Can't Believe I Let Him Turn 7!

The new motor scooter!

We took 9 boys to The Croods for his party.

We were placed in a party room for an hour.  With nothing to do.  9 boys get a tad rowdy, but they had fun being crazy and playing pop the balloons with forks.

Brownies and ice cream had them all sitting for a minute or two.

Some good buddies.

Hope your wish comes true!

Believe it or not, they were all mostly silent the entire movie!

Crazy birthday boy!

Respect

All wrestling season, Booker and Dusty had an ongoing reward (bribe, prize, whatever you wanna call it), that if Booker got a gold medal, Dusty would buy him a Swiss Army knife.  Bodey's reward for gold would have been a rocket.  Booker got gold, so he got to go pick out a knife.  He was so super excited.  We had all the talks about being careful, being responsible, asking permission to use it, having supervision, etc.  After owning it for not quite 24 hours, he sliced his finger.  He grabbed it, looked at me, and ran off to hide in his room.  I asked him if he got cut and he uncovered it to find blood gushing out everywhere.  Then he started crying and saying over and over again, "I'm not responsible.  I need to be 10.  I'm not responsible!!!"  Bodey took one look and went even more ballistic and went screaming to get daddy.  When Dusty came in I could just hear the butt chewing Booker was about to get, so I cut him off before it could start.  But, surprisingly, he wasn't planning on taking Booker down.  He came in and said we aren't taking it away from you, you aren't grounded from it, you're not in trouble, blah blah blah.  Then we made Booker use it again.  Trying the old theory of getting right back in the saddle.  We weren't sure if it needed stitches or not, but decided no.  I'm not really sure still, but it seems to be healing ok.  Here it is after 2 days:

Ending on the Perfect Note

Yesterday was our last wrestling tournament of the season!  It was time, it's been a long season and I think we all started to get burned out.  Last weekend, the boys wrestled their first open tournament.  They both wrestled 50 lbs and ended up in the same bracket.  It was a huge tournament with fierce competition.  Booker ended up taking 4th place and Bodey ended up in 6th or 7th.  But they both did really well and we were so proud of them.  Booker wasn't having it though.  He was very disappointed in himself and nothing we could say would change his mind.  He said he hates wrestling and just wants to do soccer.  It boiled down to the fact that Booker really wanted a gold medal, and didn't believe he could ever do it.

Fast forward to this weekend.  It was their second open tournament.  Booker pinned his first kid in 51 seconds.  He gave us a small little smile, and was pretty excited.  Then he pinned his second kid in 13 seconds.  His smile was a little bigger.  Then he pinned his third kid in 36 seconds.  Smile - a tiny bit bigger... but not huge.  I cried I was so excited for him.  After 2 years of wrestling, he finally got his first gold medal!  And he earned it.  He was just so humble about it though.  He did admit he was proud of himself and he had a lot of fun.  And he decided he doesn't want to quit wrestling after all.  :)

Booker and his first GOLD!

Bodey had a really tough bracket and ended up losing all of his matches, but really gave his all and wrestled tough.  I was so proud of him.  That kid is going to be unstoppable when his maturity level catches up with his strength.  A short 8 hours after the season had ended, he asked me how many more sports there are until wrestling again.  I told him soccer, swimming, baseball and football.  He's also ready for next season.

My little wrestlers.