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:
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!
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):
Do you ever have those weekends that end up being close to perfection? Where you feel like you were super productive but also got to enjoy some time with your family? I feel like sometimes those weekends are rare...so often we are just running in circles around each other, taking kids here and there (sometimes separately), and trying to cram in a weeks' worth of work into 2 days of a weekend.
But that wasn't the case this past weekend, and I was so grateful for that! Friday night, Jake had a baseball game...I forgot to get pictures but GG and Pappy were able to come and the boys did a great job on the field!
Saturday morning was a divide and conquer kind of morning....Jake and Brian had baseball pictures followed by a practice starting at 8:15am; Liam had t-ball at 10.
We met back at home and all had lunch together, then headed back out for the Steelers Fan Blitz, which I posted about here. That night, we pretty much all crashed by the time we came back home and threw something together for dinner...but it was so nice to spend the whole afternoon together. No other work, no distractions.
Sunday morning, we headed to church and it was nice and warm out already when we came out of Sunday School, so the kids hit the playground there for a little bit before we headed home:
We headed home and started to tackle the giant pile of mulch that had been delivered on Saturday. Remember my post from last week about how Liam refuses to change out of whatever clothes he started in for the day? That was the case again on Sunday....who wouldn't want to spread mulch in their church clothes??
Shout out to the boys for their behavior on Sunday....I posted not too long ago about how I was losing my mind sometimes with their fighting, but on Sunday they were angels. Once the excitement of mulch spreading wore off, they entertained themselves and each other all over the yard....riding bikes, playing on the swing set, digging for worms (gag), and playing spies with their walkie talkies. They were being so good that Brian and I had time to take a break partway through the day and challenge them to a hockey match!
We didn't get all of the mulch done, but we put a really good dent in the pile. We grilled dinner, ate outside on the patio, and enjoyed some homemade milkshakes for dessert. Everyone was disgustingly dirty and incredibly exhausted by the end of the day (my arms are still sore!), so I would say those are signs of a fun and productive day.
