Baseball

A season of baseball over. And here are....the 8 year old champion Cardinals. The championship game was on Tuesday. It was so fun and exciting! I didn't know I would get so stressed out watching my kids play sports....at least not already by the age of 8. My heart pounds and I have to cover my eyes once in awhile. This season has been full of ups and downs for us. We go back and forth between yanking Noah right out of baseball, and knowing it's good for him and he's learning lessons he couldn't learn any other way. (He's just having a harder time learning those lessons than most it seems). His coach described him last night at "intense", so I'll go with that. But really, Noah has improved SOOOOO much from the start of the season. Baseball is so big out here and everyone always seems to have so much experience. And it's hard when you move around and get started later than everyone else. They always do all sorts of intense camps and things, too, and I have been way too cheap for that. Anyway, it's actually been very fun to watch the games at this age (as long as Noah is being happy). I remember back in the day when we tried T-ball and he just played in the dirt and looked for plants and bugs. Now they understand the rules and it just gets really fun. He had a great encouraging coach (who reminds me SO much of my brother in law!), and great teammates. And it's become actually fun to play catch with him, instead of frustrating like it was in the beginning. (I always ended up being the frustrated wonderful example of a mom who just refuses to play anymore--but really I only remember playing catch as being FUN)

That's my son with no hat and shirt untucked. Both a constant battle during the season. I wonder why? He also always walked around with his shoes untied, but not in baseball so I should count my blessings.

Soccer

Really, how did we end up on the white shirt team?......At first I thought it was just a crazy color to make a soccer shirt for kids. But I looked around on this day, and my son was the only one with mud splattered all over his clothes and the others were all still sparkly white. It looked much worse tha the picture shows. Kaden has an uncanny ability to get things very dirty, very fast.

Botanical Gardens

On Monday we cleaned during the day and after naps headed with our friends the Pinegars, to the Botanical Gardens in Norfolk. It was so fun being back there again. It's one of our favorite places and I really wish we lived closer to it. It's right by the airport, so it worked perfectly to go there for a few hours and then drive to the airport and pick Trav up.This was our big exciting find of the day at the Gardens. The snake!

Yorktown Beach

Memorial Day Weekend Trav was gone playing Racquetball in Texas. (My awesome husband won the military tournament there, by the way--that makes me pretty cool by association). Saturday it was supposed to rain but all through Micah's nap that day it was so hot and sunny that we decided on the spur of the moment to make our first beach trip of the year. Noah wanted to go to Virginia Beach...."It has bigger waves, and the other beaches are BORING". Well that's exactly one reason I wasn't taking them there. I don't want bigger waves when I have four kids lives in my hands, plus it's a long drive and down through the tunnel, and way too many people. This is the perfect low key and safe beach, with little inlets blocked off where they can wade out pretty far. Not crazy amounts of people and crowds, and only 20 minutes from the house. Noah definitely wasn't bored. He and Kaden both found friends to play with and explored and gathered all kinds of cool things and we stayed almost 4 hours. Very fun.

Busch Gardens

One of the best things about this new chore system we have set up, is the date with mom and dad as a reward. We have been wanting to set something up to have one on one time with the boys for awhile and it just doesn't happen much, and this makes it so it does. They are earning something we really wanted to be doing anyway. The last date we did was not one on one, however. We made Kaden and Noah each get 2 cards full, and got a babysitter for Ammon and Micah, and took the 2 of them to Busch Gardens using our once a year free military pass. It was definitely the way to do it! Ammon gets scared going 2 feet high on the swing and would have been too short for most of the rides, so this way the boys really got to ride as many things as possible.

Pictures from the skyride

I admit I have always been the ride wimp. So many of them made me throw up in my younger years, and it's really not fun to throw up and stay nauseated all during the theme park. I detest all spinning rides mainly, and always loved the water rides and even the roller coaster type ones. We actually left the memory card in the computer so weren't able to take many pictures.

Above is Kaden and I while Trav and Noah took a break. Below is one of those rides I detest, turning you in small circles at the same time as the whole thing is going in a big circle. I don't think Kaden was so sure by the end. He said it gave him a headache. But they did have fun going together.

My kind of ride...actually Noah thought this was going to be boring, but it turned out to be one of their favorites, too.

Their was a bird sanctuary which really was their favorite part. Where you could hold out your arm and the birds would let you hold them, and sometimes they jump up onto your head. That was one of the first things of the day and I had a feeling it would be the most memorable. It was such a fun and tiring day for them.

Raw Oatmeal Cookies

I get so excited when I find yummy recipes. This was on http://www.greenereating.com/ and is such an easy yummy and healthy snack. Trav is always my true gauge on goodness because he can be difficult to please with healthy things. But he came home before the kids got out of school and ate them all before they got home. Granted, he was really hungry, but he thought they were yummy. So I had to make a double batch, which lasted barely into the next day.

Raw Oatmeal Cookies

1 1/2 - 2 c oatmeal
1tsp cinnamon
1 c dates
1 c raisins


Combine oatmeal and cinnamon. Chop dates into a fine mush (I used a food processor). Mash together, add raisins and keep working it until it makes a dough that will stick together. I added a little water to help it along at that point. Roll into balls and smash into cookies and they are ready to eat.

I gave some to my friend and she admits they weren't her favorite, but she was expecting more of a cookie texture and taste and it's more like a great granola bar type....she liked it better after knowing that =).

Full week

Summary of a wild and crazy week.


Starting with a migraine, and wearing sunglasses for 4 days, and I still feel kind of weird and light headed and tender.


Last minute temple trips. If you are going to have a headache, this is definitely the place to have one. Quiet and peaceful and soothing.


2 year old who thinks he can change his own diaper 3 times this week after having a stinky diaper. The last time I found him upstairs in the bathroom, with nothing on. He was messy, and the roll of TP was partly undone and I could see he had tried to wipe himself. No trace of the messy diaper. So Ammon and I did an emergency search. It was nowhere upstairs, but I saw a little spot at the top of the stairs, indicating he had come all the way from downstairs. So we ran down and didn't see it anywhere. Then I smelled something as I stood at the sink. And there it was in the garbage can. So he had taken it off, put it in the garbage and then went upstairs and tried to clean himself. Fairly impressive. And with one small carpet spot to show for it. Phew. But it's a habit I don't want to continue.


8 year old who cries hysterically every time he strikes out, and therefore strikes out every time. Some intensive practicing yesterday with Dad, that is...practicing smiling and having fun and not getting angry.


6 year old who cries hysterically because he didn't get ice cream at the party, therefore he didn't get to go back and get ice cream.


6 year old who is also very sweet and praises his little brother for writing 2 letters. He went on and on telling him what a good job he did. It warmed my heart.


8 year old with 2 ticks to pull off in one day. Nasty, ewww, gross. They really love this child. He does not really love them back.


Family Home Evening about cheerfulness and kindness to other. Not that any of our kids need that lesson, especially a certain 8 year old who I just don't know what to do with sometimes.


Fun yard sales where we found a baseball glove and a bat and missed out on a bike for a poor 4 year old still riding a tricycle.


Bargain box is a great place where today I bought some church pants, a church shirt, a pair of jeans, and pair of tennis shoes for $2.25.


Oh and as a sidenote, I get called a new calling at church. No sleep after that. Oh my goodness. What is our Bishop thinking? So now I keep waking up at 3:30 or 4 a.m. and just getting up after not being able to go back to sleep. That one's not common knowledge yet, though.


Lots of dishes and vacuuming, even more laundry, and I only get one run in because of my silly head.

And a little awesome extra time with my awesome husband, since most of his squadron was gone and he took a couple of extra days to be home before leaving to play racquetball for the Airforce team at nationals. Go Travis! I sure would like to go...

Toys constantly dumped out of bins, cupboards emptied of tupperware and utensils, tubes of toothpaste smeared all over bathrooms, marker on kitchen floors, water dumped from cups to floors all over the house all week, and lots of giggling and trying to escape the house and get into the fridge--all by one silly 2 year old.

Oh and finally, tonight was a great game for one 8 year old who did it! He had a good attitude and tried hard and it paid off! 4 hits, first time attempting to pitch (and threw an out on 1rst as a pitcher). It was heavenly (yet I have to say very stressful STILL--what in the world did I put my parents through by playing sports?)