Easter Baseball - St. George

We spent Easter weekend living it up in St. George. Of course there was sleeping nice and cramped in our hotel. (It actually was a really nice room with three queen beds. I am just used to having a king)

 And then there was the hotel pool that the kids were so excited to swim in (too cold for me).

 And playing games in our room.

 But the real purpose for our trip was to play baseball with this awesome team of 9 year olds from Taylorsville...

 and to watch this handsome, amazing all star!

 There was lots of playing in the outfield, occasionally 3rd base, even a little pitching...

 and lots of batting in the four games they played over the two days.

 We were loyal fans roasting in the St. George sun while cheering on our Taylorsville Warriors!

 Well some of us were cheering while the rest of us ate sunflower seeds and every other snack Mom brought or...

 reading books and completely ignoring the game.

 (Mitchel read 5 novels on this trip!)

 But it was all worth it when our boys made it to the championship game on Saturday night and pulled out a victory!!! These kids are amazing players for as young as they are. Max has been playing with most of them for 2 years now and it has been so fun to watch them grow and learn.

 They have great coaches who really know what they are doing and are teaching the boys all the right things, while having lots of fun at the same time.

They totally earned those trophies by playing hard and smart. I was so proud of them. Max was thrilled to go home with a trophy! It was a great way to start the season.

We had a great time as a family and are looking forward to a spring filled with baseball. Max will be playing on his regular Giants team during the week, and the Taylorsville team on Saturdays and for tournaments. Mason is also starting coach pitch baseball with one game during the week and one on Saturdays. We might end up just camping out at the baseball diamond! Love it!

Some March Happenings

It was finally time to get rid of the "baby room" since I no longer have any babies. Mason and Miles share a room and when I asked them what they wanted their new room to look like, they picked "Rock Star!" Sounded good to me. We found some cute bedding at Walmart.com, painted the walls, and got some fun wall art from Hobby Lobby. To bring it all together, my sister-in-law made our rock star vinyl lettering. The boys love how it turned out!

 Turning the bedroom into a music room made me do some thinking about Mason. He has always loved music and dancing and has always seemed to have rhythm. This got me wondering if he might be ready, willing, and able to take piano lessons. He seemed completely excited at the chance to learn to actually play music, so we got him signed up right away with the best piano teacher we know!

 This is at his first lesson. His teacher is our Stake President's wife. Mitchel also took lessons from her for a few years (but he just didn't love the piano.) She is amazing and Mason looks forward to going each week.

 He is also a champ at practicing. No whining, no complaining (at least so far)

 Miles and I have been trying to spend a few afternoons outdoors before the other kids get home from school when the weather is nice. He loves blowing bubbles, playing baseball, and swinging. Even though I have a hundred other things I need to get done, I am trying to take the time to play with him as much as possible since he is my baby and I'll never get this time again.

 He is an amazing athlete already and hits the ball almost every time way over my head!

And then there was St. Patrick's Day. Since it was on a Sunday, the boys had nothing green to wear to church, but I did supply them with some green breakfast and snack items for the day. Mason was the only one around to get a picture of. 

The best thing that happened this March was the Easter baseball tournament Max was a part of in St. George, but that will be a whole other post. So glad that Spring is finally here!

I love my city

 

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I love where I live...

 I have been a lifelong resident of Taylorsville, except for two years I lived away at college and the first few beginning years of my marriage when we lived in Sugarhouse. Other than that(about 30 years!), I have always called Taylorsville home. I LOVE my city! It is such a great place to live. I love how close it is to everything, the freeways, shopping, entertainment, etc. I also love how the people who live here love their city as well. We have a very well run city government with people who only want the best for our city. The longer I live here, the more I know I don't ever want to live anywhere else. Another asset to living here is the great schools my children get to attend. There is a lot of pride in our education, schools, and teachers.

 Here is Taylorsville High School, my old stomping grounds. I was a sophomore senator, a JV cheerleader, and a Varsity cheerleader during my years here. I made some wonderful friends who helped keep me on the right path. I had amazing teachers who challenged me to learn, grow, and become my best.

Last week, I saw advertised in our awesome Taylorsville paper, that the drama department was putting on the play "Metamorphosis," a play all based on Greek mythology. Mitchel, my 11 year old,  LOVES Greek mythology so I thought it would be fun for him and I to go on a date to the theater. It was so fun to pull up to my old high school and see that wonderful things are still happening there. The play was well performed and interesting and we both loved it.

When the play was over, we wandered through the halls as I showed Mitchel my old locker, where I used to eat lunch, and the picture of the SBO's from my year. It was such a fun trip down memory lane with my son! There were new things in the school such as a huge Warrior statue that was really awesome, but mostly it was just how I remembered it, and all those memories were good. I look forward to the day when my children can call Taylorsville High School home.

 Max, my 9 year old, has been privileged to be playing for the Taylorsville little league team for a few years now. He is starting to get quite a collection of Taylorsville baseball caps! This is his newest one  he will be wearing this Spring on the 9 year old super-league team. They will be playing two games each Saturday competing against other 9 year old teams from all over the valley. He will also be competing in two tournaments, one in St. George over spring break, and one in West Jordan. I love that Max is loving baseball, and he's pretty dang good too! Taylorsville is known for their amazing baseball program and now I know why. The men who coach are so passionate about it and really want to teach the kids to love baseball. It's amazing to me how much of their time they devote to Taylorsville baseball. I feel so lucky that my son is benefiting from their dedication.

So I am a lover of Taylorville through and through! I had my sister-in-law make me these so that I could be the ultimate fan at all of Max's baseball games this season. I feel so blessed to be able to live here, work here, and raise my family here. Taylorsville is a really great city! (and we have awesome colors!)

Jan/Feb

I realize I haven't blogged in a long time. To be honest, I've lost interest. The last few months have pretty much been life as usual. That doesn't mean it hasn't been great and fun for my family and myself, there just isn't much that I thought other people would want to hear about. I post most of my cute pictures on Facebook, so they are pretty much the same ones that are on this post. But regardless, I thought I would document at little bit of what has happened in our family over the last two months.

The three oldest participated in Jr. Jazz basketball and loved it. Mike coached Mason's team and was the assistant to Max. Most of our week nights were spent getting each boy to their various practices and Saturdays consisted of a tag team effort between Mike and I to get them to their games.

 The big bonus of Jr. Jazz is the actual Jazz game. We were excited because the team we got to see play the Jazz was good and it was supposed to be a competitive game. Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of the worst played games of Jazz history and they got totally blown out. So the game was BORING but the kids loved their free hot dog and drink and just being at the ESA.

 I was proud of how hard they played and practiced. I'm also grateful to have a husband who values sports and supports his boys in their efforts. Soon Miles will join the ranks of a Jr. Jazz player too and then life will really get interesting during basketball season.

 Mitchel has been learning about ancient cultures in Social Studies at school. One of his homework assignments was to "mummify" a family member using the mummifying method he has learned at school. Mason was a willing participant and Mitchel demonstrated the procedures to us, even pulling out the brain with a hook!

 I had my 36th birthday. We celebrated with a lunch out to Chuck-A-Rama with my family, my parents, my in-laws, and my sister. I ate myself silly and felt sick afterward, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

 I don't mind getting older. In fact I have quite enjoyed my 30's. I do feel a little weird that I am now closer to 40 than 30. I certainly don't feel it except for the fact that I have begun to hate loud music, loud commercials, loud talkers, and anything that is too loud. When I was in Jr. High, the back of our cheerleading sweatshirts said, "If it's too loud, you're too old!" Well, I guess that is proof that I am getting old!

 My mom threw a Valentines party for the family and so all the aunts, uncles, and cousins were there sharing in the love. On the actual Valentines day, my kids got some love from me with some new Skylanders for their video game and a trail of hearts with all the things I love about them.

After waiting for months for pair of batman pajamas to come that I had ordered online, Mason finally could dress up like the Dark Knight and be a partner in crime prevention with his little brother.( FYI: NEVER order anything from Totsy.com! It seriously took 8 weeks for these $13 pajamas to come when I probably could have gotten them cheaper and much faster from my local Walmart.) They have both loved their costumes though and spend as much time as I will allow them running around like superheros together. It's pretty dang cute.

 

 

I also decided that it was time to get rid of our "baby" room since I no longer have a baby. Mason wanted a "Rock Star Room" so we spent President's weekend painting his room a light gray and moving all the furniture around. They got new bedding and new decorations for their walls. We are not quite done with the transformation, but I no longer have a "nursery" at my house.

Other more mundane things that have been happening is school and work and such. I absolutely LOVE my job teaching reading to the 5th and 6th graders in my classes. I look forward everyday to going to "work." All of my boys are excelling in school with straight A's, high test scores, and amazing math and reading abilities. Mitchel's favorite subjects are math and science, Max loves writing, Mason loves both reading and math, and Miles now knows how to write his name and a few other words, all his shapes and can do connect the dots. I feel so blessed to have these smart children who love to learn. I can't keep enough books in the house and we visit the library at least once a week to stock up. Mike has been playing on three different basketball leagues this winter, so with the boys' basketball and his own, his evenings have stayed pretty busy. We have been incredibly healthy this winter, with no one missing a day of school or work with sickness. I don't know how that happened seeing with all the junk that was going around, but I count my many blessings that we are all healthy. So, all in all, life remains good at the Harker house. Things are going to start picking up with Spring almost here. Max will be playing on his Giants baseball team along with a Taylorsville super league team. That means four games a week for him. He will also be involved in some tournaments that will take us to St. George for spring break. Mason is also going to start coach pitch baseball so he is excited about that. Hopefully the mornings will warm up and I can get outside to start running again. So I'm looking forward to brighter, warmer, spring days so I can say adios to this LONG winter!

Christmas Eve 2012

We had a relaxing and enjoyable day before Christmas. We started the morning by cleaning the house and getting ready for Santa to come. Then, to kill some time, we watched all our old home movies of Christmas past. It was fun for the kids to see themselves and what Santa had brought each year. It brought back a lot of really good memories. The best part of the day was the blizzard that hit around noon and dumped at least 6 inches of snow in only an hour or two. So we put on all our snow gear and played and shoveled for a few hours. Then it was finally time to get ready to go to Grandma Miller's for the Christmas Eve party.

We had the best dinner of prime rib, salmon, and all the yummy sides. After dinner, we played Christmas music with my chimes and acted out the nativity, always one of my favorite traditions.

It was a wonderful evening spent with my family.

Upon arriving home, we read a few Christmas stories, put out cookies and milk for Santa and celery for the reindeer. This was the final pose in front of the tree before the boys went to bed. They had a hard time sleeping because they were so excited.

I think Mitchel understands that it is really Mom and Dad who puts out the presents, and I think Max knows it too, but they are so good to still go along with the "magic" and not ruin it for their younger brothers. I think all of us, including myself, don't want to let go of the idea of Santa. For me, he is as real now as he was when I was a kid. 

I'm still here

Wow! It has been a long time since I have blogged about my/our lives. I think it is because I have been posting more frequently on Facebook and I figure no one really reads this blog of mine anyway. Also, life has just been same old same old for a while and it hasn't seemed like there has been much to write about. Not to mention that it takes time to do this, and it just hasn't seemed that important to me lately. Instead of using my blog to help make my scrapbooks, I now make photo books at the end of each year to preserve our memories. I don't include any text in those books, so I don't feel the need to write everything down like I used to. I still love to read other people's blogs, but they don't seem to post very often either. I guess this is one fad that is fading.

Anyway, things at the Harker home have been going well over the last few months. No major changes and no bad news either, which is a good thing. School is going great for both the kids and me. We are loving our schedules and teachers and such. We had a fun Halloween and Thanksgiving and just put up the Christmas decorations today. All the boys got straight A's on their report cards for the first term. Miles is in the groove of preschool. Mike still works at Diamond Rental. I've ran a few races (a 10K and a half marathon) and was proud of my times on each. Other than that, it's just business as usually, ya know, laundry, cleaning, dishes, watching movies, grocery shopping, keeping everyone fed, reading, more laundry, working, working out, more laundry, more cleaning, etc.....

Life is good though and I wouldn't trade mine for anything!

Max is 9!

So cutie pie baseball star Max turned 9 at the beginning of September and I am just now getting around to blogging about it. Life is crazy! In the morning, he woke up to find a few gifts on the table. The big box is a Star Wars Lego set (did we really need another one of those??) And an Xbox game (did we really need another one of those either?) It's getting harder and harder to find good gifts for my boys.

 Then, before he headed off to school, his Mom gave him a healthy birthday breakfast of donuts and chocolate milk. Then she won the mother of the year award (NOT!) but Max was happy about it.

 That night, along with Tracy's family, we went to Crystal Hot Springs for an overnight camping trip. There was a deal on KSL for swimming and camping and that seemed like a good thing to do for Max's b-day. It actually was a lot of fun even though the camp ground was a dive and the bathrooms were yucky. We still loved roasting hot dogs and making smores.

 The fun part was swimming in their pools. They really were hot and they definitely had a lot of minerals in them. You didn't want to get the water in your mouth. It tasted all salty and minerally. It even turned parts of my pink swimsuit orange. But it was relaxing. Max and Mitchel payed extra so they could go down the waterslides (rip-off).

 (sorry if you are being blinded by all of our glowing whiteness!)

 

It was an interesting place, and I don't think we'll ever camp there again, but it was a fun adventure and a great way to celebrate Max's ninth birthday. Thanks for celebrating with us Wood family!