Softball

Hey - it's Softball Season!!!

We have four girls playing ball this year - Jas on the school team and the other girls on the Junior Co-ed Softball teams.

Let me tell you about these amazing t-shirts:

Carlee designed them!!!

She started the process by doodling some ideas on paper . . .

. . . and then designing it on the computer.  (Rich suggested the diamond idea around the whole thing and Carlee liked the way that looked - good job daddy!)

Then we got them printed on all the t-shirts - light pink and safety green.

Great job Carlee!!!

I help to organize the Junior Co-ed Softball so I had all thirty shirts.  Now to write names on the labels according to sizes ordered - much more efficient to hand them out that way!  Oh, and I know it's co-ed, but only two boys are playing, and they're not on a pink team!

Let's check out Jasmine . . .

She's showing us that she can get just as banged up in softball as she can in basketball!  She has since got another matching bruise on the other leg - good way to stop the grounders.  And the bloody knee is from a slide back into second base.  She's playing really well though and is actually the most experienced player on the team this year - there are no seniors playing and she's played every year so far.  All games are double headers and she usually pitches at least one game, or plays first or third, and has even done outfield and shortstop.  Jas adds, "I love it!!!"

Jenna is in her second year of softball.  Here she's hurrying on her way to first base.

She plays with the grades 3, 4 and a few 5's.  Numbers are down this year (lots of spring league basketball seems to be taking kids from soccer and softball) so we only have 6 kids on each team - which is fine at this level as they're getting lots more batting time and they don't need fielders as it doesn't usually get hit out of the infield!

And she's on her way to second base!!!  Go Jenna Go!  (And yes, she made it home - one base at a time.)

About to don the safety helmet.

Carlee plays with the Grade's 5-8, which mostly consists of Grade 7 girls - like her!  We have two teams with 9 on each.  So Carlee and Jordyn play each other every week.  This softball is non-competitive, it's just to teach the kids how to play and have fun.  It's basically the training ground for when they reach Grade 9 and can play for the Pandas.

Happy to be playing ball - third base at this point.

This is very serious!

And here comes the pitch!

Jordyn's last year with Junior Co-ed Softball - next year she can be a Panda and play with Jas!

Making sure her glove is on just right.

She hits the ball, gently throws the bat down and off she goes to first!

Jordyn and team mates chatting in the dugout.

Monday's are a little crazy around here - softball starts right after school for everyone!!!  It's such a short season though, and so many games have to be rescheduled due to the weather.  Panda's are finished in just over a week and the others play til school ends.

My softball girls!

I miss watching Chelle play this year - it's one of her very favourite sports.  I think she misses it too. 

I delight in the seasons!  I love watching the world physically change as the seasons change, and I love the different activities that come with the various seasons.  After a long cold winter and lots of indoor activities, it is lovely to be outside again.  One of my favourite delights right now is climbing into a sun-warmed vehicle and feeling the warmth seep into my bones - ahhh!!!  But I can assure you, that by the end of the summer, I'll be a little tired of climbing into sun-scorched vehicles!  And then, of course, we'll be onto the next season!



A Very Multi-Purpose Room

I'm a little embarrassed to post this, but this is what life is like right now, so here goes . . .

We sold our home last July.  The whole thing was kind of neat because our house had been listed for over two years, first with WeList and then with realtors.  Our contract expired the end of June, and a week later we had sold our home, ourselves!  By July 23 we were out of there!!!  A whirlwind of packing and moving and cleaning - sure glad it was summer and girls were not in school - they're great helpers!!!  It was wonderful because we had the perfect place to move into - Gramma and Grampas house!!!  They are on a mission in North Carolina and while they had a couple renting their basement, the main floor was available (and a little bit of the basement).  It's hard to find places to rent in town so we were so glad to be able to rent their home.

There were some challenges though!!!  Their house was still full of their furniture and things.  So, we had to do some adjusting!!!  Most of our stuff is piled up in the garage, but there is lots in the house too - like two sets of living room furniture in the living room.  I sure hope I can remember how things were so I can put everything back the same way - especially the pantry!!! 

Let's take a tour of the master bedroom - a very multi-purpose room right now!  It doesn't look too bad from the doorway.  The bed is my desk - that's why it's covered in papers!  I was working on payroll remittance.

I was going to clean it up a little, but decided to show how it usually looks!

This is the "office" corner of the bedroom - all the business paperwork and regular household bills and stuff, and some crafts!  Fax coming in - measurements of the fireplace!

One chair and lamp is still covered by the plastic dust cover Gramma and Grampa put over things.  One chair holds all the house building paperwork, the other one holds craft stuff - fabric, projects in progress, temple pictures with no where to hang yet!  The pants on the back of the chair are Gramma's!!!  The box on the table is tax stuff for 2010 - I don't know where else to put it!  The dark dresser is full of craft supplies and paper, envelopes, etc.  The two boxes on the ground are filled with other things we need, but not all the time, like softball organizing papers.  The other box is filled with work clothes (and usually there is a big red suitcase under it, but Rich is working out of town and has it with him, so the room actually looks more spacious right now!)  And then there is also the body on the floor!

Dressers - Rich's and mine in front of Gramma's and Grampa's (which are still covered in the plastic dust cover).  And that body again!

The baby corner - clothes, diapers, shoes for Mackenzie and my Primary binder on the floor - I use it all the time and don't know where else to put it!!!

This side of the room is Mackenzie's room.

She's got books and toys on top of Gramma's night stand to play with when she wakes up from naps.  The other day, she opened Gramma's top drawer and found some random loose things in there, and of course she decided to eat them.

When I got her, she was eating the one with orange flecks.  I have no idea what it is because there was no container or others to compare it to.  You can see that she had been sucking on a Tylenol 500, but fortunately had spit it out - guess it didn't taste too good!  So, this was more than a little scary to me.  I was about to leave to go watch four of my other girls play softball, but decided I better keep her with me so I could keep a close eye on her.  I pumped some food and juice into her to dilute whatever she had injested.  She seemed completely fine and happy.  Later I searched the medicine cabinet to see if I could find anything that looked like it, but no luck.  My sister was here this weekend and suggested that maybe it was a Certs.  She licked it a bit and said it tasted citrusy.  So hopefully that's all she ate - a Certs and the coating of a Tylenol.  I have since solved the problem of her snooping in Gramma's night stand by simply moving her bed a few inches so it's right against the drawer now.

So life is somewhat chaotic right now - and it will get worse before it gets better!!!  But that's all part of this adventure called Life.  Gramma and Grampa's release date is July 20, and then they'll be driving home, which will take them a week to twelve days.  So, we'll be moving out of their house and trying to remember how things were set up before (should have taken pictures!!!).  And don't forget the cleaning - lots of little fingerprints around!!! 

Our house will not be finished yet (Rich does need to "go" to work), so we're planning on living in the camper, tent and shop, while we work like crazy to get things finished.  We do plan on having one bathroom and the laundry room working in the house.  The shop will be our living room, dining room and kitchen - it does have cabinets!!!  We'll do our cooking with things we can plug in - microwave, griddle, frypan . . . and of course, there is always the barbeque!  I'm so glad it will be summer - the girls are thrilled with the idea of having a tent for their bedroom, and I'm just glad that I have a very comfy bed in the camper - the camper with air conditioning!

It has been a wonderful blessing though to be able to live in Gramma and Grampa's house.  And excited as I am to move into our new home, there is one thing I'm really going to miss . . .

 

Having the church right there!!! 

This is the view from the front door.  Do you have any idea how convenient it is to have the church right there?  For example, I never have to lug diapers around with me - I just walk home to change her!  And Rich never makes us late for church any more - we just walk on over when we're ready.  And if I know it's been set up for a wedding reception, I can walk over and take a peek!  Not to mention never having to drive kids to activities!!!

Yup - I'm sure gonna miss this when we move three blocks away!

I delight in the scripture in Proverbs 3: 5-6. 

 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." 

It is wonderful to know that Heavenly Father has a plan for us, and all things happen in the Lord's time.

The Message on the House

Here's what you've been waiting to see . . .

. . . the message Rich left on the house for me!  Can you see it?

Here's a closer look . . .

 . . . Sweeties House!!!  Isn't that just so - sweet?

Okay, last week Rich only worked on the house for two days - he was getting calls from people who desperately needed him to work.  You can only not work for money for so long, right?  It's not like he's been on vacation or anything!

Doing smart board and stucco wire around the back side.

Rich sitting down on the job and Katia exploring the ladder.

Chelle cleaning up the job site - that scrap stucco wire can be pretty deadly as you will soon see!!!

WARNING:  the next picture is not for the squeamish!

The wire attacked Katia and I.  It's pretty sharp - I even had sweats on and somehow it got my calf and ankle.

Katia and I are buddies.  Whenever we're doing something similar, we become buddies for that.  Like "the having Cheerios for breakfast buddies" or the "wearing the blue shirt buddies".  Here we are the "getting your leg scratched by stucco wire buddies".

Katia is in so many of these pictures because she loves to go and help daddy at the house - and you really only want to look at so many stucco wire pictures right?  She's much more interesting!

See?  Chelle and Katia hanging from something . . .

 . . . the scaffolding.  Notice Chelle's red face - she can only hang upside down for so long!

And the house is mostly all covered - there's just a small portion on the back wall that needs to be finished.  Now it's protected from the weather - yay!!!

We really do need to find a front door - going stateside for that - so much cheaper down there!

Katia showing me how she climbed up on the dump trailer (yes, it actually tilts to dump everything out - very nice!) to throw in the garbage she was collecting from around the yard.

And here is Rich helping Katia walk along a pole.  You can see how high up this is if you go back to the fourth picture.

And my personal favourite picture of the week is . . .

. . . this one!!!  What form, what poise, what grace, what synchronization!!!  And I love the costumes - all blue and all pink.  Wow!!!

Later in the week, the girls and I attacked the house - some cleaned up the yard and some cleaned up the inside.  So, if you're wondering why I don't vacuum the house I live in, it's because I'm tired from vacuuming the house I don't live in!!!

I delight in laughing and having fun while working.  Laughter usually makes any situation better.  And they say a good belly laugh is equal to running a lap around the track.  So, have you exercised today?

Bahahahahaha or LOL doesn't count!!!

Building a House and Building Kids

Building a house is a lot of work!!!  Not just the physical work that you can actually see, but all the behind- the-scene thinking and planning and phoning, endless phoning, and getting quotes and comparing.  At least now we can see a lot of products on the internet - this does make life easier!!!

Building a house is a good way to build kids - I think for a lot of the same reasons we're told to plant a garden.  It's not just for the food, or to have a house to live in, but it's to learn how to work, work with others, feel a sense of accomplishment and enjoy real person-to-person conversation (as opposed to texted conversations!).  It's hard to find meaningful jobs for your kids these days, unless you live on the farm (yes, I had to milk the goat and mend the fences, and if everything was done there were always rocks to pick up!).  Kids these days have chores like cleaning their room, or mowing the grass for a few months, emptying the dishwasher or cleaning the bathroom.  And these are all good and necessary, but a big project, like a house, really gives them something different.  Now, that does NOT mean I want to build a new house every few years for my kids sake!!!  Are you crazy!!!  I need some sanity too!!!

Mackenzie at the house.  She's 20 months now!  Soon we're gonna have to add mowing to the list of things to do - but I seem to recall the riding lawn-mower breaking at the end of last season.  Hmmm.

Richie is working on soffit and fascia on the garage.

That's Chelle in the brown hoodie grabbing the piece of smart board (which still needs to be painted brown) from Rich.

This is how you take a break at work when you're up on scaffolding.

Doing the smart board around the front bedroom window - tons of smart board on this house!!!

Oh look, it's me!!!  Carrying - what else?  Smart board!  Rich and Chelle really needed my help one day.  I was needed to be the gopher as Rich was up on scaffolding all the time and Chelle worked the saw.  I'd run back and forth with a measurement for Chelle, then bring the wood back to Rich, and back and forth.  I was such a good helper!!!

And Katia was a good helper by keeping Mackenzie happy in the camper.  Toys they haven't seen in a while makes for a good babysitter.

Richie doing the mud room window.  My stove fits between those two other windows - it's gonna be so cute!!!  And yes, that is an air-conditioning unit (Rich won that discussion!).  That door on the right is the back of the garage.  And the other door on the left . . .

. . . is now installed!!!  It's the kitchen/dining room door out onto the deck.  And I love the little blinds between the glass!!!

Miss Katia waving to her fans on my blog!!!

Okay, let the stucco wire begin!!!  Rich says it was so nice to do stucco wire again - like visiting an old comfortable friend.  He knows what he's doing and doesn't have to think about it! 

Jas helping finish around the garage doors.

More and more of the house getting protected by black paper and stucco wire - that's double 30 minute paper in case you were wondering! 

That's Jenna and Katia entertaining themselves - I love to see the games they come up with.

That soffit, fascia, paper, wire and wire mesh for stone is sure looking good!  Rich told me there was a message on the house for me.  I found it on the south wall gable on the tyvek paper - you can't see it here and I forgot to take a picture of it.  Be sure to come back next week to see what the message is (or drive by the house if you live nearby!).

I was watching Jordyn take pictures and she got me - trapped, like a rat!!!

There is the kitchen door all finished and the stucco wire is started on the garage.  Our deck will be back here - it'll be so nice and private and sheltered from the wind.  And a few steps down from the deck will lead to . . . 

. . . the back yard.  I love that tree - any day now it's leaves will sprout!  Got lots of horses behind us - such a relaxing view.  That's the camper where Katia babysits Mackenzie.  The fence in front of the white horses is our property line.  You know, we have enough land back here to feed a goat (obviously it's zoned for farm animals!)  Hmmm - maybe we won't need to fix the lawn mower after all!!!

And let's wrap up this weeks house building post with Richie doing a very bad thing . . .

Are ya dying of curiosity . . .

Didn't your mommy ever teach you not to ride your bike in the house?

Please notice the very clean floors - Jordyn, Jenna, Katia and I worked very hard on that!  Those electrical and furnace guys drill holes and make lots of messes!  But I'm very glad they're there!

And for my delight?  I delight in spring - watching the rebirth of the world after a long, cold winters nap (especially long and cold this year!!!).  It's so delightful to feel sunshine on your shoulders again, and it makes the job site so much nicer than the cold, wet, snow and mud.  So nice to feel warm again!!!