Pressure to Make Christmas Special

We are staying in the PNW for Christmas this year. We have not done this in the 7 Christmases that we have lived here. We have always gone to spend this time of year at "home" in NorCal.
Just the 4 of us.
My family will be coming up at some point. Not sure when though or for how long.
I am feeling the need to make this a special Christmas. What to do!!!???
A delicious--special breakfast is in order. I am in search of a fantastic recipe.
I want to actually do some baking this year. What to bake?????
...almond rocha (of course!)
...sugar cookies?
...fudge??
Go really crazy and try my mom's See's Candy recipe??? Ugh! I don't know about that!
Then...what about dinner?????
Serve a meal to the needy?
Maybe go to the movies?
So much pressure!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and don't get me wrong.....no matter the lengths of my endeavor to make it special.....it will not be appreciated....not now.....but I tend to look to the future for the appreciation due me. It will come. 

Less than 2 weeks! Ugh!........the pressure!!!!!

Baseball Season

Baseball season in the PNW is very fickle. It is super changeable. But, what are ya going to do? We love baseball!!!!!!
Samuel is playing for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes team (FCA). He is playing with a great group of kids that are all 13ish. The coaches and other parents are pretty great too. We are looking forward to a lot of baseball. FCA will be playing in the Sandy Koufax league in N Seattle. We will also be seeing some tournament action on the west and east sides of WA. Pretty exciting! He is playing P, 1st and CF. And his preference is in that order.
Benjamin is now a LS Red Sox!! Yay!!! Jeremy will be coaching the Red Sox for another 3 years. Benjamin is doing great. He is the only 10 year old on the team. He has played outfield, 2nd base and catcher. He really loves to catch. He is waiting for his chance to pitch. I may have to have a talk with the coach. He is quite a hitter too! So fun to watch him!!!!!
Pictures will be coming!

One Terrible Blogger!

So, it has been since January that I have blogged. That is crazy. But..it has been a crazy year. In March the Director of Financial Aid, at the college where I work, retired. Against my desire and better judgment, I applied for the position. I was hired as an interim, which I remain to this day. So, I have been very busy learning as many aspects of the world of Financial Aid as I can. There is A LOT to learn! I am learning of new things that I need to learn weekly! For real!
Along with learning a very involved new job, I have been taxi-ing to and from games and practices, school, and such. Both boys played baseball last spring.
It was Samuel's last year in Little League. His last year as a Red Sox, unless he plays for them in the MLB of course!
Benjamin played minors and will begin his 3-year stint on the Sox, as Jeremy will remain the coach. I will get my money's worth on the jacket that I bought. Benjamin's minor team (Mariners) did awesome! He had a great coach and a great group of kids. He loved to pitch and catch. He is so cute and focused out on the field!!!! He was selected to play on one of the minors all-star teams and he had a great time at that too!

Over the summer, Samuel played on a couple traveling tournament teams, as a fill-in. That was fun. It is a definite step up from LL. We had fun getting to know some really nice people.
Benjamin got to spend the beginning of his summer in Cali with family. Lucky guy!!!! He had a blast going to kids' camp with Hayden and getting to see Hayden practice some football. And just generally hanging out with Hayden. He LOVES Hayden!
Samuel spent a lot of time at home while I worked...MAJOR GUILT...And we had a rough summer...but I won't get into all of that....
In August, Samuel tried out for an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) Baseball team. Jeremy took him to the first tryout and was very impressed. I took him to the second tryout and I was in tears!!!!! The coaches talked to the parents about their philosophy of coaching. It was something to the effect of "My purpose on earth is to populate Heaven and depopulate Hell." Uh-Yah! There will be no yelling or cursing. We want to teach the boys baseball as well as develop their relationship with Christ. Samuel and I arrived at the tryout on not-so-good terms...putting it mildly. I was a wreck. I was seriously begging God to let Samuel make this team. Even though there was a different team that Samuel really wanted to be on, and he was basically a shoe in for a spot. Well, God is good!!!!! Samuel was asked to join the team and accepted the offer! I was elated!!! Ever since, any contact we have with the team, coaches, training center, I just feel more and more blessed about Samuel's decision to play for FCA.
Wow, this is long! It has been a really long time!!!!!!!
That is all for now. I will write more later. If you got through this whole thing...wow you are dedicated!! And probably very bored!!!!!
Blessings to you!

Samuel

I can't believe that I dropped Samuel off at the church today for his first youth trip. It is crazy to me! It is the first time that he has wanted to go on any kind of church trip, of course I am excited! I am excited for him to have a wonderful time, gain some independence and build relationships with other kids from church. I just can't believe that he is youth-group age! It is just bizarre. He really is a great kid, and I am looking forward to watching as he grows into the man that God is shaping him to be! I am just having a warm fuzzy moment thinking of my Samuel.

Can I Just Brag on My Kids for a Minute?

I don't do this very often, but I am feeling the need to brag on my boys for just a minute or two.
Samuel is in 6th grade and in our school district that means middle school. Samuel has been identified as a leader. He was voted to be a representative in the school's ASB and he was chosen by teachers to represent the school at a middle school leadership conference. He was excited about that and had a great time at the conference, where they had workshops on leadership and relationship building. The goal is for the students to take ownership over the atmosphere at their school. What a great idea! At Samuel's teacher conference, today, we discussed his WASL scores, which were above grade level and his teacher recommended that he move up to the Honors classes next semester. Very cool!!! I have known that he is capable of this, but hopefully hearing it from his teacher will help him to believe it.
After all of the drama that he and I go through on a daily basis, it is just really great to get positive feedback from his educators!!!! It does this mother's heart wonders!
Benjamin is in 4th grade. He was selected to be a "Conflict Manager". These selected students go through pretty extensive training on how to help their peers solve problems that they encounter while out at recess. After the trainings and role playing, they are assigned a couple of recesses per week to walk around the playground, while wearing visors and carrying clipboards, looking for opportunities to help children resolve conflicts. Pretty exciting. He is stoked about the end of the year field trip to the water slide park that the conflict managers get! We also met with his teacher today. While academically he has a lot to work on, he is such a great kid. Apparently, he bought several of the girls in his class erasers from the book fair. And the other day he earned a prize from the prize box and he let a classmate choose something instead. He also shares his lunch when a classmate doesn't have one. I am so very proud of him. Now we just need to work on getting him to focus on school work! He has also done a great job playing fall ball this fall. He has been pitching against 9-12 year olds, and holding his own. His bat has been great too!!!!!!!
Okay, I think I am done for now!!! Thank you for bearing with me!!!!!

Ready for School

This has been one lonnnnnng summer!!! The boys got to spend 3 weeks in California with family. That was awesome for them. They miss all of the cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents so much! AND we were HUGELY blessed by Jeannie because she coordinated with us and drove the boys down to Middletown and then Joel brought them all the way home to us. That was great! We got to have Joel visit for a day or so. What a great brother! He drove round trip 26 or so hours just to bring our boys back to us. Wow!!! Thank you so much Jeannie and Joel. It really meant a lot to us!
So, the boys got to rest and chill (not literally, because it was really hot down there) out with the fam. I was hoping to get the house nice and clean and work a lot while they were gone, but that was not to be. I have been dealing with medical issues since mid July. For more on that you can read my blog (I haven't posted quite yet, but plan to post soon) www.shannap.blogspot.com.
A couple days after the boys got back from California Benjamin had a 3-on-3 tournament and we all got to go down on the field at a Mariner's game. Jeremy and Samuel entered a drawing and they got 4 free tickets and got to participate in a trivia contest. That was pretty awesome! They won the contest and got 2 free Mariner's jerseys from the team store. Super cool. So now both boys have new jerseys. Samuel got a Griffey Jr. and Benjamin picked Ichiro. Sweet! Jeremy and Samuel were so nervous. They had no idea what questions would be asked. They were studying up on their M's trivia. The questions ended up being general baseball trivia, which was no problem. The last question was about the M's and Jeremy kind of guessed and got it right! Yay Jeremy!

The rest of the summer has been pretty low key. I have been working. The boys have been hanging out at home and at friends' houses. They aren't really admitting it, but I think that they are ready for school to start. We went to the welcome bar-b-que at Samuel's middle school tonight and got his schedule and walked him around to his various classrooms. I think he is nervous, but excited. Benjamin got his letter telling him who his teacher is. He really wanted the same 4th grade teacher as Samuel had, but didn't get her. I think that he is going to have a successful year with the teacher that he was assigned. She teaches a 4th/5th combo, so he will have her for 2 years.
We are supposed to be going camping this weekend. I think that we are planning to go, but aware that the forecast is not good, so it may or may not work out :) We shall see.
School starts Wednesday of next week. I am so ready for that. We all need to get back into a normal routine. The boys have watched way too much tv and played way too many video games. They need to have the cobwebs swept from their brains!!!
That is pretty much all I have for now. Blessings!!!!

So Far This Summer......

has been great! Samuel made the 11 year old All Star Team, Benjamin played in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, the kids got to meet their aunt, uncle and cousins from Alaska and I got to have some hang-out time with Jenn and Kelly.
I won't bore you with wordy details, but here are some stats:
Samuel's All-Star team has won their first 2 games. Samuel pitched the first game, throwing 61 pitches in 5 innings to gain an 11-1 win. Their 2nd game ended at 8-1. Samuel played first base for a couple of innings and made some nice outs. Their next game isn't until next Sunday, but he has practices most nights this week.
Benjamin's 3-man Basketball team won their first game at the Hoopfest 3-on-3 Tournament in Spokane, and then lost the next 2. The last game, they lost in overtime by a free-throw. Bummer. We will be more prepared next year!
Today, Benjamin has an unofficial soccer practice. He just decided that he is going to play Fall baseball and soccer this year. Great. Last year Samuel did it. We will see how that goes. Anyway...here are some pics!