First thing in the morning

The following conversation took place at 6:23 am between Kenan, Micah, and myself.

Me, as I enter their room, "Get back in bed. It's way to early to be up." Kenan: "Okay, I wish it was morning already." Me to Micah: "Lay down. It's not time to be up." Micah: Shakes his head no and stands there. I go and lay him down and tell both boys, "stay in bed." Kenan: "and play with cars." Me: "no, I can hear you, so you better stay in bed." Kenan: "how?" Me: "I know everything" Kenan: "uh uh not everything" Me: I know everything you do."

I have one wish that Micah and Kenan would stay asleep until at least 7. It was all going good until Micah discovered climbing out of the crib. He's the most chill little child, yet he's the only one of the 4 who's ever climbed out of the crib.

working together

How come it is that toddlers do something called parallel play when it comes to playing, but when it comes to trouble they are all up in it TOGETHER?! I am folding a basket of laundry in the dining room and the toddlers are happily chattering in the other room. Now when it's silent I know to go look and check on them but I figure happy chattering is a good sign. So, I'm folding laundry basking in the fact that my day is very productive, kids are all happy and I'm even considering the pool today. I go to put the boys' laundry away and what to happen upon? The closet doors in disarray and the track that the doors slide on hanging by one last screw! How did this happen you may ask? The box of rescue heroes is in the the closet. In that box is a police car that makes siren noises. A very popular toy amongst the toddler set. They succeeded in getting the box out of the closet and emptying it of it's contents. They forgot one minor little thing - slide the doors open first. I can't believe I didn't hear any unusual noises. I have to give them credit for their stealthiness. The track is original but most of the screws have been replaced with longer screws. Now two of the holes have longer and wider screws. The track is on there pretty snug, so hopefully it holds. Otherwise the hubby will be getting his fix-it hat on to either replace the track with a new track and new holes, or even wider screws. I don't know how much wider we can go.

It's 6:45 am

I've been up for 15 minutes. I got to sleep an extra 10 minutes after the hubby left before I woke up to Kenan waking up Micah. With Micah's new found freedom he loves being able to get up and not have to wait for mommy or papa come get him from his crib. Kenan has been sleeping in until 7:30 or even later lately, but he's been up early 2 days in a row! They are watching Tom and Jerry a.k.a. cat and mouse. I am getting a little quiet time before I start thinking about all I have to do today. Last night, Micah went to bed perfectly in his "new bed" It's not really a new bed. It's just his mattress on the floor. The crib broke yesterday. This is the second time it broke and I just feared that Micah's head would get caught. The 2 pieces (head of crib and side of crib separated. The head separated from the post where it's supposed to be glued. ) separated and one corner of the mattress sagged down creating a hole just big enough for a toddler head. Hubby and I decided taking down the crib was the best option since he climbs out of it anyway. Now it's time to look for a big boy bed.

Last night, Timmy and I went to the the end of the season party for the Yankees. His assistant coach hosted it, and everyone had a great time! They have a huge hill in the backyard. When the email said slip 'n' slide on the hill in our yard I was expecting a slight slope, not an actual gigantic hill! This is a huge sledding hill. It's at the edge of their back yard and slide down into the outfield of a baseball field. They had at least 100 feet of plastic sheeting set up for the kids to slide down. I didn't bring the camera or the video camera because team pics were already taken, and I thought "oh, it's just a little party". I was wrong. I really wished I'd brought the cameras. It was very weird seeing all the guys out of their uniforms. One assistant coach is going to coach next year, and he is going to try draft as many of the boys as possible next year. It was fun getting to know parents and chat, and reminisce about plays, kids on the team, or other teams, and little funny things that happened during the season. The Yankees are not done yet. Timmy is doing Fall Ball league. It's a new league that might be started if there is enough interest. The current teams/coaches will stay together as much as possible. Then there is no practices and there are double header games on Sunday afternoons. It lasts for about 5 weeks. Our head coach got an actual Richfield Baseball game ball signed by each kid on the team. He also got a picture of the entire team with their trophies and the kids signed that too. The assistant coaches got gift cards. The coaches gave the boys a certificate, big league chew, baseball cards and an article on team work and sticking together. It features the MN twins and has lot of good stuff in it for the boys to remember.

Now I need to think about laundry and what to do to get ready for our family's first camping trip this weekend!

I need my scream back

This morning I was awoke by lots of footsteps. Kenan and Micah came downstairs. Micah climbed out of his crib (again). I turned on Tom and Jerry and Micah laughed and laughed! Now the little people are out and Curious George is on. Micah is waiting for breakfast so I'll make this quick. When the boys came into my room this morning, they climbed up on my bed and cuddled with me. Kenan tried to scream. He has a cold and his voice just isn't the same. I call it his sick voice. So he hasn't been able to scream for couple days. He was just checking to see if he could. Thankfully he couldn't since 6:45 am is awfully early for screaming. Kenan says to me "Mommy, I'm going to need a shot." I said, "Why will you need a shot?" Kenan says " I can't scream and I need my scream back." Oh Kenan!

Faith Like Potatoes

Hubby, Hannah, Timmy, and I watched Faith Like Potatoes last night. Wonderful movie! Here is a trailer of the movie. What a great message of faith! A great quote from the movie: "The condition for a miracle is difficulty, however the condition for a great miracle is not difficulty, but impossibility.” I definitely recommend that you see this movie if you have not. It really challenged me to really trust God. Not that I don't trust God, but how many times to do put my trust in him when all else fails? Or how many times do I take matters into my own hands instead of trusting God first?

the end

Baseball season is over. The Yankees hung in there and made it all the way to the consolation championship game. They lost to the Rockies yesterday and we beat them today in the loser bracket semi finals. Talk about a confusing bracket. This is how play offs started. The top 8 teams after playoffs go to the quarter finals and are reseeded by playoff record. If there are ties, they are broken by runs scored and runs allowed. Then the winners of the quarterfinals go to the winners bracket of the semis. The losers go to the losers bracket of the semis. The winners of the winners bracket go to the champion ship game. The losers of the winners bracket play for third place. The winners of the losers bracket play for the consolation trophy. Hubby was sick so he stayed home with the little boys. It was nice watching the games on uninterrupted. The first game we played the Giants. They were tied for first with us and the tie was broken by coin toss. Pretty lame but hey, we won the championship trophy! The giants beat us 10-2. In the second game today they played the Rockies and Timmy got a hit! He hit the ball over the pitcher's head and made it to first. They fielders fumbled a minute with the ball so Timmy started for second. Halfway there he had to head back to first since he was caught in the middle of the ball and first base. The first basemen tagged him out. It was a good try for Timmy. He got a hit and allowed the tying run for our team. Because of Timmy's hit we tied the game 3-3 and ended up winning 5-4! Pretty awesome win! 10 minutes later we played the consolation game. That is the game we got creamed 16-3. I have an issue with a coach insisting their players steal bases when they are so far ahead. I mean come on man! It's not like we are going to catch up when there is a 5 run rule in the first 5 innings. Our guys were so tired! They played as good as they could considering they'd been playing ball all day! So the season is over with the team party tomorrow night. That will be a fun celebration of an awesome season! I'm tired and so are Hannah and Timmy. I also sun burned. I did put on sunscreen but I never reapplied so now my shoulders and ears are a tad red. What a beautiful weekend for baseball!

On a different note, Micah is on the verge of needing a big boy bed. He was climbing out of his crib at naptime and then he stopped. Here, I thought it was because I kept talking about a big boy bed. Just when I was going to take down the crib, he stopped climbing out. Well, tonight of all nights, he decides it's funny to climb out of bed at night. The night when mommy is tired and just wants to chill. Well finally after a clean diaper he stays in bed. It is time for a big boy bed. Now we just need to decide whether to do bunk beds for Kenan and Micah and then give Timmy Kenan's bed, or just get a twin bed for Micah. I'm leaning towards bunk beds, though I can envision K jumping off the top bunk and Micah climbing the ladder. On second thought, I think we'll just do a twin bed until Micah is a bit older. I'd rather my boys not break their necks.

One question - why do umps grunt when they call a strike? I mean they really put their all into grunting strrrrriiiiike!!!!

You can't win 'em all

The Yankees lost their third game of the playoffs this afternoon. They are 2 - 1 and do move on to playing in the quarterfinals tomorrow. They played their hearts out and played a great game of ball. Both teams did! The rockies scored that run fair and square. This is the first time this season that I was really upset with umping. Yeah, there were other times during the season that the umps made a bad call or two and their strike zone was the size of a pea, but today the ump had a strike zone the size of the batter. I'm not kidding you! He was calling strikes on our guys when the ball was eye level or higher. Some balls were around the ankles and, sure enough, they were strikes. The ball could go outside the plate by a foot and it was called a strike! I so badly wanted to yell out that we needed a better ump, but what kind of example is that for the kids? I kept my composure until the end of the game. When the ump was within ear shot I said as loudly as I could to my husband, "that was bad umping!" I know he heard me. I was walking behind him to the concession stand, not purposely mind you, but I said loudly "what kind of strike zone was that?!" I was talking to my daughter who agreed. Then there's the boy who was up last for our team. In one respect I feel bad for him, and then again his behavior was a little embarrassing. He struck out and swore, and threw his bat down on the ground and was just about to throw his helmet down when the coach helped calm him down. He did have a lot of pressure on him. First he's been groomed to play ball. His parents put a ton of pressure on him and he doesn't get treats from the concessions if he didn't play well. Second, it was the top of the 6th and we were up to bat. We were down 1-0 and if we didn't score this time we were done. The bases were loaded with 2 outs, and it was a full count. Talk about pressure. I don't think you can get much more pressure than that at this age. He struck out and that was the end. You've got to hand it to both teams. It was 0-0 until the 5th inning. The Rockies really played hard and improved so much from the last time we played them. We beat them that night. The yankees lost one game in the regular season and tied 2. This is the 2nd game they've lost in 19 games. That is pretty darn good! I'm proud of our boys for playing so well. Timmy summed it up very nicely when he said that the game was a lot of fun! It was. I just couldn't help getting upset with how unfair the ump was. Oh well. You win some and you lose some. That is just the way it goes.

There are more games tomorrow. Quarterfinals at 10 am. If we win those we are in the winners bracket of the semis. If we lose, we are in the losers bracket. Then at noon we play the semifinals. The winners of those teams move on to the championship, third place and consolation rounds. I'm looking forward to another great day of baseball! Go Yankees!!!