A picture is worth a thousand words

I have quite a few pictures to go through today.  Pictures are courtesy of this man:

(who finds himself more and more behind a camera trying to capture that perfect landscape or sports shot of our kids for our new office)

and this girl:

(who finds herself behind the camera because she is taking advanced digital photography at school)

and courtesy of my iphone.

We have been busy at our house.  It started snowing in our area recently and Brad has had the opportunity to take the boys out back country skiing.  Of course Jordan has been unable to accompany them due to his broken arm. It was Riley's first time out back country skiing.

The snow has been so nonexistent for us this year and the avalanche danger so high as a result of the poor base that we have, that a day like this was certainly one to treasure.

A picture of Riley with the man that makes all this happen...Dad.  He really is a great dad.  We love that guy!

Dad said that both Ben and Riley were troopers and the boys said they both look forward to more back country skiing next year.

We have been wrestling...a LOT.  Ben, Riley and Jake are currently in season. Ben and Riley have had the opportunity to wrestle together this year on their middle school team.  Jordan has attended every meet and helped coach the two of them.  It is so fun to watch the boys collaborate together.  Here's one of my favorite pictures that a friend of mine captured of Jordan coaching Riley the other day.

Here's another that I captured of Jordan and Ben reviewing his previous match with Riley listening in.

And here's one of Ben teaching Riley a take down that he needs to perfect.

I also caught a picture of Riley, McKenzie and Ben all standing together waiting for Riley's next match.

These kids are all so lucky to have each other and I love how much they support each other. 

Riley and Ben have been having quite a bit of success wrestling.  Riley has to work for every win as a sixth grader.  Wrestling 95 lbs. he is usually coming in 3rd or 4th place which is pretty good for sixth grade.  We told him to expect losing a lot this year so we are pleased when he places and keeps his head up. 

Ben is doing awesome and has placed 1st at every local tournament we've had.

Some matches have been so easy that when he sees his  dad is taking pictures of him across the mat he even has time to pose and smile.

Not so fair for the kid underneath.

Of course, since he's been winning so much, at times he can be a little overconfident and find himself in bad positions like this one where he paused to listen to what Jordan was saying and his opponent took every advantage of his lack of attention.

Which his opponent most certainly should have done.  Of course, after Ben got out of almost being pinned here, his opponent may have regretted using that move on Ben because two seconds later he found himself here:

Watching these two wrestle together has been a lot of fun but has also made for long days.  Many is the Saturday evening when you can find our kids like this, sacked out on the couch.

Not only are we attending the wrestling matches on Saturday we have also been attending singing competitions for Kenzie (she is in the second phase of our local talent show, the voice) and attending dance concerts of some of our friends.  Yesterday at the end of the day I calculated that I had sat for 8 hours straight watching people perform. I was exhausted!

A couple of funny pictures I captured on my phone.  A meme that describes McKenzie perfectly.

At times that girl is so unsocial I swear.

Also this:

It's a warning that pops up on my suburban's media screen all the time.  What's funny about it?  Well, to make it go away I have to take my eyes off the road and my hand off the wheel to push okay.  Really chevrolet?

Finally, there was this that happened this week:

Yes, that is another radial fracture. Riley's radial neck fracture.  The radius was so displaced in Riley's case that he had to have surgery.  Surgery happened Wednesday. Riley pre-surgery.

Riley post surgery.

All is well that ends well.  At least for Riles, he's only a sixth grader and really only missed two tournaments.  By the way, he was doing the EXACT SAME THING that Jordan did when he broke his arm six weeks ago.  Moral of the story....bent elbows kids.  When you post your arm for anything (falling, wrestling, whatever) make sure your elbows are slightly bent...or you'll have a radial fracture and perhaps, surgery.