spring baseball

i feel like i have to post a little something about spring baseball.  not only do we love the rangers this time of year, but little league consumes our lives during the spring (and fall).  i jokingly said when we got the game and practice schedules at the beginning of the season that i was just going to pitch a tent at the park.  i was only halfway kidding.  we live on hot dogs, nachos, and popcorn during these two months and usually need to take out a small loan to fund the kids concession stand purchases.  it's a bad time of year to be putting on an extra 10 lbs right before swim suit season, but we can't get enough of it, well most of us. i love it, the boys love it, allan loves, it, and that about covers it.  anna doesn't love it, but she tolerates it well thanks to the concession stand!  most of the pictures are in video form, so i'll post a couple of the boys hitting.  somehow, we always forget to bring our camera to games and the iphone doesn't zoom all that great.  luke started kid pitch this year and sam is in his last year of pee wee.

dugout ~ one of the faves among the boys

luke on the cardinals

piano recital

luke and anna both had their piano recitals on the same day.  luke started taking piano lessons one year ago and this marked his second recital.  anna started this fall and had her first recital this month.  they both did great.  their teacher mrs. lamb is precious and is always bragging about their talent.  another thing they inherited from allan.  i married up, people.  :)  here are some pictures and a video of their performances.  this first picture melted my heart.  i love how they are holding hands.

right before the performance.

anna

 

luke

their sweet teacher mrs. lamb

wouldn't be complete without a picture of sweet sam who sits through lessons each week and a recital without complaint.

spelling bee

so right before thanksgiving, the kids' school has a class spelling bee.  each class receives a list of words to practice, and they have a class contest with a winner and runner up.  this year, luke and anna each won first place in their grade.  luke also won the second grade class spelling bee last year.  i hear spelling is hereditary and let me just let y'all know, it didn't come from my genes.  the reason i know this is because i just had to look up how to spell "hereditary," and i have no less than three spelling errors in each of my blog posts.  also, i have to look up the word restaurant each time i spell it.  :)  they did however inherit this from their amazing dad.  he won three spelling bees in his life, like really won his school spelling bee.  anyway, back to luke and anna, they would be competing in the school spelling bee for 1st through 8th graders.  we got the list of words less than one week before the school spelling bee.  here's a picture of the stage where their chairs were.

anna was so nervous, like i thought she might break into tears at any minute nervous.  luke was probably nervous, but it didn't show.  they each made it through several rounds and both ended up tying for third place with each other and a sixth grader.  they were in the top five until anna missed the word "chorus" and luke missed the next word "quarrel" right after anna.  then, the sixth grader missed the next word.  so basically, the three of them tied for third place.  we were so amazed!  they did fantastic and we were extremely proud of them.  the last two standing were a fourth and sixth grader. i think the sixth grader won.  here's a picture of them at the end, probably relieved it was over!

great job luke and anna! and for the record, i just did spell check and not a single misspelled word.  maybe i do get to take a little credit.  no, probably not.