Category: Grandpa’s Sweeties

Some of The Sweeties™ had a particularly busy weekend. Six-year-old Mack played his last flag football game of the season — looks like a little offensive and defensive holding going on there boys. Meanwhile one-year-old Reid has the ball.

  

Then, Saturday evening and Sunday, brothers Mack, Aidan and Reid visited the City of Brotherly Love where they were recruited into the Continental Army (note that the boys already have their tats). Later three-year-old Aidan replaced Alexander Hamilton on the $10 — with a much friendlier look than the first Secretary of the Treasury.

Click any of the images for a larger version.

Here’s some of the details as reported by Jill, mother of the brothers, and official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen:

We got to our seats [at Citizens Bank Park] just as Barry Bonds came up to bat in the first inning. I’d been worrying, ever since I made these plans, that he would take the night off when we came all that way to see him. So I was immensely relieved that he played, and that it didn’t rain. (The other game we considered was Sunday afternoon, and he sat that game out, so…whew.) It was a fun game, the Phillies won, and we saw Bonds hit a massive double, a single, and score. Just as fun, we saw him strike out with a runner in scoring position in the ninth, and drop a routine fly ball. The crowd went crazy heckling him, and Mack of course was immediately into that.

Mack was enraptured by the game and made close friends with the strangers sitting next to him. Aidan was more interested in lemonade, pretzels, and eating ice cream from a tiny helmet. …

On Saturday we toured the historic area for about six hours. The kids weren’t too impressed by the Liberty Bell. But they liked Independence Hall. Mack tried to answer all of the tour guide’s questions, and Aidan just wanted to know if Lincoln ever came here. Once he found out that Lincoln did in fact make a historic visit, he was happy.

We walked through some of the other historic streets and buildings, and then the boys were recruited into the Continental Army for about half an hour. They got pretty good with their muskets, but Mack got a bit nervous when the Captain marched them off and told them to wave goodbye to their parents, because they wouldn’t be back for at least six months.

Jill reports:

Aidan “graduated” from his first year of preschool; the three-year-olds classes did a show based on various nursery rhymes. Aidan rocked the part of “one of the kings” in the “Humpty Dumpty” vignette. One kid dressed all in white came out and fell onto the stage. All of the kings came and reached down to touch him and pantomime trying to “put him back together again.” Then all the kings stopped. Well, all but one, who continued grappling with the Humpty until the teacher had to forcibly remove him. I later said to Aidan, “You were just sure you could fix him, weren’t you?” He replied, “Everyone else stopped so soon!”

Then the three classes stood in positions around the stage to sing a lengthy A-B-C song. 44 kids stood still, hands at sides, and sang. One kid, stage left, danced around, doing high kicks, clapping his hands, and wildly boogieing down the entire song.

(We have the kid who just gots to boogie, and that is who he is, and that is what we’re going to let him be.)

Then in the afternoon it was time for the special production of E-I-E-I-Oops!, presented by the after-school drama class. Mack did a great job as The Farmer in the Dell, enunciated his lines beautifully, and even managed to say the words “this bovine disaster” so they could be understood.

Total minutes of actual performance, both plays combined: about 27 minutes.

Total after-play cookies consumed by the three kids [including 14-month-old Reid]: about 27 cookies.

Three-year-old Sofie is back from her first visit to Disneyland and six spins on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party ride (which we always call the Tea Cups) and back-to-back trips through It’s a Small World.

Home last night for dinner she said, “Disneyland is the happiest place on earth.”

The other three-year-old Sweetie was more relaxed about the whole thing when he last visited Walt Disney World. After running from attraction to attraction he was ready to call it a day. Asked by his brother and dad that evening if he wanted to go with them to play video games, Aidan responded with, “No, I’m good.”

Veronica, official daughter-in-law of NewMexiKen, reports on some three-year-old wisdom.

I was making coffee early this morning, and Sofie was quietly playing with some toys in the next room. All of a sudden, I hear her laugh really hard. I go over there but it’s totally unclear what is so funny. So I say, “Sofie, what are you laughing at?” And Sofie says, “Nothing mama. Sometimes you just have to laugh.”

That’s Mack, official oldest grandson of NewMexiKen, heading for daylight on his first ever carry — 40 yards before being tripped up.

This photo will be worth a lot of money when he’s in the NFL in about 16 years.

For the record, Mack scored three goals Saturday in futbol. This is him Sunday playing American flag football. He’s six.

[Note: Other kids faces purposefully obscured to protect their privacy.]

Meanwhile, Kiley, official oldest granddaughter of NewMexiKen, scored four goals in her team’s soccer game Saturday. Even though they play without a goalkeeper at age 4, that’s impressive. And a lot better than this.

The NewMexiKen family tradition is that on the first birthday, the birthday cake is put within easy reach of the celebrant, who can dig in. Indeed, he or she is encouraged to dig in — and all are disappointed if he or she hesitates.

Word is that Reid was not totally into it, but he seems to have done OK.

As usual, click for larger version.

I don’t know what’s in those birthday packages but I hope one of them has jammies. It seems that Reid, celebrating his first birthday, is wearing pajamas his oldest brother wore about five years ago. Click either photo for a slightly larger version.

 

Cute jammies nonetheless.

Update: Lest I be misunderstood, Grandpa was teasing. I love these particular jammies and had to search to find the photo of Mack I remembered with him in them. I’m hoping to get photos of middle brother Aidan in them, too. And cousin Alex.

… of Reidie, the youngest of The Sweeties. He’s one year old today.

Sweetie Kiley takes a fall.

But recovered quickly.

Auntie Jill photos

Greetings from the Albuquerque Sunport where NewMexiKen is preparing to depart for Sweetieland.

“NewMexiKen, you’ve just won the Super Bowl (World Series, whatever), what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to Sweetieland!”

Two of The Sweeties work out on the turf at Virginia Tech’s Lane Stadium.

Newest Sweetie Reid, like his brothers, has positive blood. His mother, Jill, official older daughter of NewMexiKen, has her father’s negative blood. Not good. The mother’s blood forms anti-bodies to fight the invasion of the baby’s positive blood. Some of those anti-bodies enter the baby’s bloodstream and attack the baby.

Fortunately, Reid has as little of that as could be hoped. Even so, in the days following his birth last Thursday, he was a little jaundiced and had to go “under the lights” as you see here. His brothers were told he was getting infused with super powers.

Baby and mother are doing fine. In fact, baby and mother attended older brother Mack’s soccer practice Monday evening, just four days after the birth by C-section. Now that’s a Soccer Mom!

Grandpa has a brand new Sweetie today — Reid Fisher, third son of Jill and Byron. Reid and Fisher are both fifth generation family names.

The little guy was two weeks early, but weighed in at 7 pounds 3 ounces, and is 19 inches long. He and his mother are both doing fine.

Photo taken about three hours after Reid’s birth.

Each of the six of Grandpa’s Sweeties have, oddly enough, been born on days of the month that are prime numbers: 7, 13, 13, 19, 23 and 31. Thought you’d want to know.

NewMexiKen doesn’t usually include the Sweeties in the main blog, but what the hey, it’s my blog and I’ll blog them if I want to.

	… is two today.
	Here’s the story of his arrival.