Diamondbacks win their first game!

Brandon had such a great first game. He was really paying attention while he was in the outfield, which is saying a lot about our chronic daydreamer. He may have struck out the first time he was at bat, but he nailed it the second time and got on base. When he turned around to face the crowd from first base, he was smiling so big my heart was just bursting. Sorry, but I am a mom, and can't help myself. When he got to home plate, he just stood there smiling until coach called him into the dugout. Oh, and he was extra cute all geared up to play catcher. He was killing us all that he practically walked the ball to the pitcher every time. My sweet boy didn't know what he was doing. He'll know what to do next time, I'm sure. The whole team did so great. It really was a lot of fun to watch.

River Park Youth Baseball Opening Day

I LOVE River Park Youth Baseball's Opening Day! It's such an overly sweet bite of Americana, you can't help but take another bite. I love seeing all the teams in their brand new uniforms piled into trucks, trailers and even limos (don't get me started on that). Each kid has a huge bag of candy to throw to (and sometimes at) the spectators along the parade route. Each face in the parade is a smiling beam of sunshine. Unless, of course, you were pelted with a lollipop. Then you may think otherwise about that smiling face. I always wonder how many blocks they make it before they run out of candy, because they inevitably come back they way went. Only this time they are holding out their hats asking the crowd to throw candy to them.

Once the trucks, trailers and limos are parked, the teams come pouring onto Ciavarella Field for the opening ceremonies: hats off for the national anthem, teams are introduced, thanks are made to the MANY volunteers, special guests are introduced and finally the first pitch is thrown to officially open the season. While all of this is going on, you look around and see this beautiful, well maintained field covered in a rainbow of jerseys and mostly crisp white pants. 350 or so kids who just want to play baseball. Tiny t-ballers all the way up to the majors. It really is an amazing sight. I don't know what it is about the whole experience that makes me feel so nostalgic. There just seems to be something special about this sport and the people in our neighborhood who support it.

Oh! This is what it's like to have friends!

Maren Hanchen and Dylan loving the jellies at Monterey Bay Aquarium

We spent this last weekend with our friends, the Hanchens. Between the two families we had 6 kids to entertain. It's always so much work with just our kids, I was afraid 6 kids just might kill me. I couldn't be more wrong. The boys had the time of their lives with the girls. They spent the whole weekend playing with the girls. Owen was Maren's shadow practically the whole weekend. She was so patient and kind to Owen, that he couldn't leave her alone. Dylan and McKenna hung out together a bit, which was nice since they are about the same age. Brandon played with everyone. A highlight of the weekend wasn't the Monterey Bay Aquarium (2 kids asked if we could go home within 1o minutes) or the beach with all the treasures to be collected in buckets and hauled home just to sit in the same buckets in the garage never to be seen again...no, it had to be running around the yard capturing and innocently tormenting lizard after lizard. I couldn't watch the kids with the lizards for more than five minutes (sorry, no pics of this). I kept wincing thinking that this next moment one of the little critters was going to become road kill from over zealous feet. At least the lizards were able to "escape" from their enclosure at night. We parents felt so bad for the little critters, they had to be released from their pink plastic box of a home. Poor things were probably too stunned to move more than a couple feet that night.

When the kids were finally in bed at night, we would have some adult time around the fire outside. It came up that the last time the 4 of us were in Santa Cruz together was our 1st wedding anniversary in 2002. It doesn't seem possible that it's been almost 8 years. Back before children. I think that's when everything changed for us. Children. Our own and everyone else's kids. The life we were used to became irrelevant. The kids became the focus, so we threw ourselves into it as we should have. But at the same time, we stopped making time for our friends and didn't realize what we lost until this last weekend. Time to reorganize our life and make time for the people who we have unintentionally shelved but have always been important to us.

Maren and Brandon found many treasure washed up on the beach. Here they are collecting shells and rocks with Maren's dad, Scott Hanchen, at Rio Del Mar Beach.

Battling the boys

I sometimes get so frustrated with the things my kids choose and refuse to eat. I don't get why Owen won't eat sandwiches, but he'll gobble up diced ham and steamed broccoli or carbonara for lunch. Ok, I admit I should not be complaining about that, but when I don't have leftovers to pack in his lunch for preschool, lunch packing becomes a challenge. His teachers must think we're lazy always packing salami & crackers. I sometimes think, "It's been weeks since he's had a sandwich. Maybe today he'll eat one." I proceed to make a jelly sandwich. He takes one bite and says he's done. Frustration ensues and I eat a jelly sandwich for lunch.

I worry that Owen will do the same thing as his brothers: stop eating almost everything. Brandon bounced back, so he gives me hope. But that stubborn, pig-headed Deets is killing us. He eats so few things, he's practically weightless when you pick him up. He's like a bird with hollow bones. I worry the main reason is because he doesn't get enough calcium in his diet. He doesn't drink milk or even allow us to put it in his cereal. If we insist, he flat refuses to eat. You probably think, "Let him go hungry then." We've gone down that path. Dylan will spend hours vomiting because his blood sugar has dropped and his body can no longer function. We tell him that will happen again if he doesn't eat. Makes no difference. If he doesn't want it, he's not eating it no matter what. End of story. Don't waste your time. Our biggest problem is dinner time. He comes into the kitchen every night saying, "Don't give me something I don't like," gearing up for the nightly fight. Russ, thankfully, has figured out why he has such a problem with dinner time: it's the only meal where he isn't choosing what he eats. I make dinner and put it on the table. It could be something I know he'll eat, but because he didn't choose it, he won't eat it. We have since asked him to help us plan dinners. We'll see how that goes. I just want the anxiety to go away first. The look in his eyes when he comes to the table breaks my heart. The food at this point is secondary. We have given in for now, and let him pick what he'll eat for dinner.

Mmmm! Carbonara!

One of my favorite winter meals is carbonara. It's so warm and creamy with a hearty flavor. There is something about this dish that makes me groan involuntarily. Whenever I'd have this craving, I'd talk Russ into going to Spataro for dinner. I'd satisfy my craving and also get to spend the evening chatting with my husband in a setting far removed from home. Seeing as our dining out has come to a screeching halt due to one less job in the family, I no longer have this to fall back on.

Tonight was the night I had my craving, so I thought tonight is the night I would brave the kitchen. I've been told that it's a fairly basic dish, but having the knowledge that the sauce is raw egg, cream and cheese makes me hesitant in the cooking department. None the less, I felt confident that I would succeed. It kind of helped that during my blog reading, Sobrina posted the following: http://www.quietlikehorses.com/2010/01/roys-carbonara.html giving me even more confidence that I could do this.

It turned out pretty good, and my craving has been satisfied.

Found a new blog to follow

I'm making my best effort to get back into the swing of things with my blogs. So I remembered that when I had nothing to write, I would check in at a couple of blogs that I like to follow. I would also check the Blogger "Blogs of Note."

Well, I found this gem of a blog with nothing but one-liners muttered by the husband in his sleep. I was looking for a good writer, like Sobrina, but found Sleep-Talkin' Man instead. If you're looking for a chuckle, it's a good spot to waste some time. I included it in "My Blog List" to the right. Happy reading!

First rookie division tryout

We kept checking the website in hopes that today's tryouts would be cancelled again due to weather. No such luck. Russ and I stood around watching Brandon's baseball tryouts for 2 hours this cold, wet afternoon. None of us wanted to be there today, not even Brandon. He was so happy in the warm house playing video games. Even in his head, it was insane to go out in the rain to play catch and hit balls.

Brandon did as well as we expected. The cold definitely made a difference in his performance. His poor hands were so cold, that he couldn't catch as well as he would have liked. During the batting tryouts, he made contact with the ball 2 of 5 pitches. The only thing that made us frustrated was he wouldn't run after the ball. He walked just about everywhere. That's ok though. He'll figure it out next time.

On the way home from tryouts, we asked Brandon if he had fun. He immediately said yes. Then a few seconds later he said, "Not really." I can't blame him. He spent most of those 2 hours catching pop flies and grounders. When he did get to bat, he only got 5 pitches. There truely wasn't time for more than that. There were over one hundred kids trying out for just the rookie division. The president of the league let us know that there are more kids than teams available, and they aren't sure what they are going to do yet. Good to hear that our league is strong and growing, but leaves me feeling a little concerned. We will see what happens on that front soon enough.

We did get the low down on the tryout process from our neighbor who has coached rookies for 2 years: all the coaches care about is the batting. At this level, almost all the outs made are strike outs. The kids are still too little to catch and throw the ball to base for an out. When it does happen it's a big deal. So after all the tryouts are done, the coaches gather for a draft, which I can't help but find funny. Some coaches take the draft much more seriously than others. Our neighbor is one of the "others" who just wants to get all the kids' friends and neighbors on the same team regardless of talent. After that's accomplished he fills with talent if he can. This was good to hear, because we really wanted Brandon to be on a team of familiar faces.

Owen's new bed

We decided Owen is just too big to still be sleeping in a crib. What we didn't realize was that he actually liked his crib.

Every night he would climb into those sea of blankets, stuffed animals, books and pillows, find a little spot for himself, and snuggle right in with a sippy cup of milk. The best part was when he finished the milk. He'd stand right up, bang the cup repeatedly on the rail while yelling, "Mommy, I done!" until someone would come and take his cup away. We never got that on video, now that I think of it.

A couple of weeks ago, Russ and I went shopping for Owen's new bed. We thought it would be so cool to get him a Thomas the Tank Engine bed, since Owen love, love, LOVES trains. As soon as we saw the price tag on the Thomas bed, we turned straight away to a more practical bed. It actually looks a lot like his crib (same finish and same slats on the headboard). We were so excited to replace Owen's crib with the bed, but erred on the side of caution and waited until Owen agreed to the upgrade. We asked him if he wanted to sleep in a big boy bed instead of his crib. He said, "No," without hesitation. Not willing to accept that answer, I showed him a picture of the bed on our computer. He still said, "No." Russ and I just looked at each other in defeat.

So what did we do? We waited a week and asked again when Owen was in a really good mood. Owen hesitated before he answered, "Yes?" The look on his face said it all. He was answering what he thought was right, but just wasn't quite sure he was doing the right thing. Needless to say we ran with the answer. We took the boys to my mom's house that day, and when he came home we presented him with his new bed. He screamed and dance around. (Another video moment we missed.) We asked him if he liked it, and he said, "Ya!" Once we had the Thomas bedding on, he got even more excited. He exclaimed, "That's cool!" and immediately tucked his penguin into bed.

His first night in his new bed went off without a hitch. I realized that he needed a tiny little bedside table so he could put his cup somewhere when he's done with his milk. I figured the sit & spin would work just fine, so now it's his make shift table. No more banging and yelling when he's done with his milk, which I have to admit I'm going to miss. The baby stage has been gone for quite some time (some will argue there never really was a baby stage with Owen), but the changing landscape of the boys room makes it official.

The funny thing about the new bed is it took Owen almost a week to figure out that he could just pop out of bed and come running down the hall. Up until this morning he was still calling out "mommy." He wouldn't come running until he heard me call out, "Mousy! Come here!" That boy is the happiest morning face in this house. He's like a little ray of sunshine, and he makes me smile no matter how tired I am.

Santa Cruz update

Russ asked me a while ago to post the photos he took of the deck he has almost completed. He is proud of how the project turned out, and I'm proud of him as well. He just needs to add the top detail piece to the rail and we can call the top deck done. I can't wait to see it for myself!

The following link has photos from the beginning to where it is right now:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=45339&id=1132970605&l=febcd84723

Ok, ok! I'll write already!

I heard it from Russ last night. He asked me when I'm going to blog again. He keeps checking and ends up disappointed when he finds nothing new. For me blogging is kind of like going to the gym or for a run. If you stop your routine, it's very difficult to pick it up again. Russ actually said, "You stopped [blogging] because I was in Santa Cruz, but I'm home now." He's cute. I have 6 months of cobwebs in my head. After that long, the words aren't coming as easily as they used to.