Friday, May 28, 2010

Spring Softball Season

Dani's softball season is now over - she played 16U (under). Our park doesn't have a 14U because there aren't enough girls to make up teams for both age brackets, so they combine 14U & 16U.  I don't like that at all but unfortunately there isn't anything we can do about it. Luckily she was on a team filled with nice girls and nice, encouraging coaches.

This team, The Redbirds, finished the regular season with only one loss putting them in 2nd place.  The first place team lost one game as well, but since they lost against another team and beat us they took first.  Does that make sense?


But The Redbirds took First Place in 2 tournaments!  They were such a fun team to watch!  Never a dull moment!


Way to go Dani Girl!
Congratulations on a great season!

Monday, May 24, 2010

Little Flowers Tea Party ~ 2010

Last year was our first (small) tea party for our Little Flowers' Girls Club.   You may remember if you go down memory lane ;)

This year was equally as beautiful - if not moreso - but not so little.  Our group grew from nine girls to twenty-one.  I think we (core members) were a bit nervous to have such a large group after having a relatively small one, but wow!, what a blessing it was this year.  All those beautiful girls and moms!  We moms were so glad to be among such helpful, faithful, positive women!  I always enjoyed our the girls' meetings.

It was a stellar year to say the least. 

A Southern Tea





Tea Time
Some of my favorites

Game Time
The girls gave overviews of each virtue study in this wreath III.

Memory Game

Craft Time
Glittered-n-Gemmed picture magnets

Enjoying Friend Time


A Beautiful Time

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Garden, Pitching Mound, & Deck Addition

Yes, Paul has been a busy boy.  And he will continue to be for a good while :)  It's all good though.  He really does love all these home projects!

About a month ago, Paul made a raised garden bed.  We've got tomatoes, cukes, [green, red, sweet banana] peppers, cilantro, spearmint, stevia, and one watermelon (which I'll have to move... I forgot from childhood just how much they spread out).  We have a couple bean plants which I don't think made/will make it. I'd also like to plant some lettuce, but can't seem to find any.  I think it's too late to start them from seed.  What do you think?

actually, the garden is so much bigger than this in just over one week!

After re-reading the directions on the cucumbers I found out that they were supposed to be 6-9' apart, not inches - which I did. LOL - Oh well, we'll see how they do ;)


now there are teeny weeny little tomatoes :)
Paul also made a couple of 50 gal. rain barrels - made of heavy food-grade plastic.  He bought them for $20 a piece and then bought a spigot and other supplies at the hardware store.  He also bought a pump which will hook up to the spigot and will pump a sprinkler!  It's quite awesome.  Not bad considering that Home Depot wants over $100 for the ones which they sell


Pitching Mound
Still a work in progress, this pitching area is perfect for not only pitching, but also for hitting practice.  Paul bought the high impact net on eBay and attached it to the 4 pine trees.
I should take some updated pictures - because now, there is some astro turf on the mound with a pitching rubber (a friend of ours is the baseball athletic director [that's my title, not sure the correct one!!  LOL] of a nearby college and he gave Paul some more netting - yet to be put on top to prevent balls from going over - and this astro turf).  It's nice to have friends in high places :)

Okay, here's an updated picture:
Dani has been working so hard at pitching, and this is the perfect place for her to do her drills.  At her last game on Saturday she pitched an inning and she did AWESOME!!  I was so proud of her that it brought tears of joy to my eyes - because she's worked so hard and really proved herself!  She was so happy (that she got a chance to pitch after all the hard work) and confident after that game.  It was great!


Deck Addition

Here are the supports for the posts which will be going up (sometime) soon.  We've been in our house for 4 years now and Paul (and helpers) put an addition on the deck about a year after we were here.  So our back deck has one part which is screened in and then a step down onto the original addition (this is where the grill is).  But we've never had steps!  So one of Paul's projects was to add steps this year (yay!).  You know it just can't be that simple though, right?  We brain-stormed and came up with taking the deck all the way to the end of the house ending up with very few steps versus many steps. We're even considering using  composite material for the top of the railing ledge and black aluminum posts.

On top of all these projects there has been lots of yard work; putting mulch/pinestraw down, planting, pulling weeds, and rearranging some things.



Hope y'all have had fun playing in the dirt!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Forgive Me


But I just had to add some of these "doctored-up" photos.









Oops, forgot to take a picture before cutting!

And Sophia's godparents...
Thanks for bearing with me and all the photos!
;)