Thursday, April 30, 2009

10 is for Tolleson

...or at least for our uniforms! You know the saying:

Like Son...


...like Father!

Here's the latest game {at least as of right now... we head out to another game in 2 hours} and the boys watching daddy play. Good thing I snapped that picture when I did, because they only watched for about, oh, two minutes.

Then, they were off with the herd. This is only a small sampling of the many offspring that were at the game. I think I tallied up over 20 youngsters at this family event. That was lots of fun.

Back to daddy, he is so fun to watch. He makes great hits...we are always rooting for a nice low drive--those high-soaring softballs are pretty to watch, but notorious for turning into fly balls. He also makes great catches...especially of the afore-said fly balls. He has put out many a man with his great catches.

Here is his debut as Catcher...

And one last little video--same song, second verse. Just my attempt to get a little better video of William dashing to first.






Post Script: We took the boys to see EARTH last Saturday. I went in to buy the tickets while daddy parked the car, and told the lady what I wanted. No luck. The projector was broken. Can you believe it! So, we took the boys to see EARTH again, on Sunday. Success. We loved it. I had looked into it ahead of time, and was only concerned about bloodshed. I told the boys that there might be some eating-of-animals in the movie, and they said GREAT...so we braved the unknown. I thought that the natural brutality was handled very "tastefully" {ha} so that it really looked like the animals were having a friendly rompus {as long as I averted my eyes from the plain terror on the face of the snack}. And, Mom, we missed you...this was the first movie we have taken the kids to without you!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Fun and Games

So, T-Ball isn't all-work-and-no-play, at least not for William. When I ask him about t-ball, he says, "it's boring"...that is, the 50 mins of the game that he is not batting or running bases. He does keep himself busy, however....

...playing in the dirt...


...climbing in the dugout...


...playing superhero...


...and getting the regular post-game coke {the supreme highlight, and the ultimate reason most boys are excited about t-ball in the first place}.


Monday, April 20, 2009

Up to bat: William

Well, here's my first go at a video! It is short, but, you've got to start somewhere, right? Let me know if you are able to see it okay...

This is at William's 3rd game...he makes a great hit, and a {partially obscured} run to 1st base.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Take me out the the ball game!

I know I have shared some of these pictures before, but I wanted to get them, and some other new ones up on the page. Here's one of our dashing new ball player...
and his team...

and his stance...

and his run!

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Destination: Duck Pond

William and Trevor have really gotten the hang of bike riding! We went for a little family ride yesterday, with Samuel riding a bike from Sharon's that has training wheels.
biking 1The guys doing a little pre-ride warm-up.

Off we go!! (Actually, that took awhile...once we got to the end of the street, Tim had to go back and fix a tire, then "someone" had to go back to use the potty...)

We found these amazingly huge tadpoles in the pond. Their bodies were about the size of a golf ball!!

The ducks didn't stick around too long, and we got to have fun feeding the turtles...Did you know that if you are sneaky, you can reach out and pet them? Yep. Thankfully, no one fell in.

And here's the main point: the pictures of the kids...



Was he mad about something??

And this is how we went home. Not far into the ride, we discovered we had failed to train Samuel to ride a bike, and the whole "braking" trick was a little too much for him. (Sorry there are no pictures of the near-wrecks that Sam and I had on the way there...Needless to say, there was some shrill screaming involved. The ride home was much better. :)

All in all, it was a success!

Our Easter Egg Painting Event

Aahhh...Saturday morning. I love waking up with Tim actually still in bed, knowing that I have the day ahead of me to get some things done. This morning I got up thinking, What am I going to blog? Already, last night, I almost made us late to William's T-ball game, because I was blogging. That's one of the reasons I haven't started before now: time. BUT...I have pictures!! How can I let everyone see them?? Perhaps a blog?? Well...We'll give it a try.

Following will be some pictures of our Easter Egg Decoration Event! First, the background:

We had seen a Reading Rainbow video {these are oft-forgotten treasures, are they not?} that documented the art of Ukrainian Egg decorating. The eggs were beautiful! The kids were enthralled. They had to make some themselves. {I tried to find an authentic-looking site, but unfortunately, it seems that old Ukrainian women do not blog. You can look at this website though...it has some interesting diagrams.}

On the video, the woman used a little home-made looking tool called a kistky {which apparently Michael's and Wal-mart have not discovered}. So, we made our own tools {out of bamboo skewers, heavy tinfoil {for real!} and craft wire}.



First, you put a little wax {I cut a left-over Christmas Eve candle into chunks} into the metal funnel. Then, you heat the wax over a candle.



Then, quickly draw on the egg with the melted wax. Each time, you can get about 1/4 - 1/2 inch of a line drawn. It takes some patience.



After you have a design, you dye the egg. Then, do some more design, and dye again, with another {darker} color. This can be done numerous times, with each layer of wax covering a different color.



Samuel is doing some fancy dyeing...



You can see that Trevor's egg is getting darker...

Then, when you feel you are finished, you warm the egg next to a candle, and use a towel to rub off the wax as it melts.





TaDa! Here's our finished eggs!

Friday, April 17, 2009

My First Picture



Well, here's my precious family! We are visiting a friend during"Family Day" at our local Military Base. Of course, we took the opportunity to pose in this Black Hawk...

Let's test it out...

My first time blogging!  How exciting!