Too cute

Scott's baseball game

I took the big camera to Scott's game at Adams.  It is a south-west facing field and the game was in the evening, so the sun was in our eyes the whole night.  But from this angle, the lighting was good.  

Scott jumps out of the way for a pitch that he felt was a ball.  The ump and I disagreed, but what can you do?  Scott struck out twice and was feeling pretty down.

Here he is hitting a foul ball

This is "down and ready."

I like the games at Adams because they're close and we can ride bikes, but the field has no trees for shade.  This morning, I was checking out some volunteer trees and wondered whether I could prune them to grow up and straight and provide shade in some fifty years.

One of the moms approached and said, "Are you looking for lizards?"

That's one of Scott's favorite outdoor pastimes.  He had brought his lizard collection to the game and he was pretty amped up about the one he had just caught.

I told the lady my thoughts about shade trees and then said, "Interestingly, when I took the cover off my car this morning, there was a lizard right on the door handle, so I brought it inside with the rest of the collection."

On the way home from baseball, there was another lizard on the sidewalk to the left of the house and Scott caught it.  Now he has five or six.

Weekend

Had a good, busy baseball weekend.  Scott's game was early while I was working but I made it to Tyler's.  Scott got a homer and received the game ball.  

Tyler got four hits and scored some runs.

Tyler was awarded the game ball, too.

Heather got balloons to release into the sky in honor of Jacquie's birthday, which is today.  

This is a new thing for Kira:  one finger in the mouth and another in her nostril.  I try to do her hair but she refuses and it's not worth fussing over.  She'll look back and say, "What were you guys thinking?"  I should video her fighting over her hair, and then we can say, "What would you have done if you were us?"

Blakey wearing his dinner.

The kids

Scott was reading to the kids and they were all seated on the couch.  I ran to get the camera and Blakey had run off.  Somehow I convinced him to climb back up for this picture, which was the best of three.  All of their eyes are open and their smiles are not bad.  Tyler seems to be able to smile most naturally on cue.  Kira's hair is the usual, a rat's nest.  Blakey loves his baba and binky.  I don't know why Tyler was running around without a shirt because it was kinda cold yesterday.  Scott's teeth are coming in within normal limits.  

Now that I had the camera out, Tyler wanted me to photograph him jumping off the couch.  You go, Tyler.

Then Kira wanted in.

Blakey is talking quite a bit and we can almost understand him.  It's easiest to communicate with yes/no questions.  For yes, he says, "Mm hmm."  For no, it's "NOOOOOOOO!"

Mr. T. always down for a photo-op.

The kids have been good.  Heidi went to a seminar at Krey tonight and I fed the kids.  They did their chores before Heidi got home and Scott and I did piano, so that was good.  I'm not super dad or anything, but when the kids do their chores, I feel successful.

A first

Tyler has really developed his piano ability.  He seems to have the play-by-ear gift that God gave us and I've been teaching him the Star Wars themes by John Williams.  He can do the following themes:
Imperial march (his favorite)
The Force
Leia
Opening credits
The emperor.

Recently, Scott has gotten interested in learning the Imperial March.  I watched a youtube video where it was played on two pianos and I started teaching Scott a simplified version of that, but a more advanced one than I taught Tyler.  Scott still has more dexterity due to his age and experience with the piano.

Well, this morning, the boys got up and fought over who got to play the piano!  A first!  I'd like them to learn Suzuki and reading, since they need a more broad exposure to piano, but Heidi doesn't want me to force them into it.  We had a long discussion about how my sibs and I all learned the piano even though she perceives we may not have enjoyed it.  I certainly detested it until I was about 15, so it was ten years of struggle for Mom.

But since God has given me this piano gift, I want to use it to teach the piano to my kids.  Heidi wants them to do sports.  Well, maybe not Tyler.  But I think their time could be better utilized doing piano than Minecraft.

Eh, anyway.

March haps

We have been busy this month.  Roman, Kira, and Blakey had birthdays.  

Iron Man made an appearance at Roman's birthday party.  Heather always puts on a good party.

Got some funny pictures of Kira.  Lately, she's been saying, "Whatever."

Blakey is growing right up.

Tyler getting aggressive with the pinata.

I watched Iron Man make some balloon toys and made a sword for Blakey.

Hobble and his family stopped in on their drive from Oregon to Dizzyland.  I hadn't seen Hobble since our wedding, and before that, we hadn't seen each other since high school.  It was good catching up and meeting their kids.  You know Hobble has a Corvette?  Yeah.  Wow.

We sang happy birthday to Blakey and let him blow out the candle.  Kira had her birthday on Thursday and got some Hello Kitty stuff.

The kids had a good week away from school.  The weather was nice and they jumped on the tramp quite a bit and seemed to get along.  I worked six days this week and am grateful for work.  Heidi could probably write a lot more about what's up, but these pictures and a little text are gonna have to do.

Tyler's prayer

Dear, Great Heavenly Father.  We're grateful for this day.  We're just a little bit sad that we didn't get any rain."

He's said some other funny things, I just can't remember them right now.