Fall Ball!

Jake signed up to play fall baseball this year... I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I was when he asked to play, because for months leading up to this summer, he had been talking about how he was going to play football.  Listen, I like football.  I love to watch Steelers games.  I'm a huge Friday Night Lights fan.  But I love to watch football when it's on TV and not my child.

In addition to my fear of him suffering a terrible head injury, I also have a fear of anything that involves a 6 day a week commitment. I struggled with getting him to and from baseball that was only 2-3 days per week...the thought of up to 6 days a week made me paralyzed with fear.  Thankfully for me and my sanity, he loved baseball so much in the spring that he wanted to play again this year.  Crisis averted.

I have to say, I'm really enjoying it!  It's like watching a true baseball game out there, I think because the kids who sign up are a bit more serious if they're playing in the fall....they are so into the game!  Since it's not a regular season, the team gets to pick the name rather than being assigned one....we are the Bomb Squad!  Here are some shots from the season so far:

 

 

A few videos of his hits this year:

 

Baseball: That's a wrap!!

We are officially D.O.N.E with baseball for the season!  It was fun to watch them play of course, but I was ready for a break.  And Liam had been ready to be done since the season started, so....yeah.  Let's just say it's a good thing we're done!! 

Liam might not have loved going every week, but he loved getting his trophy at the end!

Jake was selected to play in an all-star game near the end of the season, we were so proud!  Here is a hit from that game:

This was the first year that they got outs and strikes; as a mom, it was hard to watch sometimes. It's hard to see your kid looking discouraged and disappointed when he would strike out...but I know that it's an important life lesson to learn, and I was proud of him that no matter what, he always got back out for the next play.  I might have complained at times about the running around involved in baseball, but I really did love watching him play.  He made a lot of progress this year!! 

After the all-star game, there was a trophy presentation, where they announced each kid's name on the loudspeaker, so that was cool for them:

 

 Another season in the books!!

What we've been up to

I've fallen behind on blogging, so brace yourself for a post that's basically just filled with random happenings and pictures.  You're welcome! :)

After years of tagging along to many, many birthday parties (a benefit of being the 2nd child, I suppose)  Liam is starting to have his own little social life at birthday parties.  This was a recent one for one of his besties, Maya...with an appearance by Ariel!!

Painting seashells-look how sweaty his head is, he had just come out of the bouncy house!

As I posted before, Liam has pretty much moved away from weekend naps.  It's fine for the most part, and sometimes if we're home, I have both of them take a rest in the afternoon to recharge....sometimes they read or do something quiet, sometimes I put on a movie and pop some popcorn:

And sometimes, after an especially tiring weekend, this is what happens around 5pm:

 

DONE.

We had a low key Father's Day celebration, which was very welcome after a few busy weekends in a row.  My parents came up and the rain held off so we were able to have a family wiffleball tournament, followed by a trip to Bruster's and burgers on the grill later in the evening :)  Happy belated Father's Day!

Me and my dad, circa 1984

Brian and his dad, 2006

Brian and the boys, 2011

Nothing like seeing a picture of your newborn to make you realize how quickly the time passes.  *sniff, sniff*  Is someone chopping onions in here?!?

Anyway--this past weekend was pretty much a total wash.  Saturday was storm-tastic.  There were maybe 3 breaks in the rain with tiny amounts of sun, but that would be followed by a full blown storm with sideways rain. We did the usual rainy day activities for most of the morning....coloring, board games, etc.

We gave up on the day by lunch time and went to "Inside Out":

I promise Jake was having fun, I'm not sure what is going on in that picture, haha!!  It was a good movie...not my favorite Pixar movie, but good. It made me cry, though I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a Pixar movie produced that hasn't resulted in tears for me! 

Sunday was a bit better in that there was no rain by late-morning, but temperature wise it felt more like fall.  I could nearly taste the pumpkin spice latte!!  We made it to church in the morning...I have to tell you a little more about this picture.  It's rare these days that Jake wears anything other than "comfy" shorts (aka-athletic shorts) so when he does venture out of them, I like to document it.  They were both looking handsome and my impatiens are the BOMB this year (if I do say so myself) so I wanted to snap a picture of them in front of the beautiful flowers.  That's not asking so much, is it? 

Well, according to my 7 going on 17 year old it was.  His exact response when I told him to stand still so I could get his picture was, "Mom, are you seriously going to take my picture?  These church clothes are embarrassing" Well, excuuuuuuuuse me. 

Also, when did I become "mom"???

The rest of the day ended up being a nice balance of work and play....Brian was able to get some treehouse work done (I promise to post an update soon!), I was able to clean out 2 closets that looked like they were going to explode at any minute, and we were able to play in between that stuff.  At one point we were all wizards and sorcerers:

And later in the day, we headed outside to play baseball. 

In case you were wondering, my cue for that picture was "smile boys!"  NAILED IT.

So that's it for right now; it's hard to believe that it's almost JULY! 

Recent rundown

We are really in the homestretch here; June just snuck right up on us and today is Jake's last day of school and it's only a half day!  Let the summer camp shuffle begin!

Work on the treehouse has continued; I forgot to snap some shots of the actual updates, but I did get this one of the hard-at-work boys, doing their thing in the garage one day.  We are hosting the end of the season baseball party at our house in just a little over 2 weeks, so Brian has set that as his deadline so that the team can enjoy the house.  Fingers crossed!!

Speaking of baseball, Jake's team is really coming along.  It seems like they have fallen into a groove as a team, and many of them are getting some great hits and making awesome plays in the field.  For some reason this video is sideways, but here is a recent hit that Jake had:

 

 

As for Liam...well, there's only 2 games left :)  I don't know, he really does a nice job once he's there (with the exception of some poor listening skills/attitude at the game last week) but he really seems to dread going.  We started Jake in t-ball at roughly the same age (he was 4, but a few months older into the age of 4 with the way their birthdays fall) but maybe it was just too young for Liam.  Oh well....we'll finish out this year and give him the choice again next year.

On Saturday, we were supposed to have our annual neighborhood outdoor movie night, but off and on all-day storms prevented that from happening, so instead I had a temporary lapse in my sanity invited over some of the neighborhood kids and moms for an indoor movie night in our playroom.  We ended up with 10 kids, who were WILD when they first got there, but did settle down to watch the movie, so all was well.

Sunday morning, everyone was dragging due to the late night the night before.  We had plans of going to church, but then I realized that summer hours had started and there was no usual 9:30 service so we'd either be rushing like crazy to get there by 8:30 or not going until 10:30.  We decided to just skip it, and instead took the kids biking over at Jake's school (which is something he has been begging to do, apparently lots of kids at school talk about how they come there on the weekends!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier this week, Jake's class had a field trip to the Science Center and I chaperoned....I've said it before, but it's worth saying again....every time I'm in that classroom or around teachers, I appreciate them even more!!  It was fun, but phew...tough to keep track of kids in such a crowded place! (his shirt has those boxes on it to block out his school name)

 

Jake had to go back to school to finish up his day, and then when I got him off the bus we decided to pick up Liam and take a little impromptu trip to the laser tag place by our house.  Here was their reaction when I said where we were going:

  We had a blast!! 

We decided to keep up the fun by making a stop at our local library on the way home; they have a cute little play area in the children's section, so these two set up shop.

So that's been the last few days for us....Happy June, everyone!

Baseball Boys

We are moving right along in baseball season!  Jake's team is really coming along, they looked great at last night's game....nearly everyone getting hits and making it onto bases and some great plays in the field!  Jake caught a ball and got a kid out for the 3rd out of that inning, then later in the game (while playing shortstop) he threw the ball to first, resulting in 2 more outs....needless to say, he was on top of the world last night! :-) 

Playing shortstop

I didn't get any video last night, but here is one from a game last week (they got him out at first, but it was a good hit anyway!)

Liam's team is progressing as well as you can expect a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds to do :)  To be honest, he doesn't love it.  By doesn't love it, I mean he begs every week to not go.  Once we're there, he's fine and seems to enjoy it, but it's a battle to get out of the house every week.  I don't know if it's that he really dislikes it or if he's just that much of a homebody that he doesn't want to leave.  A few weeks ago, he tried to bribe me into letting him skip the game by saying we could go to Target together instead.  He really knows how to work the system with me!! 

 

 

"This medal is great and all, but I'd really like to be at Target right now."

Video of Liam:

With the longer days, the boys sometimes head outside with Brian after dinner for some batting practice (why yes, that is an old door that they use as a ball stop):

 

Coach Daddy with some batting demonstrations

 

 

 

Liam's turn!

 

Have a great weekend!