Number Five

Number Five is Jack's t-ball number.  His team is the Nevada City T-Ball Giants, and today was their first game.  It was also the Spring Carnival at his school and the Car Show downtown, so it was a busy day for our family.  The highlight, though, was definitely this game.  Jack was so excited to play, and the other spectators and I agreed that it was the best entertainment in town.  The clueless kids were so stinkin' cute!  It was their first game, so there was a steep learning curve.  They were tackling each other (literally) to get the ball, so eager to play.  Well, the pictures tell the story better than I can . . .

 Warming up before the game--Jack hits it hard into the fence.

 The first inning Jack got to play first base.  It's a tough position when you have never done it before, and never even seen it played.  First is pretty much the only position that matters in t-ball, since every player hits on both teams, and they each take one base at a time.  There are no outs, but the ball goes to first every time.  He made several good plays--and missed the ball coming at him several times too.  My favorite was when the first base coach for the other team held out his hand for the ball and Jack gave him a high-five instead.  Giggle.

 Trace went out as the second base coach for the second two innings.

 Jack running for home.

Jack had a whole bench taken up with his cheering squad--and we were loud.

 Looking up to see who's cheering for him.

 Waiting to run to third with dad.

 Go Giants! 

 Chewing on bubble gum after the game with his fans.

I love this picture, of Trace, Jack and Caroline sitting and watching the next team warm up.  They were much older, and Jack wanted to stay and watch, but after watching them warm up for twenty minutes, we decided to head home.  It had been a long day.  Good job Jack!  I'm proud of you.

A Day with the Wards

Yesterday my kids got to spend the afternoon with their friends Marilyn and Graham, while their mom took her mom to a doctor's appointment in Sacramento.  We're all glad that Gigi is recovering well from her surgery, but shhh! don't tell, but I don't think we missed them at all.  These four friends had so much fun playing together that I thought I'd share the photos I took of the day.  These are in chronological order. 

First they played dress-up and I took pictures so that we could make a frame craft later.  Do you think the lizard and the princess are good friends?

Miss Caroline in her elephant costume which she loves--it's size 2T and somehow she can still squeeze herself into it.

Three kiddos all dressed up.  It's awfully hard to get a snapshot with all three looking at you/smiling.  I can't imagine how professional photographers take family photos.  Experience I guess.

Mister Graham was willing to wear a hat for about 30 seconds, and he was very serious about it.  This was pre-nap, which may explain the look.

Jack the lizard is one cute boy, but I may be a little prejudiced.

Gluing buttons on popsicle stick frames.

Marilyn has an amazing sense of order and an ability to concentrate on detail work that you don't often see in a three year old.  She glued on her buttons and said, "now I will wait for my friends to finish."  Darling!

While our frames dried and Graham took a nap, the three other kids planted flowers with me.  The best part was that the rain stopped, so after planting they could run around outside.

Caroline helping plant in her third outfit of the day.  She loves to get herself dressed, and re-dressed as the day progresses.

The finished product.  They were good helpers, and my pots are full!

We printed the pictures we took earlier and put them in the homemade frames.  Aren't they creative?

This was my favorite part of the day.  The kids went out back and had fun "golfing," swinging, climbing and generally running around.  After an hour, the girls came inside and had a bath.  They were done, but these two boys, age 5, and 1.5, played golf in the backyard for another hour.  Graham followed Jack around, carrying his golf club and trying to imitate Jack's every move.  They were both completely entertained. 

Graham and his ball.

Trying hard to hit it.

Big boy and little boy, playing together.

Thanks for sharing your kids Lindsey.  I'll babysit anytime!

Nightly Habits

If you can have daily habits, you can have nightly habits too, right?  It might not be grammatically correct, but this is the sweet view I see around our house every night.  The kids do their nighttime chores, and then Trace reads them a story--or two or three or even more, depending on the night.  I usually clean the kitchen and listen in to their soft murmurs.  I love this scene, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Marbelized Eggs

So we did indeed make marbelized eggs, and it was more kid-friendly than the robin's eggs.  Easier, and fewer steps.  The only difficult part was using blown eggs, but with a little experience I took care of that step before I told the kids about the project. 

Then we had fun making dye with food coloring, water and vinegar--they loved stirring in the drops and watching it change color.  The first step was to lightly dye all the eggs.  That was very hands on, because blown eggs float, so we gently spun them on top of the liquid (and yes, I was as surprised as they were, although I did realize that I should have expected that). 

Next we added concentrated the dyes by adding a lot more food coloring--also fun to stir.  Finally, we added a tablespoon of olive oil, and tried the first egg.

 

It worked!  They had lots of fun swirling the eggs, and watching the unique patterns that were created.  Choosing contrasting colors was also fun and educational.

 Caroline is my tactile girl, and she especially loved getting her hands dirty turning over the eggs.

 The finished product was colorful and should be very decorative on our Easter table.  We haven't even broken any yet, and it's two days later already.  We've all had fun turning them over to see the swirls, and both kids have chosen their favorites.  It's fun to have kids old enough to do these projects!

An Easter Craft

I have never made blown eggs before, but yesterday when I was looking up a chickpea salad recipe on Epicurious.com, I saw this "recipe" for robin's egg place cards.  I thought the kids and I would love to make them, so I called my crafty helper (the marvelous Miss Becky Miller) and this is how we spent our Sunday afternoon. 

The best pictures would have been of Becky and I (with occasional help from the two kiddos), blowing out 16 eggs.  That was harder than it sounds!  We were definitely all turning bright red from the effort.

These pictures are of us painting the eggs, and of the finished product. 

 Jack's ready!

 Caroline concentrating while Aunt Becky helps out. 

 Beautiful Becky.

 Jack starting on his second set of four is wearing some paint already.

 Hold your mouth right Caroline!

 The clever holders were a suggestion in the recipe, although the skewers that we had at home were too wide, so Becky and I modified them by taping toothpicks to the top with electical tape.  We thought we were pretty clever:)

 The finished product.  We won't put the rest of the names on until we get a final Easter head count, but we figured we'd be there for sure.  The speckling turned out to be harder than I thought, so I finished that after my helpers were in bed.  A fun project for sure, but probably more suited for kids a few years older. 

Next I saw a marbelized egg project on marthastewart.com when I was searching for the best way to blow eggs.  It looked a little simpler for kids, so we might try that later this week.  It's spring break around here, and today it's raining, so indoor projects are in order!  Happy Easter!

Our week . . .or so

Well this is an assortment of pictures which I've been meaning to put on the blog, but I've been too busy to do more than take the pictures. So here's an mixture of photos for your perusing pleasure -- especially for Grandma Jo who enjoys seeing her grandkids even without description. I'm posting this on my phone, so I can't see the pictures right now. Here's what I think they're about.
Jack has started t-ball practice, and he loves it! It is such a delight for this mama to see how eager and confident he is. He runs to help the coach, and to pick up a bucket of balls after throwing them all. For hitting practice they hit off a tee into a chainlink fence, and last Wednesday Jack hit the ball so hard that it went through the fence. His favorite part of practice is throwing -- I think he could do it all day. He can throw further than I can!
There are also pictures of both kids making cookies, a photo of Jack's muddy back at the park one day, and reading together on the couch.

The video is of my crazy kiddos jumping barefoot into the snow.

Oh and the funny faces are eating kumquats. Although both kids like citrus, kumquats were not a hit, as you can see.

In other news, Trace has acute pneumonia and he's been at home on the couch all week, so it's been rather chaotic around here. Actually I think the chaos might be entirely in my own brain, from lack of sleep. My sweet girl has also had a cough at night, so she comes to our bed in the middle of the night -- and as my husband aptly described, I become the middle of a cough sandwich. On a positive note, they are both definitely improving daily. I might even start speaking complete sentences again soon!

Until then, goodnight.

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Crazy kids

This video wouldn't upload to the last post, so I'm trying it in its own post. Let's see if it works!

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