Gracie's 4th Birthday!!

My baby girl is growing up and is not so much of a baby anymore. She still loves to snuggle, but Gracie's growing out of that cute chubby-legged and plumpy-faced toddler stage. She's even started to decide how she wants her hair cut, much to my dismay. Recently, she's decided she wants to grow her bangs out (like her sister). Little Gracie has inherited her momma's forehead, so I prefer her with bangs, but if she promised to wear a barrette to hold them out of her face, she could grow them out. Well, that lasted almost a month. Between the time that the grandma's and grandpa's came over for her birthday on Sunday, and her actual birthday on Thursday, she decided that she didn't like the hair hanging in her face and wanted me to cut them. Awwww, bummer (can you sense the sarcasm?) You can see the difference in the pictures. I'm lovin' the bangs.

Gracie and her new doll (she's been asking for one ever since Ellie got her's in February).

Gracie got to stay overnight at Grandma Connie's and went mini-golfing and who know what other fun stuff... On the way home after picking her up, I asked Grace if she missed me and she said, "No, I miss Grandma." Gotta love her honesty :P

Grace picked out her birthday breakfast... chocolate chip pancakes with NO syrup. Why no syrup?? I have no idea. It's certainly not because she's gone on a health streak, because for dinner she chose to have cereal. We didn't have any in the house, so I had to stop at the store and let her pick a couple boxes out. I'm not sure if she could've picked out a cereal more full of sugar and food coloring... Fruit Loops! I just kept telling myself, "It's Grace's birthday, and it's only one day. There are kids who live on this stuff for breakfast, and they're still alive..." (Yeah, I know I have issues.)

We met daddy at a park for lunch on her actual birthday (as is tradition) and brought cupcakes and icing that we decorated on the spot (being that we had to grab them from the oven and run). We also brought bikes, rollerblades and a stroller for cruising around the pond at the park. It was a beautiful day and Gracie had fun being princess for a day.

Baseball, piano and kids

Well, it's spring around here... and spring brings busy-ness.

Baseball is officially in full swing. We've had two games so far and one rain-out. Whenever baseball season comes, we live and breathe baseball. It's not that we have a ton of games and practices, but the boys fill their days with playing baseball in the backyard. Even Nathan has a baseball obsession (any kind of ball, really, but his favorite is "bay-ball").

We tried to put all 3 of the boys on the same team this year. It would've narrowed us down to one practice and one game per week. The Christian Youth Center is pretty relaxed in their competition and if you think about it, baseball used to be played in the neighborhood park with kids of all ages, and everyone had FUN. At their age, our focus is more on the kids having fun than obsessing about a college scholarship, but we couldn't quite pull it off. We decided to move Caleb up to the next level because he actually needed more challenge to not get bored. He got to pitch in the last game and did really well.

Noah's one of the littlest guys on the team, but stands his ground pretty well. He can knock the ball over the infield's heads, but he insists that he's going to get a home-run which will earn him a "large" ice cream cone (instead of the usual "small").

Seth played catcher for an inning and loved it. It's one of the boys favorite positions (because it gets a lot of action, I guess).

Ellie, Grace and Nathan find ways to pass the time (since we're at the ballpark from 11 until 4). They make piles in the gravel, play at the park, OR have Grandma buy them funky colored candy from the concession stand (I'm sure the latter is the favorite).

This week, before their games, Caleb and Seth had their spring piano recital. They both have the "getting up in front of people" jitters, but Caleb can hide it a bit better than Seth. At the Christmas recital, Seth absolutely refused to go up and play his piece, and as soon as the first student began to play, we could see that this was starting to turn into a repeat of Christmas-time. Paul was trying to give him a pep-talk throughout the first 4 students to no avail, so he moved back a row so Seth wouldn't be able to express how he "didn't want to do it". Right before he was to play, I got up and walked to the back of the room as well. When his name was called, he didn't move. Everyone was looking around trying to figure out who was next and after an awkward minute or two, the piano teacher flagged Caleb to go next instead.

Seth had practiced his piece a lot, so I knew that wasn't the problem. He just has the same phobia that I had when I was little. I HATED anything that had a recital at the end. Ballet, piano, tap... it didn't matter. If it had a recital at the end, I'd quit. But for Seth, I decided that he WAS going to go up. If he didn't do it now, he probably never would in future recitals. I sweetly told him that if he didn't choose to go up by himself, I would have to drag him up. Then I asked if he wanted me to walk all the way up to the piano with him, or halfway. After he got the "Do I have to?" answered with a firm "Yes.", I walked him halfway up the aisle after Caleb was done, and he did FANTASTIC!

Caleb played a piece from Bach and did great too. Next week he has a judged piano competion where he's going to play the same piece, but he has to have it memorized.

And in-between the action on Saturday, we had our final baby goat bringing our total to four kids (two boys and two girls). They are so fun to watch. The newest babies are only 2 and 3 days old, but are so cute how they romp around and play with each other. We have been getting fresh goat's milk from the first doe for about a week now and it is soooo delicious. We all prefer the raw goat's milk to cow's milk any ol' day. Mmmmmm-mmmmmm. Just gotta get one of these kids (MY kids) to bake up some chocolate chip cookies....