Reason #746 Why not to get a dog.....

Halle AKA (orphan Annie)

Halle inherited my fine-wavy-mindofitsown-must-be-styled hair.  Iti looks nice when I blow it out or put it up but lets be honest, who has time to do that every day??  Most days she heads out the door with a ponytail or a headband to keep it under control.  Last night, we decided to play around with it and after her shower, we tried out the banto knots idea I had pinned on Pinterest.  She slept with them in and this is what her hair looked like after church today.  She was pretty pleased with herself and we have all been playing with her curls all day.  

.....an outtake with her usual facial expressions.

And, a link to our inspiration:)

Source: perfectlocks.com via Sharese on Pinterest

....back in August we went to NYC

Trying to play catch-up here because I have things I'd like to post but can't since I haven't posted about things we did months ago.  So, here we go.  We went on a trip to NYC at the beginning of August.  Jordan's baseball team was playing in the AABC World Series in Brooklyn so we all tagged along and made a family trip out of it.  These trips are always an adventure........we never know what the schedule will be or what the field environment will entail so it usually is a plan-as-we-go type of thing.  Generally, there are games every day so we hop back and forth from sightseeing and cheering on the team.....without much relaxing in between.  This year has been better because Eli is a bit older and doesn't nap anymore so we can be a little more flexible with the schedule.....he also won't ride in a stroller so we had to be vigilant to ensure he didn't get run over by a taxi/double decker bus whilst walking down the streets.

We stayed on Staten Island so we took lots of trips on the Staten Island Ferry to get back and forth from the city.  It was great because it was free, it ran all day, and afforded us great views of the city and Statue of Liberty.  

We did a bus tour for a couple days because we had limited time and wanted to see all that we could.....it was great and the kids loved riding on top.  I wish we would have had more time to hop on and off but we did get to see a lot and had several very entertaining guides.

We also hung out at Times Square and got to know the subway system quite well.  

Here are all the boys......we had a good time one night all going to dinner but it was a little nuts maneuvering such a large group of people in Times Square and on the subway.  

Eli was super excited to see Woody.......he was quite aggressive after the picture until he got his tip:)

The fields were right around the corner from Coney Island so we took the kids and walked around for a bit.  It was pretty old-school as far as rides go, I guess that is what makes it charming  but you have to pay for each ride individually and lets just say my kids were only allotted one ride each......which still wasn't cheap:)  Think $5 each for old rickety carnival type rides.  But, Zoltar was there and that was cool.

We spent a good portion of our time in Brooklyn which was a little nuts but we really did get a true "Brooklyn" experience.  The fields were nice for players but not so much for fans.......we were right under the subway so every few minutes, the train would rumble overhead and we were completely fenced in on all sides so it felt like watching from a cage.  We had a hard time finding places to eat other than McDonalds so we asked some locals where to go.  The answer was (in a very thick Brooklyn accent), "Well, whatsamattawit L&B SpumoniGahdens??"  So, we went and were glad we did.  The guys who took orders were very gruff, very Italian, and very cranky.......like the Soup Nazi.  I had to go to the back of the line a couple of times for not knowing exactly what I wanted.  It was great......and we all only spoke in Brooklyn accents for the rest of the week.  

This is one of our players, Jake, he already looks like a man as you can see but is truly a 12 year old boy.  It was quite funny to see him next to Jordan, who will most likely hit puberty at 16 or 17. 

We had a great showing as a team and ended up winning the World Series against some tough competition from all over the place.  Travis and Jordan couldn't have been happier.

Gratuitous trophy pictures......Eli with melting ice cream, and Travis with his good friend who coaches the Brooklyn High Heat team.  

It was great to end the week on a high note.....so proud of the boys.

I made a music video of the experience.......it was a blast to make and the boys/parents were such good sports about going along with my crazy idea.  I know I've already posted most of this stuff on Facebook but enjoy it again here!

Halloween

Hello........I am still alive!  I have treated this blog much like any and every journal I have ever started.  Lots and lots of posts for a while and then nothing.  I'm sure that when I go back to read the things I wrote in high school I will always wonder what I was thinking for the second half of every year.  So, rather than try to catch up on what we have been doing for the last 6 months, I am just jumping in and sharing some pics from Halloween.  The theme this year was as little effort for costumes as absolutely necessary.  Emma borrowed her elf costume from someone at church who supplies the Christmas elf costumes......it was pretty cute, even if totally random.  Eli wore his pirate costume from a few years ago, thankfully it still fit.....barely!  He love the new Disney show, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, so it was perfect.  Halle found a dragon costume from the dress-up bin in the basement which was warm and comfortable even if lacking in creativity.  Jordan wanted to use a mustache so we came up with Pancho Villa and just borrowed a few things to put it together.  Easy!  We have plenty of candy left over, I am putting away a large stash of it to bring to basketball/baseball games so we can avoid spending a fortune on the snack bar.  Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

take a deep breath........

....you are going to need it to get through this entire post.  I have really lacked motivation this summer to keep the blog updated.  It was a very interesting summer with all the kids home and I found it quite challenging to keep everyone entertained and on task during the days.  I should have set up some sort of system to reward good behavior but lacked motivation to do even that....notice a theme here?  I'm not even sure what the problem was but if I had to pinpoint one thing it would be that we were either really really busy or not busy enough....not much middle ground.  So, I found that coping with being really busy was okay but then when we had to create our own schedule, there were a lot of issues.  That probably doesn't make a lot of sense!  I'm hoping that next year is better and I will get things figured out sooner.  It was also weird trying to keep all four kids happy.......they all seem to want to do something different at ages 12, 9, 7, and 3 so I always felt like there was at least one who wasn't being paid enough attention or being forced to do something too mature/too childish for them.  Anyhow, we DID do a lot of fun things and had some great trips that they will hopefully remember over the dull days at home.

I am going to attempt to just throw together a lot of random photos in this post and then I'll recap some of our trips later on.......like maybe before Christmas:)

First off, we continued our tradition of pelting the kids with water balloons when they get off the bus on the last day of school.  Between my neighbor and I, we had two wagonfuls, water guns, and lots more.

Here is a quick clip of the mayhem....

Wouldn't be the same without any tears.......he had no problems getting anyone else wet!

We also got this letter in the mail, yardwork isn't our strong suit.  The funny thing about this letter is that we got it in the mail right after we had spent an entire weekend prepping baseball fields for a tournament our team was hosting.  

 We made it through softball season somehow.  Emma has become our diehard sports girl.  Not a day goes by without her begging us to practice with her.  For a while it was pitching every night in the yard......she even developed a nervous tic in the form of delivering a softball pitch.  Now, it is soccer season and she is obsessed about being the next Hope Solo, so there are many late night sessions of "goalie training" going on.  (thanks to our soccer-loving neighbor)

And then we have this one.......who unfotunately inherited my athletic genes:)

 Our indoor baseball facility hosted a baseball camp with one of the Reds players, Jay Bruce, and Jordan was lucky to be able to attend.

I'm going to touch on the baseball season in a different post, here is just one picture from their trip to Baltimore.  They won the 11U Ripken Experience in June and continued on to have a stellar season.

 ....cell phone picture from a visit to Kings Island with Halle and Eli.

The next group of pics is of Travis' family at the airport when we welcomed his parents home from serving as mission presidents in Phoenix, AZ.     

It is so great to have them home after a long three years.  Eli was only a couple of months old when they left and there were two more grandkids born while they were gone and now two more on the way.

 Halle lost a whole lot of teeth this summer, she went through a great Nanny McPhee stage for a while and the tooth fairy has paid lots of visits.....most of the time a few days late.

 Another baseball tournament in Michigan.......

 Eli working on his stance.......are we the only ones who allow this in our house??

 Lots and lots of cheese coneys were consumed this summer.

 Lots of "coordinated" family time.

 I hope the cousins will be good friends as they grow up.  I never had the luxury of living super close to cousins so I am happy that they all have eachother.

 Our dear friends moved back to the States from Madrid and were able to spend a few days here on their way to their new home in Oregon.  We had some good times together and wish they could have stayed longer!  

 This may be the best way to describe the summer.  HOT HOT HOT!!

That's all I've got for now......I hope to come back this week sometime to recap some trips, probably will happen while I am procrastinating cleaning the bathrooms.