Baseball - Game Count 5 down, 27 to go!!!

We survived opening day!! It was a blast. We started the day by taking pictures and attending a pancake breakfast. There were tons of people and it took us about 30 minutes to get through the line. Once we got the pancakes, the kids had a whopping 5 minutes to scarf down their food and make it onto the field to line up with their teams. Then we had opening ceremonies. The kids all ran out onto the other baseball field with their teams!! It was freezing and by the time opening ceremonies were almost over, I was really feeling sorry for the coaches who were trying to get the kids, ages 5 - 16, to stay quiet and pay attention! After it was over, we gathered all the kids and headed back to the car!

A few hours later we returned to the fields for Faith's game. I had to make a mad dash, Faith's game and Hyrum's friend's birthday party started at the same time. So I dropped Faith off early and then drove, very calmly, over to another park and dropped off Hyrum. I made it back to the baseball field hoping that I had not missed my daughter's first at bat only to find out that their game was late getting started. In fact, 30 minutes later we still had not started!! Once they finally got going, Faith had a marvelous time. She looks like a baseball player!! As you can see she is on the Yankees. She had her second game yesterday, and she was so pleased with herself! She was the first one in yesterday's game to get someone out! It was an awesome play. I think that she has found her sport.

After Faith's opening game, we ran over to get Hyrum from the party and then home to get his cup. You see, I got a call from the coach's wife asking if Hyrum would please play catcher. I said sure. Only the catcher has to wear a cup in T-Ball. I had not yet told Hyrum about it and I don't think he even knew what a cup was. That was a fun conversation!! After he was told about it, he was less than thrilled with playing catcher and has since said that he will not be playing catcher ever again!! Unfortunately, he will have to, and he wasn't happy when I told him that!!

Vilate is really enjoying playing the game. She is one of only two girls on the team. If you ever happen to attend one of their games, she will be the only kid with her had on backwards. She thinks that it looks really cool! She gets bored easily and would prefer it if she was the only one ever up to bat!! She can't wait for the next game, she gets to be catcher and she really wants to tag all the kids out!!

Helaman is really bummed that he is not old enough to play. Lucky for us the coach of the A's T-Ball team (Vilate's and Hyrum's team) is a friend of ours from church. He lets Helaman help with the practices, Helaman gets all the balls that the other kids can't quite get and then at the end of practice Helaman gets to hit a few balls off the tee. It is really fun!! Helaman loves baseball and it is really nice that he gets to be the unofficial bat boy!

By the end of opening day, the kids were beat, so was the mom!! Gloria fell asleep in the car on the way to the final game and then stayed asleep in the stroller through the entire game. It was really nice for me because David had to work and by then, I had chased Gloria enough. Nephi loved the bleachers and it did not take long for him to figure out how to climb up on the lowest one. He loves to explore and he really seems to enjoy eating rocks!!

So now we have completed 5 games out of 32!! YEA!!!!!!!!

The New Bike

I have lots of kids. They are all so different. Just learning to ride a bike is different for all of them. When Faith was in Kindergarten she was determined that she would learn how to ride a bike all on her own. She begged me to take the training wheels off of Hyrum's 12 inch bike, it was the only one we had. So I finally did and she spent about 2 hours one afternoon and taught herself. I tried to help by offering to hold on, but she would have none of it. Then there is Vilate, she did a similar thing to Faith. She wanted to ride without training wheels, so she begged me to take her training wheels off and then she let me hold on to the bike a few times, but decided that she wanted to do it by herself. So a few weeks after the training wheels were off, she was off and riding all over! Then there is Gloria. She got a new bike, just before Christmas a friend gave us a hand-me-down bike and Gloria loves to sit on it. She cannot figure out how to pedal the thing to save her life. I have tried, and now I have decided that she can just love to sit on it and I am okay with that!!! Then there are the boys. Helaman loves to ride his little bike all around, the problem is that he is just not very fast and he gets really frustrated and angry when everyone else passes him. It gets really ugly really fast!!! And then there is Hyrum. He is my: "If I can't get it the first time, I will never be able to do it" kid. We have been trying to teach him to ride a bike for over a year now. He just doesn't like to do hard things. I can't blame him, most people don't! So, after a year of trying to teach him to ride a bike, he did it this week!!! Then he promptly reminded me that a few months ago as incentive, I said that when he did learn to ride a bike we would go to the store and he could pick out a brand new bike!! Oops!!!!! Why do they have to remember everything that you say, unless it involves cleaning or homework? Well, we did it on Friday. I took all 6 kids with me and we went to Toys-R-Us and Hyrum was given a budget and he did an awesome job. He was able to get a new bike, helmet and knee and elbow pads. On Saturday morning we put his bike together and he got to ride it for about an hour in the afternoon!! It was so cool!!

The great thing was that Vilate and Faith were both cheering him on and they were so excited that he got a new bike. I love it when they are happy for eachother!!

Happy Easter

On Friday, we were invited to an Easter Egg Hunt at a friend's house. There were over 25 kids there. It was so much fun. Here are some picture of the kids having a blast!!

My kids are getting so big!! I don't think I am ready to have big kids.

Spring Break

Spring Break was this last week. The kids and I had a blast!! We went to lots of different parks. On Wednesday we went to Howe park. We took some friends with us and I ended up being there with 10 kids. For the first 45 minutes, or maybe it was an hour, I was the only adult. It was a little crazy!! Then a friend of mine showed up with her 3 kids. We were way outnumbered. My original goal was to have everyone play nicely together and stay away from the creek!! Well, as you can tell by the pictures...the creek thing did not go my way!! It started with Faith and her friend Karrin down at the creek and then slowly, one by one or maybe two by two the other kids joined in and within 20 minutes, they were all down there. Then I said, "Make sure you don't get your shoes wet." Not even 10 minutes later Faith had "accidently" stepped into the water and her shoe was all wet. She asked if she could take her shoes off and I made the brilliant declaration that shoes must stay on but that we could wash them when we got home...that was the end of any dry kids. Within 15 minutes, the kids were all in the water. I must say that I was glad that my kids went in the deepest and I have to publicly apologize to all the other parents!! The kids had a blast and I have decided that we will never go back to the park with the way too accesible creek!!!

The good thing was that Gloria did not go in the water and instead just hung out with me and Nephi most of the time. We had a lot of fun!! After the kids were thoroughly drenched, we went over to the pond on the other side of the park and the kids got to feed the ducks. They thought that was really cool!

Just to let you know, I did not lose any kids and no one was seriously wounded. Hyrum did get a monster splinter in his foot, but all kids were accounted for and in good spirits when we left!!

Fun Traditions

My kids rock!! I started a tradition many years ago, where Laurence and Laurisa the Leprechauns come to visit on St. Patrick's Eve. They usually leave the kids a little treat and then color the kids green...not a lot, just some marks on their arms and maybe their face. The kids love it and in the past couple of years have tried to catch the leprechauns. So here is picture of this years trap. They made it look like a house. Then in the door way, behind the mailbox, they put a trap door and covered it with some pennies to intice Laurence and Laurisa in. According to the note that Laurence and Laurisa left, Laurisa fell in but luckily used her magic to escape. The kids got some green L-shaped sugar cookies with chocolate sprinkles from the Leprechauns. They loved it!!!