See me grow?

Tucker has taken off! He is great at the army crawl and has started to use his knees in crawling this week. He is able to pull himself up and loves to scream when excited. He thinks that AL and Ty are hilarious when they are goofing off! Of course AL and Ty do not need any encouragement in that department. Tucker has started baby food and loves to EAT!! He is in the process of getting a bottom tooth. He has been an angel this week. He has been to Dollywood, Upside Down Museum, the Nascar Speedway, and the ball park. Could not ask for a better baby!!!

Softball Season Ending

We are in Pigeon Forge this week for the World Championship Fast pitch Softball Tournament. The games started Tuesday and the tournament ends on Sunday. We had a game 1 Tuesday and 1 Wednesday that are called "pool" games. They are games that you play that do not go to the double elimination. I would not say that they do not count since the games help to place you in the tournament....Really I do not know all the functions of the pool games other than I refer them to warm up games. The "tournament" games started Thursday. We lost one pool game and won the second. We lost our Thursday game but won our game today. This is a double elimination so we keep playing until we lose. We play again tomorrow. We played awesome today and I am very proud of the girls. I have to remind myself that they are only 8 and 9 so there are days when they are in the mood and play awesome and then there are days when they are not and we have not been able to figure out what to do to get them in the mood. So when they are not then you can just hang it up! Yesterday and today AL had good games. She made errors as usual but she really stepped up and hit some great hits and fielded good plays.

I am very proud of the girls. I can see improvements in all of them. I am especially proud of my baby girl. She has really improved this year. She is far from perfect (yes even in my tinted glasses I can admit that!) but I am seeing her take initiatives in learning and improving her skills for the game. She made all star this year and that made our pride in her swell. I am thankful for the time Tracy had up here to watch her play and be able to share the memories with her and to see her improvement.

Football Time in Lynchburg

Division 1 football practice started the week after the forth of July. Tyler's first practice was interesting. He was all over the warm up drills of lining up to run and catch. Then the coach starts in with teaching the kids the positions. He starts with a 4/3 defense. LOL I have no idea if that is correct but it sure sounds good. He lines everyone up showing the the point nose or the nose point or nose something that is up front center then lines up the 2 kids on either side, then lines up 3 more kids behind, then I do remember it is the safety in the middle of the 3rd row with a left and right corner on either side. You can tell how well I paid attention. Well then he pulls the boys off the field and then tries to tell them the position and see if they can go to that position. He gets to Safety and points to Tyler. He does move and says he cannot remember where that is. Well long story short Tyler is embarrassed. He then will not go to any position.

His father who is a formal football player, and is remembered as a good football player, who likes to watch the old videos of the good ole days playing football is appalled!!!! He goes out there and gets Tyler. This is where I have to give points to Tyler. Even though I HATE IT when he does this to me, he stood his ground with Tracy and did not participate even though he knew that his daddy was ready to beat him silly. Tracy was beside himself!!! Tyler did not care it just made him more determined not to play. Of course this whole situation turns into a family feud. I end up leaving practice because Tracy who is mad at Tyler turns on me and I of course even though am appalled at Tyler defend him just b/c I am mad that Tracy took it out on me. Yes, I know....we may be old but we don't ever really grow up! Anyway it all works out....

After a few days of no Wii and a few days to get over the embarrassment and Mommy and Daddy explaining to Tyler that the point of the game is not to knock the wind out of everyone )which turned out to be Tyler's fear since he got the wind knocked out of him when accidentally tackled in flag football), he participated in the next practice. Now the coaches are going to have to teach him that he cannot take the ball from a teammate! The first game is near the end of August, so I will post pictures (hopefully) along the way....

Future blackmail on Tyler!

Sweet Princess Catherine with Cousin AnnaLea's feet peaking out to see.


Aunt Laura showing off the new palace to Catherine, Coleman and AnnaLea. Tucker is watching.

Now the blackmail begins:

At Catherine's bday party, I caught the boys checking out the "girlie" doll house! Tyler is completely mortified by this picture!

Outside fun has begun!

Laci resting from Tyler on a bag of corn (pig food).

AnnaLea and Tyler having fun with Daddy on the tractor, they did not stay out long. It was cold that day.

The welcoming tree at our Neighboor's house

The turtle in the middle of our road.

Whoa Momma what is that?!?

We were on our way on Sunday to a neighborhood Memorial Day get together. When you live in the boonies a neighborhood consists of pretty much everyone around you in a 5-10 mile radius. In the middle of the road was a big turtle. It was awesome. I took pictures. It wet the road when I walked up to it. AnnaLea and Tyler got a big kick out of that. Then our neighboor was a welcoming tree. One of the kids captured it picture. We had a good time at the fish fry. The kids played and played. I ended up taking Tucker home around 8 and Tracy brought the kids home about 10:30.

Whoops!

Well, I tell stories on the kids so I reckon it is only fair to tell one on me. We have goats and pigs and our neighbor has cows. Last year the cows kept getting into our field and we had a running joke that we would fix the fence and own some cows. Well the fences were fixed to keep cows out of our goats and pigs. A couple of weeks ago I got off early and picked up Tyler from school, AnnaLea was off somewhere so it was Momma and the boys. I drove up the road toward the house and saw 8 cows in our field hugging the fence line to our neighbors cows. I told Tyler that the storms must have knocked a fence down somewhere so we went to the field to check it out. There was a nearby gate so being the nice neighbor, I decided that I would open the gate and push the cows back to their land. Tyler said, "Momma, I think they are our cows." I told him we did not have cows and that we could not keep our neighbors cows. So he helped and we got it done relatively quick and easy with help from Tucker. Later that evening Tracy called from work and I told him the neighbor's cows were in our field but that I took care of it so he did not have to worry about it when he got home. Aren't I such a good wife?!? Well, I thought Tracy was going to come through the phone! Turns out they were not the neighbor's cows but some we were holding for a friend. They had been there several days and I was to go get them back immediately. Then the what was I thinking the neighbors have dairy cows it was obvious that the cows we had were (I don't know the different kinds of cows) not dairy cows. Ok, defense for my side is one I leave at dark and get home after ball at dark so I never saw them. Two, I really don't pay much attention anyway. Three, no one ever told me about keeping some cows. Four, it has 4 legs and says moo, it is a cow, I don't know the kinds!

Well the neighbor got a good laugh. We have 3 back and the others I guess will come home later. Tracy has learned that he needs to let me know trivial info such as what animals are ours. :)

Softball Season

Anna Lea showing her trophy for 3rd place at the tournament she played in Manchester. The white uniform is not my favorite since it is a nightmare to get clean after the game!

Megan playing with Tucker during the tournament games and below Tyler keeping entertained by doing one of his favorite things, climbing.

AnnaLea watching the batter get ready. She does have a stance but this is her I am watching and not needing to do anything yet stance. Below she is moving toward the ball.

Anna Lea has been very busy here lately with softball. She is on the recreational league team called the Slammers and then the tournament team, Lady Raiders. She has greatly improved in this her second year of softball. She has been playing short and pitcher on the Slammers team and then short and center left on Lady Raiders. She has an exceptional throwing arm. She is good at catching and fielding and is getting better at being aggressive. It is difficult watching and not expecting too too much! Lady Raiders have been in 2 tournaments in which they placed second then third. The tournaments are tough but fun. We spend the entire day of the park and so last tournament played 5 games and could have played 7 total in one day. It is a good experience and we are enjoying it! We will be going to Franklin for a tournament in June then the another tournament in Pigeon Fordge.