Tournament Time

Joel is at an interesting place in the world of baseball.....first year with boys pitching. Most of the regular season games also had coaches pitch after giving the boys several tries with each batter. By the end of the season though, it was just the boys pitching. Painful is the word that probably describes it best. Our team actually has some good pitchers (for 3rd graders-to-be), but it is still hard to get it across the plate consistently. Let's be honest, as a batter that makes it pretty tough to do your best when the pitches are pretty much "all over the place". The tournament is getting the boys ready for next year when it is all kid pitch. I remember when Matthew was this age and they used really good pitching machines.....really good idea!!! The game had more hitting and fielding! By the summer before 4th grade, somehow the boys were able to pitch (maybe it was 4th and 5th graders). So I am hopeful that next year will have more than just pitch, pitch, pitch. Anyway, I think Joel typically did hit when the coach pitched this season, but this game he walked each time (as did the majority of boys). So the game is 90% about the pitching at this stage and probably not too exciting for fielding. I tried to get an action shot, but I will be honest when I say that there wasn't much action. The game was still pretty fun to watch, cheering the pitcher on when he threw a strike or when someone finally hit the ball (or walked)! Ken called 5 times for updates, because he was able to attend most of this season's games, but this week is gone for the tournament games. I hope the boys win tomorrow night so Ken can see the next game. I teased him that if I was in labor he would have called less. Although he pointed out that he was present when I was in labor, I still think I spoke the truth. It was fun for Joel to give him the play-by-play on the phone after the game. I think Joel likes baseball, so there will be exciting games in the future, where fielding and hitting play a bigger role!

A new face!

I have not only been an absent blogger, I haven't gotten my camera out nearly enough this summer. We had Vacation Bible School and Carolyn and Joel had Art Camp and I didn't get a single picture! They took approximately 1,000,000 at VBS, so I am hoping to download some of those. Father's Day weekend was lovely, starting with my Dad's family's reunion in Dubuque on Saturday. (hope to get pictures from my sister) On the drive home we had dinner at Texas Roadhouse as a treat for Ken. Today we had a BBQ with friends from my mother's group ("Faith and Friendship"). Even with my absent camera lately there was something that had to be captured today. This picture has been a long time coming, since it is the first top tooth lost by Joel! H His baby teeth have been in no rush to come out. The dentist said, "no worries", but Joel was happy for today to come! I need to get the kids to Target to get their yearly professional photograph and capture the moment!

Anna is Five Years old

Anna indicated that she had a great birthday. The best part is that the fun is not yet over. When you turn 5 in our family you get to go to Chuck-E-Cheese or local equivalent. We are going there next Saturday!!!

Here is Anna's cake - she wanted cupcakes with a princess doll on top. We aim to please and glad that this has never been too difficult in the cake department.

Some crazy person gave Anna a guitar for her birthday. ha ha - in my defense I got it on sale for 90% off.....which translates to - she can have fun with it for awhile, but it may not last forever.

Joel's First Communion

Joel's First Communion was quite wonderful. Family photo!

Here is Joel with his Aunt Debbie, Aunt Mary and cousin Liz.

w/ Grandmas and Grandpas!

It's been awhile...

Once I don't post for awhile, I feel like there is so much to say, I can't possibly say it all so I don't say anything. (Because I would like to post about Spring break and Easter...) Well here is a quick look at just a few photos to give a feel for our end of winter, start of spring without trying to include it all!

We went to see my folks over spring break. It was a nice trip and they will be coming here on Friday for Joel's First Communion.

Here is Anna, today actually, when we left Mr. Potato Head on the door of a friend's house. We called it "traveling Potato Head" and welcomed them to keep him or pass him on. Just for fun - in secret!!!

Here is Matthew doing a project he thought of a few months ago....making those little puff ball pets for his siblings for Easter. He won a few selling magazines at school and the other kids loved them. I thought it was a super sweet idea.

Here is Carolyn, AKA fisher-woman. She doesn't mind baiting a hook or taking the fish off....clearly traits not learned from me. We stayed at a fun cabin overnight during spring break and then fished at Red Rock Lake (ok I didn't fish, but I sat by the lake)

Here is Joel playing basketball. Since baseball starts tomorrow, glad to be posting this picture today.

I will post later in the week - can't miss First Communion pics!!

Admission of Defeat or Best Decision of the Day

We have long had 2 plastic totes of puzzles - one with the wooden puzzles and one with the cardboard puzzles. Whenever I saw the cardboard puzzle box, I would always cringe because we had so many missing pieces and bags of misc. pieces. NO MORE

We went through our wooden puzzles and Anna kept her favorites. The rest will go with me to work for kids to play with while I talk to their folks. The cardboard puzzles - except for a select few (saved for next week's Spring Break) - went into recycling! Yeah.

I guess I always thought "someday I will go through all the mismatched puzzles and they will once again be whole. Well, that day will never come and I have admitted that fact!

2 totes less in my storage room. I am giving a cheer (in my head of course :)

I rue, I mean, Rube the day

One of Matthew's assignment for his STEM (science technology engineering and math) class was to build a Rube Goldberg machine. "What fun" he thought, "what fun" we thought.....well yes, fun for the first 25 hours then not so much. My brother implied "let him do his own project", which really he did, but after the first 15+ hours it was clear that he needed a bit of help.....after the next 10 it was clear that balloons just don't want to pop.

Finally after about 1000 trials, the machine worked - although not perfectly. It was funny that he had trouble with the train, dominoes and ball on the final trial, because those worked pretty seamlessly for the first 999 trials, but not when finally the stupid balloon popped and the radio turned on. Of course the cinematographer really stunk (me) - although you couldn't see a few steps happening, because they occurred too quickly - they did in fact take place.

Things that didn't make the final cut included a zip line and a boot dropping from a pulley-system to activate the radio.

Thing that I wish had never been thought of: "balloon popping on command"! eish.


Now Matthew has to do his write-up, but more importantly CLEAN up all the initial trials at his Rube Goldberg machine!