Play BALL!!

Much to everyone's excitement, especially Jake, baseball games started this past Monday!
The first one started at 7:15pm, so it got dark and chilly.
This picture, of Jake in his uniform, was taken before the Thursday game (they have two games per week).
Much warmer and sunnier and I could actually take pictures.

Logan took this shot of the bats - he thought they were pretty cool hooked into the fence like that.

Here they are listening to the batting order - first game.

But maybe we do like later games - the sun can cause problems.

They run through the batting order about three times during the game, which is great.
Here is Jake at bat.

They will sometimes move the boys around in field positions, but the last game Jake stayed out in right field.

At this age and skill level, if your team can hit, you'll get some RBIs - fielding isn't really strong yet. Jake's team won their first game 12-3 (his team was better at hitting), they lost their second game 7-12 (both teams good at hitting, the opposing team had some stronger hitters that got it out of the infield more often).
In the first game Jake hit a home run (the video below) - the ball was thrown, or I should say overthrown, to many parts of the field, allowing him to round the bases.
Totally exciting!

We are looking forward to the rest of the season!

Skipped a Year

Last year we celebrated Robert's birthday a day early - his last day of being 39.
This year we jumped right to 41 - skipping 40 completely.
I made a great (yes I'm bragging, it did turn out delicious) chocolate raspberry cake (substituting hot water with raspberry extract for the coffee). I got distracted when I was putting on the chocolate ganache and it cooled faster than I thought making it a bit lumpy (still yummy).Sticking with a "39 again" theme I decorated the cake.
The game was to figure out the meaning of the candles.
Natalie got it in the first shot.
We love birthdays here - cake, gifts, and wishes.
Logan helped wrap the gifts and wrote Happy Birthdays (and his name) on each one.
A tool for his lathe, iTunes gift card, peanut m&ms, baseballs, and a Lego game (the boys have loved playing it).
We love Robert and all he does for us!
Happy Birthday!

242 . . .

The number of BoxTops collected since spring -81 . . . (80 for Natalie)
The number of BoxTops the boys got to take into class -An easy way to help your school receive money! If you don't have children needing BoxTops clip them anyway and give them to a neighbor's child, niece, nephew, friend's children, or just turn them in at a local school. They come on 100s of products you already buy.

Support Education!

One year older, but not 40 yet!

I turned 39 this past Wednesday - yes, I'll proudly say my age. I'm not 40 yet, right?
I might start lying then.
It was a busy day, with one thing after another, trying to get ready to celebrate my birthday and head over to church so everyone could go to various activities and meetings (even Logan went to a meeting with Robert).
I saw a recipe in a magazine for a raspberry-lemon hydrangea cake. It looked too good to pass up and I made it for my birthday cake.
I had the wrong frosting tip, so it didn't look like the picture exactly, but you can tell they are flowers and it tasted wonderful.

I love fresh flowers and was excited to get some from my parents.
So beautiful to look at and to smell.

After dinner was cake and ice cream and opening presents. Robert had taken the boys out shopping the day before. And they excitedly wrapped up my gifts with Alyssa. I had to keep stopping Logan from trying to spill the beans!
The boys wanted to get me a big Heroica set (the new Lego craze in our house), but Robert steered then to the Banana Balance game I told him about.
Can you tell how excited Logan is that they gave me Legos for my birthday?!

I also got a big box of my favorite candy, a Little Red Riding Hood book I had been looking forward to coming out, the Wicked soundtrack (from a good friend), and a gift certificate for a 1 hour massage from Robert.
I love all the cards and phone calls from friends and family.
The girls were fighting over who got to open the Wicked CD and the boys fighting over who opened the Lego game. A sure sign of great gifts! We played a quick game before going to church - a fun game.
Happy birthday to me! and many more 39th birthdays to come - or am I suppose to be saying 29th still?

In Full Swing

Once school starts we quickly get into the rest of the fall sports and activities.
Needless to say it keeps me hopping.

Cross-Country:

Alyssa is on the high school's cross-country team. She's doing great and has been running with the varsity girls.

Soccer:

Natalie is in soccer and has so much fun with her team. She's in the red on the left.
They had their first game, a disappointing 0-1 loss. She was on defense the whole game and is hoping to get in there on offense next time.

Baseball:

Jake wanted to try something new, so we threw baseball in the mix.
He's in the middle, with the hat. I'm gratefully his practices are late on the day he doubles up with Alyssa's evening cross-country practice on Mondays and are at the same field complex as Natalie's soccer when they double up on Thursdays. Games for him will start in another two weeks.

Mutual and Cub Scouts:

Along with the normal youth activities for Alyssa each week, Jake and I now join her at church with Cub Scouts. Yes, Jake is now in scouts and I'm the Wolf Den Leader!I have 5 boys in the den and they are all so excited to be there it makes it extra fun for me.
Robert's been able to take Logan when I have scouts which has been nice, although Logan is always sad that he can't come with us.

Other stuff:

The start of school also means that Robert and I get to help out at the Georgia Poultry Federations Night of Knights - dinner and a concert with a country singer. This year was Clint Black. It was so fun, especially being only 4 tables back from the stage - Robert didn't want to get up close enough to get a really good picture, he said there were too many women around.Along with all these activities I also volunteer in the elementary school - an hour in Logan's class and then an hour in Jake's class once a week.
I am still honing my quilt block sewing skills, being part of a virtual quilting group.
With Georgia's long growing season, we are still enjoying our chocolate cherry tomatoes and bell peppers. I did a second planting this year, getting in for the cooling weather a second round of lettuce
and some 53 day beans.
We still pray for rain - I finished using the water in my rain barrel, for my garden, earlier this week. But we've had a wonderful cool spell lately and I'm thoroughly enjoying having my windows open and some drier air.

Caught!

The boys usually bring some Legos to Natalie's soccer practice to help pass the time. They usually spend some of the time searching for a piece that they lose. This time it was the Lego dice they were using to play their game.
They had heard it roll down the bleachers but then . . . nothing.
They looked and looked but couldn't find it. Jake showed me where it had fallen and said he didn't hear it hit the ground, only bouncing around the bleachers.
I thought for sure it had gone in a hole in the bleachers somewhere, but told Jake to look underneath one more time, right where it had been last.
This is what he found.It hadn't ever hit the ground. It had gotten CAUGHT in a spider's web!
The boys thought that was the coolest thing in the world and were very glad they found the dice.

"Last"s

While we are still having a lot of "firsts" as our children get older, we are starting to have some "lasts."
Yesterday, Robert and I went to our last kindergarten breakfast.
Oh, if we are living around our children when they have children we might have an opportunity to go to a kindergarten breakfast as a grandparent (so far in the future!),
but this is the last with our kids.
Logan was so excited for us to come. He could hardly go to sleep the night before, talking about us coming to eat with him and that he'd get the chocolate milk. He told Jake that mom and dad were coming to breakfast at school with him, like he use to come to Jake's breakfasts with us - but now it was for him.
He wondered if we were going to stay for lunch and recess as well - no, just breakfast.
It is fun being with him and being part of his excitement as he gets to do his school things.