Victory!!!

Just when I thought baseball season was over for my two young boys, something exciting happens. Allow me to explain; last year I shared with all of you on my blog what a rough baseball season our oldest, Sport, was having. He had a really hard coach that made baseball seem like it just wasn't fun anymore. His whole coaching approach was negative, which affected not just Sport but many other young boys on the team as well. As the protective Mother bear that I am towards my cubs, all I wanted to do was yank my son off the team. Luckily, my husband spoke some sense into me and we decided we would use that year as a valuable life lesson. We simply explained that coaches are just like kids; they are not all molded the same. Some may be encouraging while teaching the fundamentals of baseball and others can be like drill sergeants getting their team ready for battle out on the ball field.

We also explained to him that this is a great opportunity to learn some valuable coping skills in life because others in the workplace (in the future) may be just like these two styles or a combination of the two.

We then asked him what type of coach he would someday like to be and right away he chimed in that he would want to be an encourager. He had his chance to see this played out this year on the field in two ways. The first was being blessed with a Great coach this year. He is an encourager, but is never shy to point out what skills the kids to hone in on and he encourages them to do just that. The second, Sport was able to help my hubby with our youngest sons' T-ball team. It was great to see him warming up the kids with stretching, fielding balls for them, teaching them how to hold a bat and how to hold their glove when catching a ball. He made sure to encourage them too! During the season of being a coach for T-ball, he shared with me that when he gets a little older he wants to coach his own team at our church.

Baseball continues in our family for now as Sport's team made it through two playoff games. Last night they were pronounced National league champs for their division. (Sadly no trophy will be awarded for this) They were the underdogs. No one had expected them to come this far. I believe in my heart that it is due to the coaches style. It is far superior than the rest. The big championship game is this Saturday and my prayer is a two-fold one in that the boys go out and just have fun and that the encouraging coaching style shall be victorious both on the field and off.

Let's PLAY BALL!!!!!!!!!!!

There is Light at the end of the Tunnel....

I sincerely apologize for the long stretch in between posts. Life just has been too busy with homeschooling, home, T-ball, baseball and my daughters upcoming play at the end of next month.

There is finally light at the end. T-ball has now come to a close, school wraps up in nine days, and baseball should end soon.

Even through all of this I have managed to sort through curriculum for next school year. I finally picked a history curriculum for next year that God kept leading me to. I will share about this soon.

Pictures will come soon too once I download them from my camera...LOL.

God's blessings to you.....

Dancer's Webkinz Birthday Party

We celebrated Dancer's 9th Birthday at the end of March. She loves Webkinz so we decided to do a simple Webkinz themed party. I got a few of the ideas from doing an internet search and others we made up on our own using ideas from the Webkinz online game. Here is a quick overview of our celebration...

During the arrival of all the guests the girls had a chance to make a beaded necklace for their Webkinz. Each girl used ABC beads to spell out their Webkinz' name.

After all the girls arrived and had a chance to make a necklace the build their own nachos for dinner with lots of different toppings.


Next they went outside to a yard full of different carnival games.

The carnival games that we played were...

Croquet ball smack, bowling, Newspaper delivery (from the website game), jump rope, hoop contest, ring toss, gem hunt, Webkinz twister race and ball throwing into the hoop. The kids earned tickets at each different station.

To play Webkinz Twister each Webkinz with their owner faced each other. They advanced based on what the spinner indicated. The first one to make it across the mat was the winner.

The gem hunt was just a bucket of plastic gems buried in play sand. The girls later used the gems to glue on to a crown for their Webkinz.

After the games were played and the tickets counted it was time to count tickets and get a chance to spin the wheel of WOW! Each girl spun a couple of times and received their prizes. I picked up the girls a wooden animal coloring piece and a yarn animal kit from Michaels for each of the girls to take home and make.

After the Wheel of Wow it was time for cake and ice cream. I picked up a dog bowls from the dollar store and filled it with vanilla ice cream, chocolate brownie pieces and hot fudge.

Next it was time for presents and a movie with plenty of popcorn. All in all it was a fun party. Dancer loved every minute of it.

Happy Resurrection Day!!!

Happy 9th Birthday to Dancer....

It was a Webkinz sleep over party this past Saturday night. Today is her actual birthday. I am hoping to post soon. I appologize for the lagging of time in between posts.

Spring Gardening

I recently checked out a book from the library called Square Foot Gardening by Bartholomew. It made me to rethink things in our small home garden. With some help from my husband and from a few of my kids we were able to transform our home garden into this....

We installed three trellis vine fences to help clear for more ground space. I planted two types of tomatoes, cucumber, string beans, zucchini, yellow squash and I am hoping to add cantaloupe too(if space allows).

The other vegetables that were planted were bell peppers (red, orange and yellow), radishes, carrots, beets, turnips, different types of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, Swiss chard, green onions, corn and lots of herbs.

With the recommendation from the book I also added marigolds and nasturtiums to help control pests that attempt to invade our garden and add a touch of color.

Now that our garden is planted and after a few finishing touches are needed we can sit back and pray for a bountiful harvest to share with friends and family.

What we have been up to.....

I apologize for the blogging delay. We have been busy around here. Like they say life happens. It hasn't help that a few of us have been sick around here. It just feels like the month has just flown by too quickly and my calendar just keeps filling up with baseball schedules, field trips, church commitments and etc...

Here is a quick glimpse of what we have been up to....

We went bowling with our homeschool group for some Valentine fun.

An educational field trip to JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Sport loved the space discussion and up close look at the mission rovers.

A Physics experiment on circular motion and calculating into distance. God had perfect timing with the space field trip for this one too. We got to discuss how important this is in space exploration with the movement and travel patterns of planets.

AWANA Bible verse quizzing last Saturday. This was Sport's first year participating in this. He enjoyed it very much.

He was awarded with fourth place!

Here is one last picture to share with you of the kids on one of our weekend hikes. We are hoping to return to hiking soon with the kids but will have to wait until the whole family is feeling better.

Blessings and hope to post again soon. I have some more pictures to share with you about a rather unique local castle we had a chance to tour. Until next time take care and God Bless.