Proud Mama

The final playoffs were held this morning for the regional youth basketball league.  All the kids on all the teams played their hearts out today.  A huge round of applause goes out to all of them.  (For a little fiber content, I was darn near done knitting a sock, but couldn’t finish due to the excitement of the game!)

Tom has served as one of the coaches for both the 3rd/4th grade team and the 5th/6th grade team. Today, the 5/6 team won not only the top ranking team award, but went on to win two play off games for the league championship! Woo hoo!

And if that isn’t enough, Nick was honored with a sportsmanship trophy:

Father and Son.  Congratulations both of you – I’m very proud!  (Aren’t they gorgeous???)

Just when you think

there’s too much testosterone in the house, you walk into the living room to find all three of your sons diligently crafting jewelry!

The beading bug bit the oldest one this weekend, in time to make a set of earrings and matching necklace for his Valentine.  Last night something came over all three, as they set about making necklaces and beaded bracelets for themselves.  Go figure.

And just when you think you know what you are doing at the carder, Stephanie tells us all to card sideways – all the time!   But . . . but . . .  sideways won’t give you this:

Or these:

We miss him

Our beloved Ghost left us this week.  He was gorgeous, strong, and oh so brave and protective of all of us.  He became ill two years ago with an autoimmune disease – until then, Ghost never stopped chasing his tail.  He was a puppy at heart, always.

And what a puppy.  He weighed just 7 pounds when we brought him and his brother, Catcher, home.  Part Lab, part Shepherd, part Akita, each of them fit in a hand.

But not for long.  When I first took those tiny pups into the vet’s office and asked, “They aren’t going to get very big, are they?” the vet staff laughed and laughed at me.

They grew.  And grew.  And although Catcher’s ears are the floppy ears of a lab, Ghost’s ears went up and up and stayed up.  Always.

He soon filled his favorite chair, and then some.

He kept watch over the chickens,

over the boys

and over me (though he was a bit of  a couch hog.)

We have a lot of dogs and love them all.  But Ghost was one of those once-in-a-lifetime dogs.  We miss him.