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!

My Sweet Benjamin

Poor Benjamin was completely bored today. We had a late night last night, and I have been a zombie all day. Samuel was at baseball practice and none of his friends were around. He was in and out of the house throughout the day. He watched some TV, went knocking on some doors to find some playmates, but none were to be found. So, this afternoon he decided he wanted to sell juice on the sidewalk. He came in the house, told me what he wanted to do, and got everything ready. He cleaned a milk jug out, made the juice, made signs, got the table and chair out, filled cups with ice and out he went. I went out to take some pictures of him and he informed me that he was giving the money that he made to Grace, our next-door neighbor and classmate of Benjamin's. She is Little Miss Aquafest this year, and is involved in raising money for charities. So, he did this to support his friend in her cause. How amazing is my little man? I am so proud of him.

Samuel's Great Pitch

Samuel threw this strike three pitch and then got the biggest smile. I couldn't figure out what had happened, because usually he is stone-faced on the mound. But apparently he threw some kind of pitch. He told me it wasn't a curve ball. It was just something he thought of. The kid went for it and struck out. Samuel was stoked!! I just thought I would share. Are you sick of my baseball stuff yet?

p.s. You have to click on the title of this blog entry to go to the video.

Samuel Pitched Great Game......

.....but they lost to the Tigers, again.




Here are some excerpts from emails we received tonight from the Assistant Coach and the Manager of his team.

"We joke a lot about Sam but his pitching stats are starting to look a bit gaudy. 20 K's and 3 walks. 73% strikes. Against the Tigers he threw 49 strikes in 66 pitches. In the 2nd inning he threw 7 pitches, and 2 of the outs were strike outs. In the 4th inning he threw 12 pitches and 2 of the outs were strike outs." "That is just plain filthy. A pitching performance like that against the Tigers. If we could just get some hitting behind him, he would win everything."









Okay, so I am a little proud!!!!!

Lake Stevens Red Sox

Samuel is on the Red Sox for the 2nd year. Last year was less than thrilling, to put it mildly. We, the parents and coaches have been very excited for this season, as our players are all really good kids and they seem like they will do very well together. Having said that...we are 0-3 right now. But, they are really showing potential!! Hopefully they can keep a good attitude and get some wins! Today they played the Tigers. We were winning and then tied and then 2 kids on the Tigers hit out of the park home runs. Bringing the score to 9-5. We got a run in the bottom of the 6th, but it just wasn't enough. Samuel did very well. He got a hit, an RBI, a sacrafice, got quite a few out at 1st and made a great diving catch down the 1st base line. That put a huge smile on his face! All I can say is GO Red Sox!!! They play again on Tuesday night. I will keep ya posted!

It's Been A While

Well, I haven't blogged in quite a while so there is a lot to talk about. We found out in February that Benjamin needed glasses. He was quite excited. He has been wanting glasses ever since he saw some by Xgames at the Eye Dr. He ended up getting Converse glasses as they were a much better fit. It is so weird, but now he just doesn't look right without them! He has been pretty good about wearing them, and has only forgotten to wear them to school twice. His prescription is about the same as mine, which isn't terrible, but the board must have been pretty blurry to him! For some reason I cannot find the pictures that I took of him the day he got his glasses. That really bums me out, but here he is.....

This picture was taken at his 3rd Grade Poetry night. His group did great. I cannot remember the title of the poem that they did, and he is in bed so I cannot ask him. If you really want to know, I can find out for you. :) Then their class did a poem, something to the effect of "How to annoy your teacher". It was pretty cute!

Of course, the highlight of the month is my birthday!!!! My wonderful mom and sister surprised me with a trip down to spend my birthday with them! I was so excited and thrilled! So, I flew into Sacramento on Friday afternoon and was picked up at the airport by Katie, my Mom, Belinda and LeAnne. We went straight to the mall and met up with Sarah, Jamie, & Laura. Then later we met up with my cousin Judy and her daughter (also my cousin) Brittany. After a bit of shopping and hanging out at the mall, we made our way to downtown Sac, to my favorite restaurant in the whole entire wide world.....THE MELTING POT!!!!!! I cannot think of a more fabulous way to spend my birthday! With fun family and friends that I adore and excellent food to top it off!!!!!! ( I do wish that I could have gotten a birthday hug from my boys on my birthday. But they did sneak cards into my luggage! Tricky boys!!!) After the melting pot, we made the 2 hour journey to Hidden Valley Lake. Belinda was snoring, my mom was sleeping beside her and I was OUT in the very back of Katie's van. Katie and LeAnne chatted the whole way home. Thanks LeAnne. I don't think that I could have stayed awake to keep her company!!!!!! Saturday morning I went to Jazzersize with my mom. That was fun. Then we got coffee and I went with Katie to pick up my very beautiful butterfly birthday cake. Hee Hee! She didn't request butterflies....she asked for purple flowers. I just really thought the butterflies were hysterical!!!! They also got us the cake for 1/2 price! Saturday night was spent with my family. We had a delicious dinner of my dad's homemade beef stock soup. YUM!!! And then Lorri Mac came over and we watched the movie "The Changeling". I don't really like Angelina, but it was a really good, but sad movie. I even stayed awake for the whole thing! On Sunday was church and then we went to see "Slum Dog Millionaire". Super good!!!!! THEN.....Belinda and Pauline came over and hung out with Katie and I while Philip was working. It was so nice to hang with them all again. I miss them so much!!!!!!!! My time in CA came to an end way too quickly!!! And I flew from sunny warm-ish weather into snow! Happy Birthday to me!
Jeremy's birthday was on a Wednesday night. Samuel was supposed to have a game that night, which was just fine for Jeremy, as I think that is one of his very favorite things to participate in! But...it was cancelled due to the field being covered in snow/ice. So we had a nice dinner at home and of course cake and ice cream!
Samuel also had a performance in March. The 4th and 5th graders put on a concert. It was something about Pirates. He was not at all thrilled about having to participate in it. But, he did a great job and I think he even had some fun!
No more pictures...please!On the 13th and 14th, my friends Jen, Mary and I took a group of kids from our church to a local children's Conference called NITRO. We have gone for the past 3 years and it is a lot of fun! We spent Friday night at our church. Jeremy and Samuel came to be the chaperone for the boys, just during the spending the night part, because Samuel had a baseball game on Saturday afternoon (which ended up being rained out after 2 innings).
Well, that pretty much brings you up to speed. Except for baseball. But I will post that separately. And...if you would like to stay updated on Samuel's baseball team, you can join the team website at weplay.com.
I pray that you are blessed and healthy as you read this post!