Gavin's Baseball Tournament

Waiting to take the field

Hitting a double!!!

Coming in for the run

Safe, make sure you touch the plate.

Since Gavin's baseball team finished the season 7-1-1, they did not have to play in the tournament until noon on Saturday. Saturday at noon, are you crazy?!?!? It is going to be hot. Good thing we played on field 2 which has some nice big shade trees. That was a semi-easy game. They won 13-4, which gave us a game at 6:45. A much better time to be playing baseball. This break proved to be a bad thing. We had beat this team in the regular season and they beat us. This put us in the loser bracket for the double elimination tournament. To win the championship, we would have to play 5 games on Sunday. Our first game was at 10:45 which we won 11-9, then we played at 12:50 and won 15-4 (Gavin hit a triple) and then played at 3:00 and lost 6-1. By the 3rd game, everyone was hot and tired. Our boys had been playing in the sun and wind for 4 hours. They had a good run, but with playing back to back games, our time was over. Gavin pitched 4 innings today and only allowed 2 runs. And only hit 1 kid. (2 innings were shut-outs). Of course, I did not bring my camera today. The pic above were from last night. I'm sad to see the season end, but I was not looking forward to sitting outside any longer tonight. Everyone's going to hit the showers when we get home, especially Liam. It looks like he had side burns there is so much dirt on his face.

The Dress & Hair

We look everywhere for a dress for graduation. Everytime I talked to April, I was on the hunt for a dress. Finally, we found it. We started with red, then pink, and finally settled on purple. I think this is a beautiful dress. After the dress we had nails and toes and lets not forget hair. Luckily, Steffani was able to create a hairstyle that was so classy and pretty without a picture. We only had one major incident with the hair while taking these pictures. Madison walked under a tree with a branch hanging down and pulled a curl loose. We both had a panic attack, but with a few more bobby pins we were able to fix her hair.

The back of her head

Graduation After Party

After the graduation ceremony, the parents of the 8th graders transformed the auditorium into an "American Idol" themed dance/karoke party. All of the kids has a great time even with the 20 minute delay while the karoke/dj set-up. They were held outside where they posed for numerous pictures, beat on the glass, and begged to be let in.

Please let us in.

Sydney & Madison

The boys

Once in the auditorium, the students were really surprised and ready to have a good time.

Eating the 6 ft sandwich

Once in the auditorium, the students were really surprised and ready to have a good time.

Girls dancing together

Boys dancing together

Nice place for a cell phone

The Chicken Dance

High School Already?!?!?!

Madison & Carly

Madison & Madalyne

Haley & Madison

High School Class of 2013

How can it be?!?! Madison had graduated jr. high and is now considered a "FRESHMAN". Time really has flown by. It seems like just a few months ago, she was a baby or at least in 1st grade. I know the next 4 years will go by just as fast, but I am hoping they drag on. The good thing about her class is they are pretty close. I'm sure she will still be friends with most of the kids once she is in college. When I was in school, there were about 10 kids all went to 4 yr old kindergarden through high school together. I am still good friends with one, Wendy. I will say smaller school does has its advantages.

Never a boring time

Saturday was going to be good. We did not have to be abywhere, so I did not have to get up early . After our usual Saturday waffles, we got dressed and headed to get feed. Brett & I had talked about going to Nate's for crawfish earlier this week, but waited until Madison & Gavin could go. I am pretty particular about my crawfish. I do not like to peel them and see the "Thanksgiving Dinner" it just ate. I am guessing most restaurants do not purge them before boiling. Ok, so we get our crawfish at Nate's. But, there is not any corn or potatoes. When we asked, our waitress told us we had to order them seperate. WHAT!?!? Shouldn't that be part of the order? We order more crawfish and some potatoes and corn. With Gavin getting a pitching machine, he needed more balls, so off to the sporting store. Now mind you we have Liam with us, he does not really like the sporting goods store, so Brett drops Liam, Madison, & myself at Toys 'r Us. This should keep Liam entertained. I ask Madison to watch him so I can get a new sheet for his bed. I go around the corner and come back and they are gone. No big deal...they are on the next isle. Not there...next isle....not there, go up and down the isles calling their names and looking for them. No where to be found. I am not panicing, but I wish I had given Madison her phone back. I think if I go to the front of the store, I can see if they come out of any of the isles. I wait about 5 minutes and the nice customer service lady asks if I need any thing. I tell her I cannot find my kids and could she page them for me. They call for them twice, ask what they are wearing and their ages, call again and them call to lock the doors and search the store. I am trying not to panic, but I have met myself and I and PANICING. I really want to cry, but I am trying to stay composed. All of the sudden I hear, "Found them". Hooray!!!! Liam was at the Thomas the Train set and Madison could not get him to leave. She said she didn't hear me calling her name. Holy Cow!!! I have never been more scared. I didn't think she would have left without telling me, but now days you never know what will happen. I am just glad that Toys 'r Us was willing to lock down the store to help locate someone's kids. What a relief.

Now, I have swine flu to worry about.

Graduation Already ?!?!?!

I knew the day Madison was born, she would grow up and it would be fast (especially looking back). Well...grow up is right. She will be in high school in the fall. How can that be? I can't be old enough to have a high schooler. Where have the past 14 years gone? When we got her graduation pictures and it really hit home, she is growing up. She is no longer the little baby girl. I know I better cherish the next 4 years because it will be on to college. But, for today, I will be glad she is still growing up and that we had to ground her for being mouthy. Hmmm....I wonder where she gets that, probably from her dad's side, never her mom's side.

I wanna go to BIG Church

Most Sundays, Liam goes from his Sunday School class to the nursery thanks to his teacher. I usually check on him through the back door. Today, I went to his class to see him and take him to Ms Connie's class. He told me he did not want to go to Ms. Connie's, he wanted to go to "Big Church" ( regular church service). I could not tell him no, so off we went. Brett was giving blood in the fellowship hall and Gavin was getting dressed in his acolyte clothes. Liam and I got a seat and waited. Madison sits with the youth so I am all by myself with Liam. We go over the rules of not talking and we sit down unless we all stand up. Liam agrees to this thanks to a little soda bribe. When Gavin was an acolyte (person that carries the light (candle lighter), takes the offering to the altar and brings the light out) I am usually nervous. There have been times when his light goes out and has to get the other person lighting to re-light his candle, or he forgets to get the light before church is over and he is rushing to get the candle out. Today there we no major problems with Gavin other than his light went out again. (We have decided there is a vent that blows at the wrong angle.) Liam did pretty good until the offering, which was a good time to take him to the nursery. Maybe next week, he will last longer. He might even get to go down for the children's sermon.

Sorry Mary, I did not get any pics of Gavin as an acolyte. He is very modest when it comes to serving and get embarassed when I try to take pictures. I will get some I promise.

A late hatching

Ok...if you know anything about our family, you know we have a lot of different animals. Well to add to the list of semi-zoo animals. We now have 10 baby quail. Yes, quail. They hatched last night or sometime yesteraday. When we got home from Gavin's game, Brett checked the incubator and there were 9 little birds hopping around. The one egg that was still intact, was to be left in and we were going to wait a day or so before we threw it away. But, we noticed it was still moving around after we put it back. Maybe 5 mintues later we have a newly hatched bird. It was pretty exciting to watch the bird break out of the shell. The quail we hatched are off-spring from the 4 original quail from last year. Fear not...we will not be serving quail for dinner anytime soon. They are too little and too much work to try and eat.