Take me out to the ( T ) ball game!

T-ball has been in full swing the month of June. Today was Ali's last game and I finally remembered to bring the camera! This has been a fun little team with other kids her age from the ward. As you can see, Ali is thrilled to be playing second base. This isn't an uncommon occurrence for her. Usually most games, I'm yelling, "stand up Ali." "Get ready for the ball to come!" Whoever is next to her is just as thrilled.Sitting the dug out waiting to bat!

She really enjoyed t-ball this season in spite of the first picture : D She always had a great attitude and loved hitting the ball!

Coming home! "Hurry Ali, your teammate is catching you"

With one of her teammates, Hailey Bigler. It was a fun season, they did really well. It was fun for me too, like I said, the other teammates were from our ward so it was fun to sit and visit with all the other moms, and occasionally watch the game :D

Now that t-ball is over, it's time for swimming lessons!

New hair, straight teeth

The day has finally arrived! After two (really quick to me, not so for her) years, the time has come for Lindsay to get her braces off! She was in need of a hair cut as well, so the day before today, I called a neighbor to see if she could cut her hair. She went shorter than normal but it turned out really cute! It's a total "make over" for her :D This was taken right after the hair cut with braces still on teeth!

Anxiously waiting for the orthodontic assistant to get them off! They put some permanent retainers on the top and bottom to hold the now straight teeth from returning to a crooked state.

Ta-da here she is, braces free!

Looking good Lindsay! She did say it feels really weird!

Mr. Greenthumbs

Yep, you read that title correctly. Any and all of the outside of our home is taken care of by Chris. I secretly think he enjoys it though. Here he is mowing the lawn. He is always working in the yard and garage organizing and just gettin' r dun :D Even the small square foot garden we have going is thanks to him. He made the area to plant the veggies in and did all the planting. He couldn't be prouder of this little garden. He is always going out to check on its progress and happily announces to everyone about it.

You can imagine his excitement when he noticed his first tomato growing on the plant which we thought had died. It's smaller than his finger but we are all excited to see something actually growing. The kids are almost as excited as he is. Don't worry Chris, it's all yours! (since no one else likes tomatoes)

We are grateful to him and all his hard work keeping our yard looking good! When he's lucky, the big girls do pitch in and mow once in awhile.

Bring on the dirt!

Here is our patio in progress, from my last post, you'll remember that we had to start bringing in dirt to fill in this big hole in the center. Last weekend, Chris and 2 of his brothers did just that. We had a family reunion planned and the patio was supposed to be done before we had company stay with us but because of the weather, we haven't had the opportunity to get it done. Chris's brother Tom and his family arrived on Thursay for the reunions on Friday and Saturday. They were staying with us, his other brother Brad just showed up to hang out and see what was going on. Well, we sure suckered them into this project with us :D Thanks guys! Once again, Jace was beyond thrilled when daddy showed up from work driving the tractor! He kept begging Chris to take him for a ride. There was some serious dirt to be brought in and dumped into the center of the patio.

Tom and Jace "leveling" the dirt as Chris would dump it. Thanks again Tom, Jace had to be right in the mix the whole time! Tom and Brad were stuck raking and spreading and leveling the dirt as Chris didn't share the tractor with anyone. Hmmm.... wonder where Jace gets his love of riding the tractor?

Chris and Tom raking the dirt and spreading it around. They worked well into the late hours of the night! We are almost ready for the pavers! Yea! And end in sight!

I don't know what I was thinking because I forgot to take pictures of the 3 brothers working together but remembered to take some after Brad headed back to his hotel. It took a TON of dirt to fill this area and we are happy that Tom and Brad were here to help. Sorry for the sore muscles the next day Tom, hope you've recovered!

Making progress

The weather hasn't been very cooperative these last few weeks and has put our patio project on hold for a while. This, needless to say, hasn't made me the happiest of people. We are finally making some visible progress in between rain storms. This isn't Chris working on it, but rather an actual mason. He is a man in our ward and he was able to find some sunny hours to help us out. What would have taken Chris probably all month, took him about 6 hours. Now that the "wall " is done, we have to bring in a TON, literally, of dirt to fill in the inside. After that, Chris can start laying the pavers! Let's all cross our fingers that we will actually have a patio before summer's end : )

See, you can even see that the blocks are wet from rain. It did start raining fairly hard for a while while the mason was here working. He just packed it up for awhile and continued when it cleared. Thanks Les