Welcome Kiley

Holly & Gene were blessed with a beautiful baby girl. Congratulations to a great sis & brother in-law. Kiley Joy was born this morning at 10:30.. She weighs 8 lbs. 1 oz. and is 20 inches long. Mom and baby are both doing well. We will see them all soon!

picking mulberries

This year I have picked more mulberries than I did last year - which was a bumper crop. They are going straight to the freezer to await my jelly/jam making week. I can't wait to make a fresh batch. We still have 4 or 5 quarts from last year left.

Picking mulberries is giving me an upper body workout - reaching & streaching. Boo is also giving me nightly walks (we are being more religious about them, since he started wandering the neighborhood). So - I am hoping these two things will help spur me to get more active and start to loose some of this weight that I have put on over the past 12 years.

I think of what weight I was before Emily was born - and would dream of being a size 8 again. Motivation is the key! Pray for motivation as summer nears and I have more time.

3 1/2 days to go

Wow! The count down is really on. We have 3 1/2 days to go. One is a field trip to the zoo with all the kids K - 8 who made their A.R. goal. Should be a fun time. What is funny is my students did not want to count that as a day of school - said that we only had 2 1/2 days to go. Guess they don't realize that taking 18 kids, 3 parents, and all the other classes (don't know numbers for them) to the zoo, in the heat, is hard work. It should count as 2 days of school - not subtract one.

Seems crazy though how fast this year has flown by. Look out summer.... here we come!

another game

Today Michael had an afternoon game. The first inning took 45 minutes - and after it the game was tied 5 to 5. Then the other team went up 10 to 5 & got us out 1, 2, 3. For the 3rd inning Michael went in and pitched. Since the length of the 1st inning, if the other team scored even one run, the game would be over. So - the pressure was on. Michael struck out batter one, batter two and then walked a man (after having 2 strikes). Then he struck out the fourth batter to end the inning. Their team had a chance to come back and tie it up - but they only scored 2 runs, ending the game 7 to 10.

Although they lost the game, Michael did an awesome job pitching. He came home with the game ball. One the way home he said, "Mom, do you think I earned my spot as a starting pitcher after that?" I told him that I sure hoped so, as he did great. We will see. This is the first season the kids are pitching - and they just started pitching the whole game last weekend. Until then they had 3 innings of pitching machine & the rest kid pitch until the time limit was up. Usually it was one or two innings. So - they are all very green.

I am a very proud mommy. Wanted to get a picture with him and the game ball, but my camera was at school. Will take it later in the week.

school is almost out!

We have only 4 1/2 days of school left! Yeah! Hopefully I can find enough to keep my students occupied - as I have finished almost everything. I am going to have to be creative and think of things to keep them occupied during the last week of school.

mulberry time

I noticed last week that the mulberry tree had tiny berries on it. Over the weekend they got bigger and started turning red. Tonight I went out and picked berries for the first time. I have a gallon of berries in my freezer put away to make jelly & jam. I can't wait to pick more. The kids are excited to help make more jam and jelly.

We pass two mulberry bushes on our walk and Michael's wheels started turning - he wanted to go pick from those bushes. I might have said yes, let's go ask the people (they always just let them land on the sidewalk and get mashed) but Doug is so against eating anything mulberry that what we have in our yard is probably more than enough.

I will have to keep busy and pick them every day now for a while as they ripen pretty quickly.

Boo is found!!!!

Yeah! A nice family found Boo on Saturday. They had taken him home and were getting ready to take him to get him scanned for a microchip today. They put an ad in the Courier Journal which Doug saw this morning. Thus, Boo has been brought home!!! Yeah!!! He will get lots of hugs and treats when the kids get home, I am sure of it! Thanks for all the prayers!

no Boo yet

We still have not found Boo. Yesterday it started raining and it rained all day so we made new signs with a picture and laminated them and put them up. Doug is going to go down to animal control today (as they were not open over the weekend). Animal control will not tell you anything about what they picked up over the phone, so hopefully he will find him there.

We have two very bummed kids - hope they are able to concentrate at school today. Michael feels like this is all his fault - since he left he gate open. Emily is just missing him very badly - and feels if she was at home, maybe she could have been able to help. So - pray for us all around.

Boo

This week Boo has taken to wandering. Monday & Tuesday evenings he got out. We plugged all the holes in the fence & we got his exit route figured out.

Yesterday Michael had a friend over. The two boys were playing in the backyard and they went to retrieve a ball from a neighbor's yard. When they did, the gate did not fully close - and Boo too advantage of the situation. It was just a few minutes before we figured it out - but enough for Boo to be nowhere in sight.

He has been gone since around 6:30 last night. Please pray we will find him.

Michael's baseball update

Last night Michael accomplished yet another new thing - he pitched an inning. He pitched 30 pitches (which was the limit until today). He got a strike out and did well with the other batters also, especially considering it was the first time he pitched.

Today they started pitching the whole game - no more pitching machine. Their team won today! They have lost 1, tied 1, and won 8 games. Wow! What a season!

Here is a video of Michael pitching. When we got home he and Doug measured out his pitching zone in the back yard - so he could practice. What is funny is on the way home from school on Friday Michael had asked Emily if she would stand 40 feet away from him as a target for him to pitch at. She said no - you will hit me, use your tee. Michael then responded, no, that won't work, a tee does not say ouch when you hit it! Then I responded, if you hit your sister with a pitch, I am sure she is going to say more than outch!

spring baseball

Michael is actually about a month into baseball games, and has been practicing since March. He is on the Giants this year - and is enjoying playing catcher mainly, and then some first base, and outfield. He is having a good year. Saturday is the 1/2 way point in the season - so they switch from having a pitching machine for 3 innings and then kid pitch - to kid pitch. It will be a lot slower game once they start pitching the whole game.

Feelin' old

Tonight at dinner the kids were messing around and not eating their food. Finally I said "Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it..." singing the Weird Al song. The kids looked at me like I was crazy. I then said it was a song... for real. They laughed and did eat their dinner. After dinner we looked up Eat It on youtube. They asked about the video, which spured us to watch Beat It by Michael Jackson. One really does forget the simliarities until you watch them back to back. Anyway, I got to thinking about when the songs came out... thought I was likely about Emily's age (I can remember really liking MJ and when Cousin Danette came down with her family we all listened to him over and over again, as we did when my Shelly came down for a visit)

I just looked it up and Beat It came out in 1983 when I would have been in 5th or 6th grade - 11 - just like Emily (she just turned 12). Yikes! Does not seem like that long ago really! If you want to enjoy the videos for yourself, here are some links. Hope they work.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-336010670/weird_al_yankovic_eat_it_official_music_video/


http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-43555856001/michael_jackson_beat_it_official_music_video/

funny

Today in school when we were in the lunch line a little girl all of a sudden says to the cook, "that is the last straw" We all started laughing and looking at her - wondering where that came from. Then she handed the cook the straw container - it really was the last straw. :) We then had to explain to the confused little girl why we were all laughing at her.

What was really ironic was many days by lunch I am ready to say, That is the last straw, as I have some tough kids. Today actually was a good day - so the thought had not even come to my mind until the little girl said it.

I thank God for the chance to be a mother!

I thank God for giving me these two wonderful children. For the chance to be their mother, to pass my faith onto them, for the opportunity to see them grow and change, for the chance to discipline them, for the chance to educate them, for the chance to see them become individuals, for the chance to see them make mistakes, and for the chance to love them - unconditionally. Thank you Lord for the gift of being a mother!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my mom and to my mother in law. I hope you have a great day! Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there who give so much, care so much, pray so much, love so much, and do so much for your children and families. I thank the Lord for you!

3 weeks to go

It is hard to believe that we only have 3 weeks of school left. That means only 3 more weeks until I have a 4th grader and a 7th grader. Where has the time gone. It seems like just yesterday I had little ones who were not even in school. Now the kids are becoming more independent and are able to do lots of things.

Emily has been doing some babysitting. She loves crafts, sewing, scrapbooking, painting & anything artistic. This summer we hope to spend lots of time scrapbooking - as I need to do lots of catching up.

Michael is very much into baseball. He has been playing lot of catcher this year. Last practice he practiced pitching - and got two strike outs. He also enjoys creating crafts - so he will be dong the scrapbooking right along with Emily and I this summer.

Since Emily started babysitting & making some money, Michael is also wanting to make money. He can't quite push the lawn mower. Any ideas for something a 10 year old could do to make money (without mommy and daddy just paying him for doing stuff he already does)?

sorry!

Well, I want to apologize for being out of touch since the end of February. I needed a break - and life just got busy. I know lots of people want to know what is going on, so I need to get back into my blog. So ..... I am going to try to get back into it. I am not going to even try to catch up - as I would feel even more behind - so I am going to go forward from here.