When we went outside to play baseball one Saturday, the boys weren't the only ones having a good time. It was an unusually warm day and Emily was loving being outside, if you couldn't already tell from the look on her face.
For Jacob's birthday party this year, we decided to continue with a baseball theme. The invitations were fun to put together, and Jacob just handed them out at school to all of the boys in his class. I knew we had the potential to have our house packed full, but I didn't want anyone not to be invited. Fortunately it worked out that there were other sports and activities going on that Saturday so we only ended up with 8 boys (11 counting ours) at our house on Saturday. All I can say is 6-7 year old boys are CRAZY! It was a lot of fun though!
I didn't get very many pictures- it was too busy trying to keep everyone entertained and contained! We did play some fun games though. The first was dissolve the baseball (Alka Seltzer), with both teams trying to dissolve their ball with a water gun.
The "Base" game was a game I altered from one I remembered playing in grade school. One person was the umpire, and the boys would choose a base (1st, 2nd, 3rd, home, pitchers mound) to stand on. With his back turned, the umpire would randomly choose a base and everyone standing on that base would be out. The object was to be the last one in the game and that person would become the new umpire.
The hit present though, was a couple of Hex Bugs. I don't know if anyone else has seen these, but they are the coolest little robotic bugs. As soon as Jacob opened the gift, he had friends offering him all their money if he would give them one. I've also discovered that these little bugs are perfect for entertaining my little kids- although Emily did start to worry, holler, and shake her arm when one 'crawled' up her sleeve and got stuck there! It was pretty funny.
t was a fun afternoon and I think all the boys had a pretty good time. It was nice to actually get to meet a few of the parents as well. I wish I would have had a picture of the whole group, but at the end of the party the boys were having too much fun running around with their balloons. 
Jacob turned 7 on Friday, January 28th. He'd pretty much been counting down days since his 6th birthday last year, so needless to say he was pretty excited. Especially since he had some extra family here to celebrate with this year. I took Mom & Emily with me when I drove him to school that morning and we delivered some cupcakes to his class for a birthday treat. Then we ran a few errands during the day to get a few last things for the birthday dinner, and party the next day. We picked up Jacob from school and even took him with us for a little while, he thought that was great!
If you ask Jacob what his favorite food is, he'll give you three answers: fish, shrimp, and pizza. My mom decided that she wanted to do a special dinner for Jacob so we did bbq salmon and coconut shrimp along with homemade rolls, fresh pineapple, salad, peas, red potatoes, and of course cake and ice cream. We went with a baseball theme this year. Although the cake isn't the best version of a baseball, it sure tasted good! 
Kylie surprised her family by coming home for the weekend from Utah State, and the Colemans still made it over afterwards for cake and ice cream. It's always so fun to have them here. We love having them close. I love being able to sit around and talk and catch up with everyone. There are always some good stories, and I love hearing all about school, sports, boyfriends, etc from the 'big' kids. It brings back lots of fun memories.
Jacob was excited for his presents and had a few eager helpers willing to help him unwrap his gifts. He really got spoiled this year. Jeff and I got him a baseball bat, t-stand, bases, and a few other things. The Colemans brought him the Nerf gun, and the other really fun and thoughtful gifts came from grandparents- Jacob was in heaven! 
On Thursday, Jan 27th, we had the fun opportunity to go to a comedy night with the Coleman family, my parents, and Cole. My family decided to make a trip to our place for Jacob's birthday, and it happened to be the same time that Kyle awesomely hooked us up with tickets for the Brian Regan concert, so we all went together. We can't thank Kyle enough! It was a blast.
That night was a little crazy- my parents got into town about 4:30pm, then we all had dinner at the Coleman's at 5:30, then Jeff and I had to hurry home to meet our home teachers who were coming at 6:30, and then have everything ready for our babysitter who arrived at 6:45. It was a little hectic, but eventually we got everyone settled and made it over to the concert center where we met up with the group again. It was also fun to run into some friends from our ward who were there as well. 
When I was little, I fell in love with the game of softball. It first started when I was really young, maybe 5 years old. My parents would take us out to the lawn of our apartment complex (Wymount Terrace in Provo) and spend hours throwing a ball for us to hit with a big plastic bat. We enjoyed the activity for years. When I got to be a little older, 10-11, I really fell in love with the game. I remember my dad out in the yard teaching me and making me spend hours doing silly looking drills so I would know how to really 'throw' a ball- hard and fast and anything but 'girly.' When we would go to my grandparents home on a farm in Idaho, I loved playing catch with my grandpa-an awesome ball player- who still to this day says I have the best arm he'd ever seen on a girl.
I started playing on a city team for the first time when I was about 11-12. I played pitcher and one game had 13 strike-outs in a row. As I got older, I played a couple more years on a city team, and then made the junior high team where I was the starting short-stop and then 2nd baseman. One season was cut short when I broke my wrist sliding into 3rd base on a stolen base run and I ended up with a cast to my shoulder. Sadly, in high school I wasn't able to play softball because the softball and track seasons coincided and due to many different reasons, I decided to stick with track- which was a decision I never regretted. I ran with friends, my sister, had a blast, and even broke the high school 100m high hurdle record. Even though I miss playing softball, my life is busy as a wife and mother, and my time has been full with plenty of other things. However, it looks as though I may have another chance.
Over the past couple years, Jacob and Caleb have started to love the game of baseball. Oh, I would break out the big plastic bat and tennis balls we had around and play with them every so often, but I really think it started during our time in Philadelphia when we had our World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies in 2008. Anyone who knows Philly knows how much the city loves their teams, especially when they're good. They would have "Phillies" day at school, and even the kindergartners knew that the Yankees were the enemy. Since then, our boys, and Jacob in particular (who is set on playing baseball in college, but not the major leagues because they have to play on Sunday), have really started to love baseball. I've especially noticed it over the past year- the boys will come and beg me to come outside and play baseball with them. They love to set up a baseball diamond, usually with rocks or branches to mark the bases, gather up the tennis balls and play a game. (We did just set Jacob up with a great supply of baseball gear for his birthday-more on that later). We'll do batting practice, or play 2 on 1 games together. They could play for hours.
At times, I've found myself trying to make excuses, telling the boys to go play while I work on other things. I love to play with them, but there is always so much to be done and just not enough time. But it really hit me the other day- I was once that young girl who had a passion for softball. I would do anything to play and spend as much time as I could. I would beg my family to play with me, and when no one could, I would play alone. Now here I am, a mother with three little boys who also have a love for the game. Sons who would love nothing more than to spend hours playing baseball in the yard with their mom. How can I tell them no? How could I ever have known when I was little, that I would have kids of my own who would have the same love of a game? And how did I ever get so lucky?
-Kristie and I tried to do a photo shoot with our girls when we were together at Christmas time, and I'm learning that it's getting harder to get pictures of Emily. She's busy enough that she doesn't want to just sit there, and I don't know if it's the camera or the fact that's she's busy with other things, but it's getting harder to get pictures with her smiling. :)
-Emily can stand up all by herself in the middle of a room and take 10-12 steps by herself at a time, but it seems that crawling is still her preferred method of transportation. That's great with me! I love watching her crawl around, it makes her seem more like a baby.
-Emily loves to be with the big kids. She always wants to be right in the middle of all the action. She'll follow her brothers upstairs, downstairs, or wherever they might go. She gets really sad when they go outside to play without her.
- Emily figured out how to clap her hands, and now loves to clap all the time, especially when she's happy and excited. She also points at things a lot.
- Emily loves to talk all day long. She says 'ma ma' 'da da' and 'hi' pronounced 'aye'. One morning when I brought her into our room, she saw Jeff and said, "aye da da." Maybe it was just coincidence, but Jeff and I both looked at each other and just started laughing.
- I can't wait for Spring, not only for myself, but because Emily wants to go outside all the time. I can't wait until it's warm enough to let her be outside without being all bundled up.
-She loves to push buttons, play with electronics, bang on the computer, and lots of other things that she shouldn't.
