From Baseball to Springtime Woes and everything in between...

Springtime has brought with it much to do! It's been cold and rainy and hard to find time to work in the yard (which looks like a tornado hit it...literally), but nonetheless I still try and find time to go out front for even five minutes with my little hand saw to cut away slowly at the ugly evergreen bushes that abundantly line our driveway. We've lived in our house for almost 6 years and they have been the bane of my existence since we moved in. They get overgrown so easily, making it difficult to walk between them and our cars parked in the driveway, our driveway acts as a vacuum and collects all the Falls leaves and garbage from neighbors and it all gets stuck in and under those dumb bushes, and they are a nesting ground for garter snakes and hornets. So as you can imagine I am finally fed up. There were a total of about 9 bushes on one side of our steps and 3 on the other side. I have cut out about 5 of them total, but with all the rain have failed to have time to clean up any of the debris. The pictures below depict the work that this involves. My goal is to cut them all down to stumps for this year, get the area all cleaned up and leave the stumps to rot until next year.

Then the other day our family experienced a disturbing loss. As we were leaving the house to pick up kids from school, Raymond exclaimed that there was a bird stuck in our front tree. I looked and saw a Robin hanging from our tree by a string, dead. Upon further inspection the string had acted just like a noose and was wrapped tightly around his neck and the string had gotten caught on a small branch in our tree. How this phenomenon happened, I don't know. I know that no one put it there, but think the string was from our front yard that we have wrapped around stakes to block off an area of our grass that has grass seed in it so people don't walk on it. The rain had recently weakened it and the birds snipped it, so maybe they thought it was a worm, or maybe he wanted to use it for a nest...nonetheless he should have just left it alone because it was his downfall. I still can't picture how in the world he got it around his neck and tightenend but freak things happen all the time. So when Tony got home from work, he shimmied up the tree and cut the string down with scissors and we disposed of the body. One of the daycare moms joked that Spring must have gotten the best of him and he ended it all. Not funny....but kinda.

Another sad note...one of my long term daycare kids has moved away. I took a couple of pictures of her on her last day.

Tess recently got some super cute cowgirl boots from her Grandpa Jerry and wife Lisa. She has been wearing them lately and I just thought we needed a cute picture of her in her boots. She's getting ready for her Wild West adventure trip in July.

Last night we were able to get 6 free tickets to the Creighton University vs. Southern Illinois University baseball game at the brand new stadium. It was super fun, I love going to baseball games, and the kids enjoyed it and the weather was actually perfect. So below are a few pictures from that and to end this post are just a couple other cute pictures of my kids. :)

My pitcher

Action shot!

After math of the Creighton baseball game. :)

Summer's -a-comin'!!

I have spent the last 48 hours doing nothing but scouring the internet for all that my family will be doing this summer. I am so excited because we have so many places that we will be headed and so much the kids will get to see and do. It's a nice excitement because last summer we really went no where and did nothing all summer due to lack of finances. This summer we actually have a nice tax return, and will have a bunch of bills paid off so we are taking advantage of it.

First the kids and I will be headed to my mom and dad's lake cabin in Missouri for a Memorial day weekend 4 day excursion. It will be fun to be boating and hanging out in the outdoors and most importantly catching some fish with the boys (which they failed to do last summer and are super anxious to do). While there I hope to borrow a bunch of my dads camping supplies to add to our very small stockpile for our big trip in July...

Then the second weekend in June all 6 of us will be traveling to Fargo, ND and the Detroit Lakes area in MN to hang out with the entire Coffey clan for a fun-filled 6 day trip meeting and revisiting with Tony's dad and all of his family and Tony's cousins and all of their kids, which we have really never met but are all the same age as my own kids. So my kids will have lots of other kids to play with. We'll be staying at a hotel for the first couple of days, but hope to stay at Tony's Grandparents lake for at least a day to see them, which we might not otherwise see this summer until later...

Then in July it's the "Grand Daddy of them all!!" Our first super big family vacation! We will be leaving July 18 (Mon) and traveling up towards Rapid City, SD...taking a detour through the Badlands up to Wall, SD and Wall Drug and on to Rapid City where we will spend the night. Tue. morning we will wake up early and drive through the Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, Custer State Park, Spearfish, etc. and work our way to Devils Tower in WY where we will end our day in my old home town, Gillette, WY. We will tour Gillette and show the kids my old stomping grounds while maybe running into some of my old friends...(wink wink). Then that Wednesday we will wake up and head towards Powell, WY where we will stay the night and stock up on all of our camping food and supplies before heading into Yellowstone Thurs. morning where we will be camping for 3 days with Tony's mom's side of the family and Grandparents, cousins, aunts/uncles, etc. EXCITING. So excited for this trip...can you tell?? :) After a fun-filled three days of hanging out in one of my favorite all tme places (Yellowstone and Grand Tetons...) we will head to Laramie, WY (with a pit stop in Rock Springs to show Owen where he was born...) where we will hopefully meet up with a bunch of our Laramie friends that Sunday night. Monday the 25th we will get up and head to Cheyenne where we will be going to the Frontier Days Rodeo and hanging with my oldest sister Kimberly, who will be working with the Press for the Rodeo, grabbing a bite of dinner with her before we head out Mon. evening to head back to Omaha. We'll see if we can make the super late night drive to Omaha or if we'll have to stop at some roadside hotel - but then that Tuesday the 26th we will have a day to rest, unpack, do laundry before we have to work again that Wed. Phew. Jealous yet??

I am so excited for our trip in July because this will be the first time I will have taken my kids back to where I grew up and I'm so excited for them to see how awesome WY is. I'm planning on bringing my computer with to update with pictures along the road. If you are going to be in any of these spots along the way, please come hang out with us!!! I'd love to see my old friends. So off to plan some more...happy planning!

"Take me out to the Ball Game..." PLAY BALL!

Plllllllaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy ball! This is the new phrase we hear almost nightly. It is officially that time of year when baseball is in full "swing". Owen started playing baseball at the YMCA when he was 3 and now plays for the Little League the last two years. Raymond started when he was 3, so this will be his 3rd year and now little Judd has entered into the world of baseball. As you can guess the minimum age to start playing ball of any kind and most extracurricular activities is 3.  Tony has coached for the last 3 years. (I kind of feel like breaking into that School House Rocks song 'three is a magic number'. lol) This year he is coaching Owen and Raymond on the same team like last year. We figured that Judd would be too clingy to Tony if he coached his team, so we are letting another Coach teach Judd the ropes, which is good for him to have another authority figure to listen too.

As I always say, life is a whirlwind and constantly crazy. If we are not at church, then we are at baseball, or baseball practice, or soccer or swimming lessons, or meetings....the list goes on. This is without Tess being involved in anything yet. What will we do then?

Owen signed up for soccer for the first time ever with the YMCA. He was so excited because he had been playing it at recess with some of the other boys. He is pretty good when he applies himself, but he is timid and not a go getter after the ball. He is a little scared of being kicked I think and doesn't realize that he doesn't have to be polite about stealing the ball away. He'll get better though, for his first time EVER playing I think he does really  well. The other kids have been playing for awhile now. He looks so cute with his shin guards and jersey though and he's trying super hard. Tuesday nights are his practices and Saturdays are his games.

Each boy is very talented at baseball. Surprisingly at times cause they never really play it at home much, so when I see Judd at his 2nd game only yesterday be able to pretty much throw the ball from the pitcher mound to first base, I was a little shocked! I love watching them play sports or do activities of any kinds. It makes me so proud to see them doing something that they like and are good at.

I love the way they look in their uniforms. Owen and Raymond are red and have black hats with a white B on it for Benson (our area of town), then Judd is forest green with the same hat. Owen and Raymond have long red baseball socks, but we opted to not worry about socks for Judd this year because the smallest size baseball pants they make go down past poor little Judd's shoes. They have to be pulled up and tucked under to make them not too long. He's so cute though, he looks like he's dressed up in his dad's clothes or something. The hat is over sized, the pants are over sized and the shirt is a bit big. The cutest image you will ever see is Judd running the bases wearing a HUGE helmet with his little legs, it makes him look like one of those bobble head dolls running the bases. ha ha. He likes it and I'm happy that he's trying something away from home. Each of them plays 2 -3 games a week, which means we are up at the ball fields about 4-5 times a week to watch games.

Owen and Raymond in the outfield.

Judd is the 3rd one from the left.

Judd getting his first hit.

Probably my absolute favorite baseball picture of the season! Judd made it to first base.

My 2nd favorite picture. The ONLY time that Owen and Raymond will play against Judd's team. Judd is on 2nd base chatting with his brothers in the outfield.

Tony as coach of Owen and Raymonds team in the dugout.

Raymond's first hit.

Owen's first hit.

 So now that baseball is in full swing, we have soccer to go to twice a week, baseball 4-5 times a week, and Owen and Raymond are taking swimming lessons every Thursday night until the end of May. Busy as always but I kind of like it that way. So here's to busy nights and tired days, quick meals, and lots of sun! It's a great spring so far.