Play ball!

A few weeks after Brielle watched the little league boys practicing, we bought a fat bat and ball for her. Since Brielle's favorite activity is anything that can be done out of doors she was ecstatic about the idea of baseball. Here are a few shots of her playing the first time.

Using Dad's hand as a T-ball holder. (Had to get the feel of the bat!)

The pitch....

....and the hit!


Putting glasses on a baby never gets old! Update on Hyrum, he is growing extremely fast, he is tall and skinny like his dad. And he just started crawling the right way (he's been scooting and pushing himself around with his arms for awhile). So let the baby-proofing begin!

Disclaimer

The pictures in the entry below may look alright, even though they are taken with a cell phone. The problem isn't really the quality of picture (though that IS sadly lacking in comparison to our nice digital SLR), no the real problem is that the phone takes a picture very slowly, requiring the photo subject to remain still for 3 seconds. And my children have NEVER remained still for 3 seconds!! So for every one of the somewhat clear shots below, there are 20 fuzzy, unrecognizable shots of the same thing.

This is unfortunate because we miss so much of our children's expressions of joy and delight. Instead of capturing the memories as they happen, we end up with an echo of the moment.

Where's the camera when you need it???

So we've been doing a ton of things outdoors the last few months and we never ever have a camera with us, which is a shame because the kids are cute, the area is beautiful, and we're always finding fun things to do.

A few of the times we've been out we've taken some CELL PHONE pictures, and these are they:


At one of the parks we went to, the trees were snowing down blossoms, or "popcorn" as Brielle called it (from the primary song "Popcorn popping on an Apricot tree")


Playing on a tractor outside of Brielle's favorite Market. (It has every type of crab, lobster, scallop and clam imaginable!)


We went to the beach again last weekend and both of my kids would gladly go every single day! We put Hyrum down on the sand with his toes just barely touching the wet sand and he scooted and scooted until he was waist deep in the ocean, with the waves splashing all around him, he LOVED it! Even with fairly cold water (not terrible, and it was a hot day) Hyrum enjoyed splashing and playing for over an hour.

(these pictures were taken before he got very far in, he went much deeper and got MUCH more wet!)


Brielle standing watching a little league team play. She's holding her "bat", a stick she found on the ground.
Brielle really really wanted to play ball with the kids. She went all around the fence trying to find a way in...
Then she came up to Russ and demanded his keys....

And tried to unlock the fence so that she could go play baseball with the boys!

It didn't work. So as a last resort she started climbing the fence. We decided it was time to buy a little bat and ball for her.




Picking out new glasses for Russell at Costco.




Brielle's favorite place!


And a visit to the dentist. All the little teeth are healthy!

Swing Time

Hyrum thoroughly enjoyed his first time REALLY swinging at the park, and for Brielle it's always been the favorite.

And the Mother never had to sweep again......

We're dog-sitting the sweetest dog for our friends, the Chesley's, and it's hard to not want a dog of our own. If it weren't for the fact that we live in a tiny apartment I think we'd break down and get one. My favorite part has to be that I no longer have to sweep the floor three times a day. Now all the broken pieces of ritz cracker and animal cookies magically disappear before I even notice that they've fallen, it's incredible! Shona is a wonderfully behaved Australian Shepherd, she hardly ever barks, she obeys all commands, if I drop her leash at the park she'll wait for me to pick it up again before moving, she won't take food off of my children's trays or from their hands (though food on the ground is fair game!) and when she needs to take care of business she comes and finds me, whines and then walks to the door and sits down patiently looking at me. We couldn't ask for a nicer dog to take care of!

Almost Crawling

Hyrum is getting close to crawling. For awhile I thought he'd never learn since he found a way to scoot around the house on his bottom sitting cross legged, but recently he's become interested in moving on his belly, so the baby-proofing for an infant can now begin!

Some Random Shots

Brielle is running down the dock at Martha's lake (across the street from our apartment). We love to go there to play on the playground and watch the birds on the lake.


And here's our boy chatting on the phone!

Faces

We Love to Read!

I love that both of my children enjoy books so much! However sometimes it seems less of a wonderful thing, like this afternoon when I interrupted Brielle in her attempt to read every book on her shelves.

"I don't have time for pictures Mom, I'm busy right now..."


I'll give her credit though, she wasn't just making a mess, she really wanted to look at each book....

And once her shelf was empty she thought about reading all the books in the next book case, but I stopped her there and we found another activity!