earlier in the month, we all traveled to Laramie for the UW game.  It was a beautiful sunny day and the only drawback was that the Cowboys lost. 

Reina and Glenn at a UW game a few weeks ago.  Game day gold!  

Last weekend, Will and I went to the Broncos game.  It was a record high temperature that day and we refilled our free-refill soda at least four times.  The Broncos had a tough game and were behind most of the game.  Will and I left our seats with a little more than two minutes left because one of us (okay, really both of us) were pretty frustrated with the game.  When we got down to the concourse, I told Will I just wanted to watch a couple of plays on the tv.  The Broncos put together a 2-minute drive and won the kicker won the game with a few seconds left. 

Will and our new lucky seats on the concourse after the game-winning field goal. 

So that's our September in a nutshell.  Glenn is home from a bighorn sheep hunt and I shall momentarily turn over the reins of the blog to him for a picture-filled post next time. 

Go Cowboys!

Last Spring, for Mother's Day in fact, Glenn bought me season tickets for UW football.  It was a lovely present and I was delighted.  It wasn't too much of a surprise because I said something along the lines of, "for Mother's Day, can you get me season tickets to UW football?" So he did and we are the proud owners of Section J, Row something, seats something and something and it's been fun.  Except for the Oregon game.  That wasn't very fun.  Some combination of the four of us, plus one grandparent, have made every single game except one that interfered with Will's football game.  A few weeks ago, Glenn was hunting so we bought an extra kid ticket and the kiddos and I headed over the summit to watch the New Mexico game.  Spoiler alert, Wyoming won 42-3.  

She wasn't wearing a stitch of school colors but she willingly cheered when the scoreboard implored the crowd to and she kept herself busy with trips to the snack shack and my phone.  

Not sure why we framed this picture with that sign but here's a field level view of my little superfans.  We were on our way home at this point because it was chilly, we'd run out of snack money and the Cowboys scored all of their 42 points by halftime.  

Football isn't Reina's jam as the kids say these days so she entertained herself by taking pictures on my phone and slapping all sorts of whatever you call those on there.  I had about twenty similar shots waiting for me after the game.  

My favorite superfans.  

UW Spring Game

Last weekend, Will's Saturday soccer game was canceled because the field had too much snow on it but by mid-day, the sun was shining and the temperatures were warming up so we headed over to Laramie for the UW Football Spring Game.  For once, the weather was possibly nicer in Laramie and we had a terrific time.  We hadn't been to the Spring Game before so we weren't sure what to expect.  We arrived a little early and Reina spied the pony mascot - Cowboy Joe.  

Pony and handlers obliged us with a picture.  Future Cowboy Joe handler right there?  

Once inside the stadium, we snagged some seats on the 50-yd line and watched the offense and defense battle it out.  It was fun to watch the action that close up, even though it wasn't a real game situation. It was a defensive battle and the final score was 3-0 but we had fun watching the action.  

Dangit, I can't figure out how to rotate this picture.  Rotate your head instead?  

The highlight of the afternoon was that after the game, the fans were invited on to the field to get autographs and take pictures with the players.  I can't imagine this happens at some of the bigger schools but what a thrill for my football fan...okay and for me and Glenn, too.  Even Reina seemed to enjoy it.  

The kiddos and the UW quarterback Josh Allen.  He's the rumored first round draft pick for the NFL next year.  True story!  

Reina and the back-up quarterback.  

Will and some defensive players.  

We spent a little while getting autographs - Will was even giving some gloves by #58.  He was pretty excited about that. The autographs and the gloves are currently being framed at a craft shop to be added to Will's sports' shrine.

We are in the midst of football, baseball, softball and track season.  But it is time for football yet?

Basketball

Caution:  the following post will contain a lot of talk about college basketball but little about the Bronco Babies.  You see, the Pauley family (well mostly Glenn and me) just spent a crazy weekend immersed in the Mountain West Conference basketball tournament.  No, we weren't there in person to cheer on the Wyoming Cowboys (see the last post) but we yelled as loudly as we could from the den, paced, stressed, wore the same shirt for all three games without washing it (okay, that was just me) and even shed a few tears when our team won the championship game on Sunday. 

On Thursday, I was home with both kids in the afternoon and the Cowboys played at 3:30 p.m.  Will was starting to feel better but Reina was pretty sick still. I was desperate for her to take a nap so I had to abandon my usual basketball strategy (tv on mute, radio in the kitchen on so that I can hear the local sports announcers and their take on the game) and let Reina doze on the couch while I hunkered down in the basement with the small tv and no radio.  I also had to keep my cheering and clapping down to a very muted level so that I didn't wake Reina.  Glenn was still at work so Will and I watched most of the game together.  Glenn got home in time to watch the last five minutes with me and the Cowboys won!  The team hadn't won a first-round tournament game in recent memory so that was fun!  The conference tournament is single elimination so winners advance to play the next day.  Bring on Friday!

On Friday, Will went back to school, Reina was feeling worse and the basketball game was at 7:00 p.m.  The Cowboys played a team (Boise State) that they beat in January but BSU went on a tear after that and finished as the #1 seed in the conference.  Wyoming was #4.  It was a great game - back and forth score, Wyoming climbing out of a 12-point deficit, overtime, a banked-in three-pointer that put the Cowboys up by two scores and a Cowboy win!  I can't just sit  and watch the games anymore - I'm too nervous.  So Friday night, I baked Will's birthday cake, sorted and recycled a bunch of stuff on the dining room table, put away some laundry and cleaned up the kitchen.  At one point, I realized it was 8:40 and both kids were still up, no teeth brushed, no jammies, no snack.  I pointed this out to Glenn and without taking his eyes off of the game, he barked back, "Just tell the kids to brush their teeth and go to bed!"  Now the Pauley bedtime routine is pretty well established with lots of book reading and teeth brushing overseeing and tucking in - but not on this Friday night!  (For the record, we hustled during the break between regulation and overtime and got everybody tucked away without missing too much of the game.  We had very cooperative children that night.)

In some future blog post, I'll document how Glenn has gone from casual sports observer to obsessed Super Fan. (Spoiler alert - I almost told Glenn during Friday's game that he just need to enjoy it because after all, it was just a game, which is something that has been said to me many times in my life and I've rarely believed it.) Stay tuned. 

Saturday we woke up to a beautiful sunny sky and great weather.  Both kids were feeling much better so there was a lot of time outside getting some fresh air.  The Cowboys played at 4:00 p.m. against conference power house San Diego State University.  SDSU has been to the NCAA tournament several times in the past few years and more importantly, they beat the Cowboys twice during the regular season.  Surprisingly, I wasn't too nervous about the game.  I'm usually worst-case-scenario girl when it comes to my sports team but I was calmly optimistic.  We got our errands down in time for the 4:00 tip-off.  Glenn watched the tv while I buzzed between the guest room, the kitchen and the upstairs. I had radios tuned in on each floor so I wasn't too far from the action.  The Cowboys jumped out to a healthy lead in the first half but were only up by 3 at halftime.  By halftime, I'd cleaned the guest room, the kids' play room, put away some laundry and filled out a little monopoly game sponsored by the grocery store.  I kept Reina busy with play-doh while Will fought bad guys outside.  During the second half, the game got pretty close and I gave up my cleaning to watch.  I sat at the top of the stairs so I could hear the radio which was about 10 seconds ahead of the tv. I figured I had to know what was about to happen.  After a very exciting ending which featured another three pointer and 2 free throws made by a guy who normally shoots about 50%, the Cowboys won!  Free throws matter, kids!  When the final buzzer sounded, Glenn and I were jumping around like a bunch of college kids, the phone was ringing off the hook and Reina kept asking, "Mom, why are you crying, are you okay?" 

So now the Cowboys play in the NCAA tournament on Friday.  I have big plans to sit at the top of the stairs with both the radio and the tv on and cheer on the team.  Who knows, I may even get some more cleaning done.  Go Pokes! 

Mom takes her new camera to the UW basketball game

To celebrate Valentine's Day, we packed everybody in the car and headed over to Laramie for another UW basketball game.  How romantic, right?  We were able to buy cheap tickets thanks to a "youth sports" promotion, which also meant we got to go down to the court after the game and take pictures. I fully admit that I was probably the most excited family member for that part.  Since I knew we'd have a great photo opportunity, I hauled along my new camera and fancy new camera lens.  The game was a little boring in that Wyoming got a lead early and won easily.  There were some fancy dunks and the score got a little too close for comfort once or twice.  But, after the overtime excitement of the last game we attended, we didn't mind too much. 

Trying out the zoom lens - our seats were not this close but amazing what the camera lens can do!

Here's a more accurate view from our seats.  Almost half court though!

Two of my favorite Cowboy fans at halfcourt. 

Will was a little disgruntled because when we told him that he got to go on the court after the game, he thought he'd be able to shoot baskets.  Good point kid, except no one brought a ball.  Undeterred, here he is posing for a free throw anyway. 

We take a timeout from cute kid pictures for Mom to take a photo of her two favorite sports radio announcers.  The score, oh the score!

The dance group gladly posed for a picture with Reina.  She was thrilled.  I asked Will if he wanted in on the picture too and he turned red and mumbled something along the lines of "no way, Mom."

Kiddos and Pistol Pete.  This was his last picture so we had to make it a great shot. 

Reina would like everyone to know that she can shoot free throws too.  She actually made her first baskets at her basketball pre-game this week. It was a milestone.  She attempted two shots in the actual game but they didn't go in.  I'm so proud of her for sticking with it, it seems like she's really starting to enjoy basketball. 

I had to get a picture of me at half court!  Granted, I should've put more thought into my hairstyle (anti-frizz creme anyone?) but hey - I'm at a half court! 

We had a great Valentine's Day and a fun holiday weekend.  Winter weather is back and there's some snow on the ground but we are all home this week and nobody has to travel.  Will has a cold and we'll see if it develops into anything that requires one of us taking a sick day.  Stay tuned! 

When you try to take a 7-yr old's picture

Will was all dressed up for the UW game yesterday and I thought he looked so grown up that I wanted to take a quick picture before we walked out the door. Okay, I was also surprised that he chose jeans all by himself. 

Smile buddy! 

I said "smile" not whatever it is you are doing.

Oh, okay so it's going to be the one of those battle pictures. Naturally. 

Nevermind.  There's my cute kid. 

Indoor Soccer

After basketball ended in December, I signed both kids up for indoor soccer.  It's just for eight weeks, Saturday mornings, and it gets a few of us running around a gym for a little while.  Both kids are lukewarm about the gang, much to my surprise given both of their enjoyment of kicking things.  At their second week of games on Saturday, they both showed a little more interest.  Reina won't play without one of us holding her hand the entire time.   

She's shy, but we know it's all an act. 

I was pretty sure that Glenn was going to yank her shoulder out of the socket in his enthusiasm to get her to the ball.  The picture is shaky because I was giggling too hard.  Run Reina run! 

Reina's interest peaks at this point in the game because it's snack time! 

Will was more interested this week but he also would periodically stop mid-game to do ninja chops or boxing fists. Naturally.

Reina refused to any of the UWyo shirts handed down from her brother so we improvised. 

We had a nice three-day weekend.  The four of us went to the Cowboy basketball game and watched the Pokes knock off the #15 team in the country.  We had a great time.  Just like last year, the game ran about 5 minutes too long for the kids' attention span, but we made it out of there without any major meltdowns or barfing.  Success. 

December festivities

It's been another wild week in the Pauley household. Between shopping, baking and busy days at work, we haven't had much time to blog. Both kids had ear infections that necessitated a trip to the doctor on Friday. We had Will's first preschool Christmas program (see more details below) and A LOT of last minute Christmas shopping. And baking, don't forget the baking. In between all of that, I did manage to catch a few shots of brother-sister-togetherness. Nothing like eating cheerios on the kitchen floor with your sib. Doesn't it look like Will told a joke that Reina didn't find particularly funny? She's so sophisticated already! As promised, here are pictures from the Montessori Christmas Program extraordinaire. Will's standing on the far right looking offstage in this picture. To preface this story, he's only been in this class since early November so we weren't sure how many of the songs he would know. When you add that to his general lack of interest in doing any one thing longer than 45 seconds (aka super-short attention span), I really didn't know how this would work. He initially balked at going on-stage but walked up there like a trooper.

As the songs begin, that's when the real fun started. (Attn Will-of-the-future: You might want to stop reading here because Mom is about to tell a very embarassing story about you.) Will sang the first song with both of his hands stuck down the back of his pants. And then he took a break from the pants and sang like an adult for a few minutes.

At this point, the photo portion of the narrative ends because I was laughing too hard to hold the camera still. During the next song, Will pulled his shirt up to mid-navel and sang with his belly hanging out. THEN, he found the waistband of his blue Diego underpants sticking out of the top of his pants, grabbed on to those and pulled, and sang the last song while giving himself a front wedgie. Good stuff. Next year he is wearing a turtleneck stapled into the waistband.

While all of the singing was going on up front, Reina was busy being the cutest little sister in the audience. I've mentioned before how much this baby likes music, but it bears repeating. She sways back and forth anytime she hears a song and if given the option, she'll sing along.

One more important event occurred this weekend. The Wyoming Cowboy football team played in the New Mexico Bowl. And they won! In double overtime! It was very exciting! The kids learned new words of exclamation from their Mom! The Cowboys were 14-point underdogs so not much was expected of them but it was a lovely end to their up-and-down season. If you want to read more, lots of great articles and photos can be found here. Go Pokes!