Baseball Begins!

Yesterday was Noah's first baseball practice of the new year! We're all soooo excited to see baseball season start up again. Pete's not an asst coach this year, so he'll actually get to join us in watching and cheering him on. :-) Though, I think Pete's a little disappointed to not be. I think he really enjoys being a part of it. There are a few boys on his team that he knows from his class. He didn't know any of them last year, so I was glad he had a couple friends on there this year. Here they are doing some throws.

I was busy walking Tater around and keeping an eye on the girls while they played on the playground, so I didn't to see much of practice unfortunately, but looked like he was having fun!

We had a few announcements for the parents before and after practice. Next weekend is opening day when all the teams get in their uniforms and get called onto the field to be recognized. We can't wait!

A couple of Madie's friends were there for their practice as well, so we took a picture of them all. Liking Livie's goggles? Guessing she's ready for summer!

The Fish Hatchery

Yesterday we had a most interesting field trip. It was to a fish hatchery by the nuclear power plant. Now, I have never had the honor of attending this before. Pete has taken Madie and Noah on their trips, but I decided I would do this one. I cannot believe my husband would not love me enough to warn me of what I would see (and smell) there! There was no warning, no mention of the putrid smell and applesauce-like excretions I would see. Now, it wasn't all about that part. We did venture off to another building and down by the lake, as you will see later, but the first 30 min was enough to send me looking for a bucket to puke in. I was actually surprised the floor in there wasn't covered in puke as well as the water that was there. Maybe they spray it down after each visit. Who knows. First thing you notice as you enter this open-air building is the smell. Obviously, it smells like fish, but dear GOD how it smelled like fish! I told Em she never would have made it within 10 feet of the building before wretching. All the kids were hilarious though as they walked in. They all were yelling "Ewww!" and covering their noses. Eventually they must've gotten used to it though, because they were way more excited about what was about to happen than they were about keeping those noses hidden. I mean, look at the happiness on Livie and Jack's faces!

This was one of the guys who spoke to them. At this moment, he's taking a girl fish and literally pushing all of her eggs into a bowl. Around 70,000-100,000 of things came out of ONE fish. I basically looks like applesauce with a little blood in it. He did this with 3 fish, each more disgusting than the last. Notice Livie is standing right there, with her hands practically in the bowl. She thought it was, and I quote, "COOL!". Again, I was in the back gagging.

After squeezing out the applesauce eggs, he took a couple boy fish and pushed out their "milt". Let's just say it doesn't look like applesauce. He then stirred them together with a feather as to not break them and then added clay to keep them from sticking together. I'm sure you're finding this as delicious as I was. Thankfully, we moved on to see where they put the fertilized eggs after they've been mixed. At least there was no more squirting at this point.

Then we got to see the eggs that are hatching. I must admit, this part was kinda cool. It was neat to see all those teeny-tiny fishes swimming around. :-)

These tanks held baby fish that were growing larger. I didn't go up there, because I figured I was pretty good on the fish at this point.

Look at the happy faces after leaving the stinky building. We were in fresh air again!!

Next they talked about diving and clearing out the lake. Floyd, the diver, got suited up after our talk and headed out into the water.

There he goes diving! The kids got to talk to him on the radio while he was about 10-12' under.

They kindly provided a snack of goldfish crackers and juice boxes. Thought that was really sweet of the guys there!

The kids even got to try on a diving helmet with Floyd. Livie looks ready to go! As much as it stunk in the first building and nearly caused endless about of spewage from my body, it really was a fun, interesting trip. And, most importantly, Livie had a great time!!

Younglife Event

A group of people from several area churches have been trying to figure out a way to have a community-wide youth group. I've been a part of that group and we've been meeting for about 6-7 months now. Our youth group has really died out, due to lack of kids, and we're seeing that in many of the area churches. So, we've been talking with an organization called "Younglife". Our pastor has been spearheading this campaign and Tuesday night we had some of the Peoria team come up and put on a sample club for us. We had 6 different churches represented that night and over 30 people come to see what it was about. And, boy, did we have fun! We had a great group of people come and are so hopeful that the word will get out about this. That way more and more people will show interest in this program and how they can help get this off the ground here in town. We need something where teens can go that is safe and teaches them the Word of God and how to live as a Christian during that critical time in their lives. Younglife makes it their mission to reach out to the disinterested. Those who don't even know about God. What a great ministry to bring to our kids!

There were a couple leaders there from Peoria as well as some teens and they are the ones who put on the skits and lesson. This was a game called "Win or Don't". It was so funny!

This was a giant game of Jenga and I swear, I was laughing so hard during this. I will try and get the video uploaded of this, because it was so fun! Having lots of trouble doing it, so if I can't get it posted, you'll just have to take my word for it. :-) Just imagine these 6 people trying to play Jenga while having someone blow them in the face with a leaf blower at the same time an air horn is going off and a squirt gun is being blasted at them! It was awesome! When one of the guys said, "Is that all you've got?!", Ryan, one of the leaders, jumped on his back to add to it. Like I said, hilarious!

They showed a video of their camps, which teens can go to once a year either as a student or as a helper. Looked amazing! The team from Princeton is going to Colorado this year. I told Scott, the lead rep for the Peoria branch, that I almost wished I had teenagers, just so they could be a part of it! You'll know I said ALMOST though. ;-)

Afterwards was a question/answer session. Seemed to be a lot of interest there, so I'm really so excited to see this ministry take off, though I know there is a lot of work ahead to see this materialize. Our next meeting is to decide whether or not we feel led to go in this direction with this ministry. And, if we do think this is where we want to go, we're praying that God continues to lead us and open the doors we need for volunteers, finances, and interest from the kids in our community!

Easter Project

The first Sunday of every month we have a special project in Sunday School (aka ZONE). This month was easy, because I knew it could be centered around Easter, but it wasn't until I got my latest edition of Family Fun magazine (thanks to Aunt Phyl who got the subscription for me!), that I knew what that project was going to be. On the cover of the magazine was a little girl holding a nest filled with colored eggs. The nest was made out of lunch sacks that had been squished down and sticks that were glued to the top of it. Livie and I set about making them! All of the kids collected sticks from our yard and our neighbor's yard to use for the tops. They look so cute, don't they?!

So, yesterday morning we had a big crowd show up to make these! I think we had 19-20 kids in all. Wish we had that number every week! I made all the nests beforehand, so they could concentrate on making the eggs. First though, we began with the Easter Story. I have a plastic egg set that tells the story all the way through from Jesus' glorious entrance into the city until His resurrection. We did the story first with the eggs, then had them go decorate eggs to remind them of the story they just heard. Instead of using traditional egg colorings though, we used paper mache - another bonus to the magazine this month! I had little squares of tissue paper all ready for them and 6 dozen hard-boiled eggs. They took their paintbrushes and paper mache and started decorating.

Noah didn't quite get the concept of painting one piece at a time, instead trying to just cover the whole thing at once. We got the hang of it more by the second egg. ;-)

Livie and Madie did a great job taking their time and working on each egg one piece at a time.

These were the finished products. Aren't they cute?! Yet another fun project that reminds us of not only Easter, but also of the great sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the promise of salvation. :-)

More Weekday Fun and Randomness

Thursday afternoon Nana and Papa T came to visit. They wanted to see the kids and meet their new granddog. :-) They had a lot of fun with them all! We went out for dinner with them to our usual place, Cracker Barrell, and had a delicious meal.

Ever the beetographer, Livie had to take a shot of us eating.

Not to be outdone, Noah took a picture of "crazy hand". ;-) Nana and Papa stayed overnight before leaving early the next morning. We had a great time with them and are looking forward to another quick visit when we go back at the end of the month for our spring break.

Yes, I know this picture is random, but I figured that Olive deserved a little face time after the many blogs about Tater. You will usually see her sitting her when Tater has chased her out of the kitchen. Yeah. They aren't the best of friends yet.

On Saturday, I took the girls Easter dress shopping. Madie and I took Livie to dance, ran some errands during that hour, then picked her up and headed to the mall. We were gone for 6 hours and it was sooooo much fun! I love having girls that love to shop! We got more than just dresses, of course. We got all the kids a new pair of shoes. We got some books at Borders, and a few other goodies as well in some of the other places. Madie spent her birthday money and Livie spent her piggy bank money. It was a great afternoon! Since Noah didn't get to go, I got him a couple things as well. One being a Jr Edition of Sukodo. He loved it - the math boy that he is. Pete was working on his Sudoko while Noah worked on his and I just had to take a picture. They looked so much alike in their mannerisms while they worked. It was so cute! So, that was the rest of our week. Oh! And, our wonderful friend Patty - the one I had the shower for a couple weeks ago - had her baby on Thursday! A little boy named Jonathan Edward and thankfully he was only 8 lbs and not the 9+ lbs they were predicting. Can't wait to meet him!

Tater's First Playdate

I've been MIA on this blog for a week!! Figured I'd better take some time this morning and get updated. I've been taking pictures of all the things we've been up to and there has been a lot of fun stuff that's happened over the past week, but I just didn't take the time to blog about it. I'll start with last Thursday. We took Tater on his first playdate with another doggie friend. Our friends Chris and Shawn have the sweetest retriever on the planet and, since they were on spring break last week (they're teachers), we decided to go visit them and let the dogs play for a while. Gus is over 3 yrs old and is 105 lbs. He's a big guy! But, gentle and kind as can be. They were so cute together. Up until now Tater's seemed scared of the other dogs he's come across, but he must've known that Gus was a fun playmate, because he didn't hestitate at all to play with him. We all just laughed as they played. Tater seemed to get a little crazy, attacking poor Gus's beautiful long tail and pulling out his fur. So, we had to try and settle him down some. Gus took it in stride though. It was a really great playdate and we're looking forward to getting Tater socialized even more with dogs in the future. :-) Here's a little video of them playing together. Wonder how it'll be once Tater's more his size??