Baby Wearing Brothers

Big brothers are the best.

Shiner

Man it was a tough week! Between fighting, whining brothers and tantrum throwing toddlers, and non sleeping needy babies, and very messy houses with no food, I have been really feelin' the burn. As in burn out! A couple nights Rand came home and I left. Hallelujah! I need to do that now and again. :) On my way home one of those said nights, I check my phone and I have 2 photos from Rand. I see the text first. It said, "bball to eye". Uh-oh.
I open the messages and this is what I saw:

How sad is that little face??

The pictures weren't this large, obviously, but I did gasp out loud.
I got home and he was holding a frozen teething ring on his face. It was ugly, but he was fine. He has always been really tough, his pain tolerance higher than most, which is scary in its own way. He cried, so I know it hurt bad, but he was over it by the time I got home. We all learned a lesson about catching without the proper catchers face protection (which we have but weren't wearing) especially when Daddy is pitching. (Daddy feels really bad). I just kept thinking how lucky he was that it hit the bone under his eye after hitting his glove and didn't hit him square in the eyeball....or the nose....or the mouth with those brand new adult teeth coming in!

He didn't want to go to church yesterday, but did sporting a big hoodie and Daddy's sunglasses. It was a very interesting Sunday look! He had to explain countless times anyway. Here is what it looked like the next morning:

And it's less swollen today but getting prettier!

He almost looks proud of it in this picture. Boys.

Annabel Plays Cards

 She's still working on her poker face.

So Proud

Brendan with his All-Star team. It was a great season. His last game he hit a double and then a single and caught a pop-fly in left field. I think he is super.

Kid Quotes::Vol. 47

The big boys come out of their room holding a broken toy. I sat for quite a while staring at them and it trying to decide how to approach this one.

Me: Let me ask you something. Do you think that you guys were playing with that toy in the way it was designed to be played with?

Both of them: Uh, it wasn't me, I had nothing to do with it. Wyatt did it! NO it wasn't me! YES it was!

Me: I asked a very simple question and you aren't answering it. Do you think you were playing with that the way you were supposed to?

Wyatt: Mom! Everyone sins!

All-Star

This has been a great baseball season! Both the boys, but especially Brendan, have improved a ton. Brendan is one of the youngest players on his team and I think he is tied for the shortest with one other little guy. He feels so big to me because he is my oldest, but then I see him out there with all these huge 9 year olds and he looks tiny! Brendan got to play the gammit of great positions this year. He makes a great catcher because he is so tough and literally dives infront of all those wild pitches and he hustles. He is a great fielder and mostly makes consistent great throws to first. A few games ago he got put in to pitch in the last inning. It was a close game. They were only up by one. 2 outs, runner on 3rd, batter up and a full count. Brendan threw that last pitch and BOOM, strike! Cubbies win. The coach and team rushed Brendan and tossed him into the air. It was an awesome moment. After that game the team and coaches voted for 3 kids from the team who would get to be on the All-Star Team. After a game like that it was no surprise Brendan got to be one of those three! It has been really fun watching him this year. Extremely frustrating at times as there are still lots and lots of runs scored on errors and horrible throws, but very fun to see the team improve so much over the coarse of the season.

Video!

It Comes Down to This

It is hard to believe that I have been consistently(ish) posting in this little space for over 5 years! I will admit that there are many times when it seems like there just isn't anything worth posting or sometimes there are things happening but they aren't really "postable". Though those times appear now and then, I have found my blog to be an invaluable keepsake, documenting our life and these busy days and years with small children. I recently made a small book of just the kid quotes that I have posted on here over the last 3 years and I paroozed through many old posts and pictures and am so glad to have them all here to reference and remember. Time really does fly!
Lately it has been an "I have nothing to blog about" time. I haven't been very inspired to grab my camera and sit down with my computer. Let's face it, the blog and camera go hand in hand. But then I felt bad because there are definitely some things I have missed posting about by not having my camera in hand or blog in mind.
But mostly it comes down to this: Sometimes I am just trying to keep my head above water. This life I live is a full, full-time job. I mean full. When I blog, I don't do something else. When I clean, do dishes or fold laundry, then too, I don't do something else. When I read a book to the kids, or nurse a baby, or cuddle a toddler, something else goes to the wayside. It's a constant balancing/surviving game! So for the sake of keeping a few loving blog readers in my little loop, and for the sake of documenting our days which I consider to be the only reason to continue to put other things to the side and blog, here is a little tid bit (with some more posts to come) of life as it is right now.

Around here, we do laundry. A lot of laundry.

And dishes. A lot of dishes.

And we lose teeth. 2 teeth in the same day...and already have adult teeth in their place!

And we watch the rain. (Yes, that is a beach towel out there in the rain. I forgot we aren't in Phoenix. Here you are swimming one day and cuddled up inside the next!)
 Oh! And we get big boy haircuts! (sad)

So there you have it. This week we are hosting our small group (yikes, how to keep it clean until then?!), finishing up school (yay!!!), and finishing up baseball (depending on how the tournament goes)