Jr. Pro Football 2011

Our school offers a football team for 3rd thru 5th grade called Jr. Pro. Dougie played when he was 3rd grade but didn't play in 4th grade because he chose to be on a travel baseball team. But I think he really missed playing football & couldn't wait to play this fall. He mostly plays on offense in the running back/wingback position.
I want to be able to remember what this season was like for Dougie, so I've tried to remember what he did in each game.
Game 1- vs. Briarwood 28-6 W Dougie scored 2, 2 pt. conversions & a touchdown.
Game 2- vs. Brentwood 14-0 W Dougie scored a 2 pt. conversion
Game 3- vs. Bulloch 12-6 L
Game 4- vs. Bulloch 6-0 L
Game 5- vs. Briarwood 34-0 W Dougie scored a touchdown & a 2 pt. conversion
Game 6- vs. Thomas Jefferson 26-6 W Dougie scored a touchdown
Game 7- vs. Thomas Jefferson 36-0 W Dougie scored a 2 pt. conversion & he made a touchdown saving tackle on defense. (Yes, I realize that every tackle could qualify as touch down saving but this really was! Ok, so I'm a proud momma!)
Here are some pictures that my friend Kristy took at game 6. It was our last home game.

Here are all the 5th graders. I can't believe this is their last year of Jr. Pro & next year they'll be middle schoolers!

It was a great season & Dougie, we so enjoyed watching you play. Thanks for the memories!

First Day of School...

Today was the first day of school for Emma & Dougie. Emma is starting to 8th grade and Dougie is starting 5th grade. Would someone please tell me how we went from this~
2007 4th grade & 1st grade

to this 2011, 8th grade & 5th

What's even scarier, this time next year Emma will be starting HIGH SCHOOL! OMW!!

If you need me, I'll be on the couch in the fetal position!!

Love y'all dearly.

11 years old!

Today Dougie turns 11!

Last night around 11pm, I was putting some dishes in the dishwasher before heading to bed and my mind went to 11 years ago. I was getting ready for bed at right about 11pm and I had my 1st contraction. I didn't have anymore until about 3:30am. At that time, they were coming regularly and we headed to the hospital. By 7am, July 26 (his due date!) Douglas Neil Englund had entered into this world!

This birthday is different because I'm not able to wish him happy birthday. Dougie is away at camp for the very first time and he is celebrating his birthday with them. It's a little weird but I know that he is having a great time. But I do miss him.

Happy birthday Dougie! You are such a great kid and I love being your mom!

A first!

I have been such a terrible blogger. I'm so far behind, I still need to post about spring break, Asher's party and I'm sure many other things. But something happened Monday night that I want to document. Hopefully, I'll catch up on the others soon!

I haven't really talked about Dougie's baseball season. If we're FB friends or Twitter friends, I've mentioned it some. But to be honest, it's been a hard season. At this point of the season, we're 0 and 8. And that's all I'm going to say about it. But at Monday night's game, it was the last inning, our team was down by 6 runs with really no hope of coming back. Our first 2 batters got out and guess who was up? You guessed it, Dougie.
With 2 strikes, 2 outs and nobody on, Dougie hit a line drive that went right between 1st and 2nd and ended up rolling all the way to the fence. As soon as he rounded 1st, I knew that he could make it all the way. His dad was coaching third and waving him on, as well as all the fans on our side! He was running his hardest and even though the other team made a throw to home, it wasn't even close!

So on Monday, May 9, 2011, Dougie hit his first homerun!

I am so proud of you, Dougie. Not because of the great hit but because even in the face of a hard season, you are playing your best, keeping a good attitude and being a great example. But it was fun seeing you hit that homerun! =)

The Newest Food Stars!

Emma and Dougie have always loved helping out in the kitchen. A few weeks ago, Emma and I were talking about the duty joy of cooking supper. I shared with her that some friends of ours have each of their teenage children be responsible for one supper a week. Well, Emma thought that was a great idea and asked if we could do that, to which I responded, "SURE!"

So this past Saturday, we were doing basically nothing. I was napping in my our room and Emma came in and asked what we were having for supper. I think I mumbled something like, "I have no clue." and then rolled over. Then she asked if she and Dougie could cook something and again I mumbled, "sure."

After a few minutes (I think), they came back to tell me what they had chosen. They would be making Parmesan chicken, spaghetti and a fruit dessert. At this point, I realized that they were serious about this so I gave a quick lesson on cooking with chicken safety. They informed me that they had the chicken thawing and everything was under control. I went into the kitchen to make sure they had enough chicken for all of us. Once I heard them put the chicken in the oven, I peeked in to see how things were going. Emma was opening some packages of ramen noodles. When I asked why, she informed me that we didn't have any kind of spaghetti noodles or pasta, so they were going to use the ramen noodles without the seasoning. I thought that was pretty inventive! After that I was banned from the kitchen, which you can see from the sign on the door.

Within an hour, dinner was served!

Parmesan Chicken (that's a tomato on top. Notice the noodles!)
Garlic breadsticks!!!
They even went out in the yard and got some fresh flowers! So sweet!

Everything was so good! The chicken was cooked to perfection and tasted so good. Emma told us that the recipe called for italian bread crumbs but we had plain bread crumbs. So she just took some different spices and seasoned the bread crumbs. My girl is definitely not afraid to cook!

I forgot to take a picture of the dessert. We were all given a choice: blueberry, peach or strawberry. (Because that's what we had in the freezer.) They took your choice of fruit, put it in the blender with a little bit of sugar and blended it. They placed it in a bowl and put it back in the freezer. It was soooo yummy, light and refreshing!

It was a wonderful evening and I was so proud of Emma and Dougie. We will definitely be letting them cook dinner again, soon!

Here's the recipe for the Parmesan chicken:

4 chicken breast

4 tsp. Italian bread crumbs (not sure what spices Emma used)

1/2 c mayo

1/4 c parmesan cheese

Combine mayo and cheese and spread on chicken. Then sprinkle on bread crumbs. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes or until thoroughly cooked.

First Day of School 2010-2011

Emma and Dougie started back to school today. Emma is going into the 7th grade (I can't believe I just typed that!!) and Dougie is going into 4th. They were both a little nervous this morning. Emma was nervous about being in the "high school" hall. At our school, 7th -12th are on the same hall. Dougie was nervous about having the "meanest" teacher in the whole school! ; )

Dougie wasn't happy that I made him take a picture without his cap!

But Emma helped him turn his frown upside down!!
Hope you have a great day!!!

Catching Up.......

Ok, I am so far behind but I'm going to try and catch up. I may even try to do a couple of post today, ambitious I know, but we'll see!
As I'm pretty sure you know, Dougie played his first season of football this year. It's a league for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. Most teams play their 5th graders because they're bigger. Our team had only 4 5th graders. Our defensive team was 3 5th graders, 4 4th graders and 4 3 graders. So you can see that we had a very young team! I said all that to say, we didn't have a very good season. We won our very last game and that was our first win. But boy was it sweet!

To end the season, our team plays in a Jamboree. In one of the games at the jamboree, Dougie scored his first touchdown!!!! Woo-hooo! I just happened to be videoing some of the game and got it on video. I wish I could upload it here but then again, you probably don't want to hear me hoopin' and hollerin' in the background! :) Dougie was so cute after he crossed the goal line he turned and ran back out towards his teammates and had his arms spread wide with the ball in his hands. I told him he looked like Knowshon!

These pics are from the jamboree, it pretty much rained the whole time and it was freezing!!!

Dougie always stayed by the coaches while he was on the sideline!

I snapped this picture of Dougie in action, he made an awesome tackle! He was 1st team defense!

Dougie getting his trophy from the coaches at the awards banquet.

Even though it wasn't a winning season, Dougie really enjoyed it and I think it solidified his love for football. (He almost always sleeps with his football, don't tell him I told you!) And since our younger boys got alot of playing time this year, they will be even more ready for next season!

GO BIG RED!!!

It's finally here......

After years of wanting to play football.........

The day is finally here! Dougie is playing his first football game today. He probably won't get to play alot since it's a 3rd, 4th and 5th grade team but he's still excited.

GO DOUGIE!!!!

Love Y'all!

Have a great weekend!

1st day of school

I can't believe that it's the first day of school!!! Just like everyone else is saying, "where did summer go?"
Emma is an official middle schooler (6th grade) and Dougie is starting 3rd grade!
It doesn't seem possible but it is....
I knew they would give me a hard time about taking their picture this morning so I gave them a choice, you can let me take your picture at home or I will take it at school.

Guess what they chose?

I'm such a mean ol' momma! ;~)

Happy Monday!

Love Y'all,

That's my boy!

I don't tend to share a lot of stories about Dougie here on the blog. He pretty much flies under the bloggy radar and when he does do something that's blog worthy, he usually makes me promise not to put it on the blog!

But he doesn't know about this, so it's fair game!

Last week, I was cleaning out and getting ready for the baby. Since we live in a 3 bedroom house, the 3 boys will be in one room hence the cleaning out! While cleaning out their closet, I found a backpack and duffle bag of Dougie's and it felt like he hadn't unpacked them. He used both bags a few weeks ago to spend the night at a friend's house so I expected to find his dirty clothes and socks in there. Now before I share what I found, let me tell you we live in a rural part of Ga. but our house is 'in town.' But his friend's house is in the country, like four wheel riding, in the mud, stay out all day, in the country.
Here's a picture of what I found in those bags:

• a ball cap- standard for any boy!
• bb's, but no bb gun.
• pliers
• 2 bungee cords
• about 3 feet of rope
• a crow bar- are you serious!?
• 4 carabiners
• and the all important camouflage wallet

The next time he packs to spend the night at his friend's house, you won't here me saying,

"As long as you have clean underwear and clothes for church, I don't care what's in your bags."

Not that I would've said that last time, I'm just sayin'.........

On another note, Dougie had his first baseball game this past Saturday. He's moved up into the pitching machine league and loves it! He's playing first base and loves it too! They won their first game 11-10 and Dougie hit a homerun to score the tying run!!!!! WOOHOO!

THAT'S MY BOY!!!

Dougie did great today! He came through with flying colors.
Thanks for the prayers!
Love y'all!

Say a little prayer for my Dougie today. He's having his adenoids taken out and having tubes put in his ears.
Thanks!
Love y'all!

A Little Christmas Joy

I have a couple of pictures that I want to share with you. These are 2 of my favorites that I put out each year. I didn't get one of them scanned in time for BooMama's Tour but if you saw my video, you've seen one of these pictures.
Here's the first one, taken in 1973. I am the bald-headed 2 year old screaming in the picture.

Now, look at this picture taken 28 years later in 2001. Dougie is the bald-headed 2 year old screaming in the picture. Isn't that hilarious?!?!

Merry Christmas,

Happy 8th Birthday!!!

My sweet Dougie boy turned 8 years old this weekend! I can't believe you're eight!
You are such a great son, you bring so much laughter and fun to our lives. I love watching you play ball. I love that you LOVE the Bulldogs! I love your hair when it's buzzed! I love watching you teach your little brother about boy things! I love hearing you quote scripture. I love you!

Love Mommy!

FINALLY!!!!

After a month of wiggling and twisting, this stubborn tooth finally came out.
Dougie is 7 (8 in July) and this is only the 3rd tooth he's lost, so we're a little excited!



p.s. Emma discovered the truth. She found the 'evidence' the other night! When I walked and caught her, she gave me a look of disbelief and said, "After all these years......"

My little missionaries!!!

We began our revival services yesterday morning and it has already been amazing to see how God is working. When we got home yesterday afternoon, Emma took it upon herself to create a flyer to invite people to our revival. She printed them out and then her and Dougie spent their Sunday afternoon walking around our neighborhood inviting people to church!!!!
Needless to say, we were so proud of them!
And when we went to church last night, a lady who had received one of the fliers came to our service!
FYI- Did you know that the majority of SBC missionaries gave their lives to Christ between the ages of 4 and 8?
If you have children or plan to have them someday, read Deut. 6:6-9.
Our children have to see that being a Christian isn't "playing a role" but it's "living a a life."
Love y'all,