Baseball Madness

The regular baseball season has come to an end... but I think our baseball days have gotten even more busy! Both William and Zachary were selected to be part of all star teams. Zachary is on a 7u team that will be practicing for 2 hours every day this week until their tournament starting this weekend in Ventura.
William has already been practicing with a club team that has now turned into the 8u all star team. He had his first weekend tournament last weekend and did awesome. They played 2 games on Saturday and he was the opening pitcher for the second game in the afternoon! He pitched 2 innings, struck out several batters and the team only allowed 1 run for the game. I didn't realize how nerve racking it is to have your son be the pitcher! A lot of the game is up to him. He has to throw strikes so that the batters don't walk bases. He did amazing for his first time pitching. The 3rd inning (and final inning, since it was a timed game & there was a 15 run mercy rule) William was the catcher. Also a hugely important spot! He had to make sure he caught all the pitches thrown across the plate so that the runners wouldn't steal bases. Man, it's a whole different game with kid pitch.
Anyway, this is what takes up our every afternoon and evening. We are hardly ever home at "dinner time" anymore because we are at one field or another at a practice or game until 7 or 8pm.

Jameson is content to help field balls during practices and run around with friends during the games. Leila is a trooper and knows that every day we will get in the car to go to brothers baseball. She doesn't seem to mind one bit and has come to understand that the baseball field is her second home right now. She just smiles and makes friends with all the players, she knows all of them by name faster than I do.

Looking forward to July 1st when hopefully the craziness will all come to an end and we can get in the pool more often.... cause that is really what my pregnant body would love right now :)

Two May birthdays!

I have been so tired and busy between baseball, school, and pregnancy that I have not had the energy to sit and record what has been happening around our home for over a month!
Well, we celebrated Jameson's 5th birthday & Zachary's 7th birthday with the help of a fun surprise visit from Grandpa Mills. He came to town to watch the boys play some baseball and it happened to be our big birthday week too! It was so nice because I had no idea what I might do special for them besides a favorite dinner and birthday cake... no time for birthday parties when every weekend is filled with baseball games and church. Grandpa took each one of them on a special outing to get lunch, pick out a birthday present, and have some nice one on one time. He even managed to think of me too and bring home a mothers day gift. It really was so sweet, thoughtful, and special to have him here for a few days right during a special yet chaotic week. (William had 2 days of state testing this same week at a testing site in Carpinteria! His and ours first time having to deal with this)

I think that both Jameson and Zachary felt very loved and appreciated for their birthdays. Jameson chose a big BBQ tri tip birthday dinner which we shared with Grandpa as well. Zachary went with breakfast for dinner and I made all sorts of types of pancakes with toppings like chocolate chips, strawberries, and whipped cream along with eggs to balance it out. We went to a celebration of life the evening of Zachary's birthday, so afterwards we went and got frozen yogurt for a birthday treat.

Really, I am so very blessed at how well behaved, easy going, and pleasant all of my children are. There was no whining from Zachary that I made them all sit quietly at a "funeral gathering" on the evening of his birthday when he could have been opening his birthday gifts at home. I'm certainly a lucky mom :)