Just a little catching up to do . . .

School is out for us and summer has started!!  I survived my first year of homeschool!  It was interesting having to relearn things from junior high/high school, but we did it!  I really enjoyed having Payton at home.  We had our moments where I wanted to wring his neck, but I really enjoyed doing it.

           

Evan’s last day of school was this past Friday.  I can’t believe he’s going to be in the 4^th grade!!  Evan wants to homeschool next year, but I’m not sure what we are going to do.  Payton is a home-body and doesn’t have to be very social.  Evan is my social butterfly.  I’m afraid that homeschooling him wouldn’t be a good fit just because there wouldn’t be anyone in our neighborhood to play with until after public school lets out.  So, we’ll have to see what we decide over the summer.

Jaxon also finished school last week.  The picture is Jaxon with his teacher, Mrs. Angela.  She was such the perfect teacher for him this year!  It was his first time being away from me and she made it so easy!  He was really sad that school was over and told me that he isn’t going to kindergarten until he turns 7.  He has also taken an interest in baseball lately.  Payton has been giving him batting lessons in the cage in the backyard.  Will we have 3 baseball superstars?

Speaking of baseball, Little League is almost over.  Payton and Evan’s teams made it to the district tournament, so that starts this week.  We have our last travel tournament for the summer on June 8^th.  Evan will be playing in Waxahachie and Payton will be in Euless (DFW).  It has been a little tricky this travel season with 2 boys playing.  At the beginning of the year, both teams were ranked AA.  But after the 2^nd tournament, Payton’s team was promoted to AAA.  That is awesome for his team, but sometimes AA teams and AAA teams can’t play in the same tournaments.  Our coach has done a really good job at getting them at least close to each other, so we watch one boy play and drive 15 minutes to watch the other one.  Luckily, we have some great friends on Payton’s team who have let him spend the night with them, etc. to make it easier on us.  This last tournament will be the first time we’ve been split and not driving between games because they’re 50 miles apart.

Payton’s team often makes it to the championship game and I think they’ve only lost in 2 championship games.  Evan’s team won their first championship game a few weeks ago.  They finished on Saturday night at 11:30 pm and had to be back at the fields by 7:15 Sunday morning.  That game went into extra innings and Evan scored the winning run!  They walked across the complex and started the next game and won 18-7!  They walked across the complex again and won in another extra inning game!  It was such an awesome moment for those boys! They played 6 straight hours of baseball and came out on top! 

With all of this baseball, Jaxon just goes along.  It’s such a good thing that he is such an easy and laid back kid.  He just goes where we need to go and plays while the boys are playing their games.  He usually makes friends with just about any kid that is around the fields.  At one tournament, we were at the ball fields for 29 hours in 2 days.  He did great until it came time to leave.  He was exhausted and had just had enough baseball for the weekend.  But, he was asleep in the car before we got out of the parking lot.  This picture is of Jaxon's breakfast at the ball field -- Pringles and Bug Juice.  Breakfast of champions, right?

Evan broke his arm in March and missed 4 weeks.  We were at a baseball tournament and we were watching Payton’s 2^nd game and Aaron dropped his Gatorade under the bleachers.  He asked Evan to get it for him and when Evan jumped down between the bleachers, he hit his arm on the crossbar underneath.  He missed his 2^nd game for the day and had to sit out on Sunday because it was still hurting.  We took him to the doctor the next day and it was broken.  So, he spent 4 weeks in a cast and 2 weeks in a splint.  He’s all fine now, but it was frustrating for him for those 4 weeks!

Payton’s arm is still bothering him, so after this last tournament, I guess we’ll try to get him in somewhere to get it really checked out.  When he originally hurt it, we took him to a clinic here in Clyde who sent us all over the place and we spent a lot of money & never really got any answers.  It quit bothering him, so we just thought it had healed.  But, it’s bothering him again, so we’ll try to get an answer this time. 

Now that it’s summer, I’m planning on getting my house organized and doing a little sewing.  My friend taught me how to sew about a year ago and I’ve really enjoyed it!  So, I have a list of projects I want to get finished this summer.  Wish me luck!

Aaron and I celebrated our 15^th anniversary in March.  I can’t believe it’s been 15 years already!!  He surprised me with a day get away.  It was so relaxing!  We went to Possum Kingdom Lake (which I had never been to) and it was the middle of the week, so nobody was really out there.  We had planned on going to a movie, but the timing didn’t work out.  So, we ended up watching an OU baseball game on tv.  It went into 15 innings!  Yep, we love baseball in our house!  Ha ha!

My dad will be having back surgery on June 20^th.  He has scoliosis in his lower and upper back.  I don’t remember a day in my life where my dad hasn’t been in pain.  He hasn’t taken pain medicine because it makes him feel funny.  It’s surprising that he’s made it this long without it.  My grandmother (his mom) passed away in April and at her funeral, I thought he looked pretty rough, but I just thought it was the circumstances.  My mom called me the next week and said he’s finally decided to do something about his back.  My understanding (& the short version) is that they will rebuild his lower back and let that heal.  Then, they’ll have to go in and rebuild his upper back.  I really hope this works for him.  He should have a lot of years left in his life to live it in this much pain.  I can’t imagine.  So, I’m sure I’ll be spending some time back home to help while he recovers. 

Here are a few kind of random pictures from recent.  Jaxon and his best friend (and neighbor), Gracie.  These guys just love being together!  Jaxon was so excited about Pre-K graduation, that he wanted to invite everyone he knew.  Evan had a baseball game that night, so Aaron and the boys didn't go.  But about 15 minutes before we left, Jaxon asked if we could take Gracie with us.  She ran home and changed her clothes and we loaded up.  These guys are so cute!!

At a tournament in Burleson, a kid tries to steal 2nd.  The throw comes from the catcher and Payton has to jump to catch it.  He came down and landed on the kid's side.  The kid curled up and came off the bag.  Payton tagged him and he was out.  But when Payton tagged him, you could see that Payton almost felt bad for tagging him while he was hurt.  He was fine and walked off the field and came back in during the next inning.  The other thing about this picture is that Payton usually wears metal cleats.  Before this game, he put on his normal cleats in case he had to pitch.  This field had a portable mound and he couldn't wear his metal cleats on the mound.  So, it's a good thing he had his regular cleats on or it would have hurt the kid more.

Payton's pick off move to first.  Caught the kid asleep and he was out by a mile!!  Makes it even better that this was against Wylie.  :)