Three years...

It's now been three years since our last post. As you can imagine, an awful lot of life has happened in that time!

Instead of 1st and 5th graders, the boys are now 4th and 8th graders!

 A.J. is playing tenor sax in band, and made the all-region middle school band this year. He is on the yearbook staff as PhD: the Photo Dude. And he just made a Majors level select baseball team.

Levi has started guitar lessons with his favorite music teacher. He made the state archery tournament this year, and he, too, is playing select baseball.

 The big news at our house is their new little sister! Megan was born September 30 last year and is the perfect little addition to our family. She is such a happy little girl, and loves her daddy and her brothers and gives them big smiles when they come home every day.

 With all these changes, and a few others, it is definitely time to start blogging again. There will be lots of stories, and it will be a place for me to keep track of some things. I need to start figuring out some new recipes, as we start on a gluten-free diet for one of us, and that's a major challenge!

I know mom-blogging is probably going out of fashion a bit, so I hope I still have some readers!

Basketball!

A.J. has only ever wanted to play baseball. This year, though, he asked to play basketball in the winter. We thought that was a great idea. Not only would it improve his conditioning, but help him to make new friends, too. Last Saturday was their first game. And he was nervous! He's never been nervous about a game before. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do!" he said. But it's because in baseball there's always a right choice, depending on each situation. In basketball, the situation is always changing, and there are always many right choices. He did just fine, and even had one dad declare that he must be lying about never playing before. :)

It was not easy to get pics. Gyms aren't exactly photo-friendly, with all that bad lighting. But here are a couple.

So behind!

Many, many fun things have happened, even before we moved, that I still haven't posted. There's the video from A.J.'s first orchestra concert, and his birthday, the first day of school, and lots of baseball. (Surprise!)

Today, though, I'll just put up some things from this week.

Wednesday was Parent/Teacher conference, so they were both out of school. I scheduled Levi's conference for 8am (A.J. is too old for mandatory conferences now!) and we headed out by 9. First up was the Trinity River Audubon Center. This is a new center, built along the Trinity River (which runs through much of the DFW metroplex) an on top of an illegal dump site. They "sculpted" the trash, covered it up, and planted lots of native grasses and other seeds. It is still in the early stages of succession, so it will be even more beautiful in future years. The drought this year also didn't help. The building, though, was mostly a disappointment. There was very little information available. Minimal, non-changing displays, and no staff to answer questions were bummers for me. I wanted to learn more about when the monarchs arrive back in TX, but no luck there. We did get several things passed off for A.J.'s Webelos requirements, and the river was beautiful.

Here are some fun pics.














 A.J. had to help Levi find the turtles sunning themselves on the logs.















 They liked this little fence.

 


















This is Levi learning to perch with the binoculars.

  



 

 He spent several minutes up there.

After hiking the trails for a couple of hours, we headed over to the Ft. Worth Zoo. It's a really nice zoo. Much nicer than L.A.'s. They even have penguins there! I didn't get any pictures, since we were getting short on time.

Yesterday was Levi's school fundraiser, the Fun Run. They set up cones on the soccer field, and the kids ran 30 laps each. Levi looked like it was easy, he just kept running and running, and running. 

It's finished!

We finally, finally closed on Monday. That was awful. I never want to do it again. Good thing I like my new house!

 And, finally some pictures!

 First, the front: The house faces south, and we have no western windows. So, it doesn't heat up unnecessarily every afternoon! :)

Next: the music room. This was originally the dining room. But, the boys aren't allowed to eat over carpet, and the breakfast area is huge. And we needed a place to put the piano!

The kitchen, breakfast area/dining room and living room are one long room, which I love. Bring on the friends! And, I now have possibly the largest kitchen island ever.

Here is the living room. Yes, we already have a Texas star. It's an unwritten law around here that you must. (The master bedroom is through the little hallway on the right. And the boys' rooms are upstairs. Score!)

 The entryway. Music room is to the right, and the study is on the left.

The guest bathroom. It's small, but beautiful like all the bathrooms. 

This is the boys' homework/art room. The girls that lived here before left some magnetic boards and some cork boards. We're going to paint the dormer wall with chalkboard paint for some more art space.

Levi's room. He wants blues and greens for his paint colors. 

 A.J.'s room. There is a bed under there, I promise. :) He wants Cardinal red on one wall. Of course. Notice all three upstairs bedrooms have window seats. We love them. It's time to get cracking on some good comfy pillows!

Obviously, it's still a mess. Once we get some paint, and some pictures on the walls, it will really start feeling more like home. It's a beautiful house, and we feel really blessed to have it.

Finally, a post. With pictures!

My sincere apologies.

Do we even have any readers left?  This spring has been MUCH busier than I expected.  I knew two boys in baseball would be busy, but add to that Aaron coaching A.J.'s team and being the Wolf den leader (which has at least two boys with autism/Asperger's!) and me writing at least one waste of time lab report every week, there has been no time for anyone to post anything.

We do, however, have TONS of photos of this period.  Mostly Levi's team.  Earlier in the season, the Team Dad suggested we get a photographer to take some action shots on the field.  At $5 for a 4"x6" image, that can get real pricey, real quick.  So I volunteered to take action shots of everyone and post them to a team shutterf1y page, where hopefully they can download whatever they want.  And probably get 20 prints for $5 instead of just one.  So, I took a lot of shots.  2,200 between April 1 and tonight.  Not all are of Levi's team, of course, but the vast majority are!

So let's take a look at some of these, shall we?

First up, Levi.  He's been a pretty busy guy, too.

He had his first ride on a school bus, which he has been talking about since last year.  His class went to the zoo!

We have been taking lots of walks, most of which end up at the park.  He was hamming it up one day and posing for the camera.

He also showed off his hard work at the school's open house last month.  Check out the answers to these questions:

And, meet his wonderful teachers, Ms. Azniv and Ms. Candy.  They really are the best.

But mostly, he's been busy with baseball.  They even got to try some coach-pitch for the last couple of games, and he was really excited.  He got a big hit, too!

Other things he's been working on, but we don't have pictures of include: learning to write his numbers, getting his first loose tooth, watching Star Wars for the first time (and falling in love with the Ewoks!), and getting his first four cavities.  So I guess some of those aren't exactly accomplishments, but that's a little look at Levi's life.

On to A.J.  Of course, his entire existence revolves around baseball.  Watching it, playing it, and now, learning how to figure out the statistics!  He decided to figure out his batting average, so charted each of his games in an Exce1 spreadsheet, and then did all of his teammates' stats, too.  It took him most of his free time for about 4 days.  But, now he can do basic functions in Exce1 and is starting to understand how math can provide information.  He also discovered, to his delight, that both his batting average (0.455) and his on-base percentage (0.636) are higher than those of Albert Pujols.  So, A.J. decided that that makes him a better batter.  We'll see about that. :)

Some pics of A.J. on the field:

That second photo is from a game they came pretty close to winning, against a VERY good team.  That catcher is their starting pitcher and really good.  His coaches saved him for last, thinking that the "lesser" pitchers would be able to handle Bistagne pretty easily.  Cole was brought in, and the boys just kept hitting.  He was nearly crying on the mound, he was so upset.  He eventually got the third out to end the game, but our boys were feeling pretty good about themselves afterward!

A.J. also joined the 1-3 grade chorus at school, called The Singing Eaglets.  They put on a show recently called "I Need a Vacation!"

He, too, showed off his work at his open house.  His teacher, Mrs. Bringas, is also awesome.  We'll miss her next year!

Cub Scouts is another activity A.J. has been working hard on.  He has really come to love the program and wants to earn as much as he can.  Tonight, he earned his Wolf badge, two arrow points, and two belt loops.  So proud of him!

So, you can see that we've been doing quite a bit lately.  My calendar is pretty full, and we've had at least one activity nearly every day for about a month now.  I'm ready for vacation, too.  :)

A pitching sequence

A.J. is on a kid-pitch team this fall, and he is usually the starting pitcher. A couple of others have come a long way in their pitching techniques, but because A.J. prefers to spend every waking hour thinking about, playing, and dreaming about baseball, he has some advantage over those who simply "love" baseball. So, for your viewing pleasure, here is a compiled pitching sequence. This is over several batters, but is representative.

Set.

















Windup.

















Reach back.

















Stride.

















Grimace.

















Release.

















Follow through.

















Conference by the umps after you question their call at first.

it has begun

The craziness of A.J.'s baptism weekend, that is! Four people are here already, another four arrive in about an hour, and Jon comes tomorrow night. And, they're all staying at our house. Hope no one minds controlled chaos!

News...

Since A.J. fainted last week, we went to the pediatrician yesterday. I described the latest incident, which I thought was terrifying, but she just nodded and said "yeah, yeah." She said it sounds like he has been having vaso-vagal fainting spells, just like his Grandma does. Only, he's a bit more active (like crazy active) and so he is more likely to have incidents than she was as a child. Therefore, this is relatively good news. He is just a sensitive kid, and faints when his body doesn't like what has just happened to it. We will have to live with it, but he has been given no restrictions, though I'm guessing football might not be the sport for him. Thankfully, he loves baseball, which is a great sport for him to keep playing. In the future, when (because I have no doubt it will) it happens again, we have a set protocol to follow, and everything should be fine.

1. Lay him down. This we didn't do on time on Saturday, which prolonged the duration of the ashenness and poor mental state.
2. Monitor his pulse, and do not allow him to sit up until it has reached at least 70 beats per minute.
3. Keep him seated for another 10 minutes or so, and then he may stand and walk.

Only call paramedics if he's completely unconscious for at least a minute, or his vital signs don't improve. So, hopefully, we won't be having crazy big medical bills all the time. We just have to get everyone else to not call 911 every time he hits the ground.

Now on to Levi. Surprise! He went to the pediatrician yesterday, too. When I went to pick him up from school (daycare) on Tuesday, his teacher Miss Valerie says, "This weird thing happened today."
"Oh, no," I thought.
She goes on to explain that while they were at Webby (the dance company they have come do "P.E." for the kids once a week) she noticed he was staring off into space. His friends tried to get him to come with them, even touching him. His face was completely expressionless and did not react to anything. For an entire minute. Now, he loves to pretend, but he always has that sly little grin when he's pretending. There was none of that on Tuesday.
She finishes the story with, "it made me think of the seizures that I've seen in videos." Although, by her description, I knew what she was talking about long before she said the word seizure. When we visited the neurologist for A.J. last year, he asked us about this very behavior.
So, now we get to go back to the neurologist, not exactly my favorite guy, but there aren't a lot of choices. Only, it's not for A.J. like I expected. It's for Levi. What a week. I'll update again after we have some more information on him, but that will likely be a few months. (Ridiculous, I know.) Until then, we have to keep a calendar of "spells," as the pediatrician called it, and take a picture of him when he does it. Thankfully, at least everyone we know out here has a camera phone with them basically all the time. I love my new camera, but this isn't really a reason I had planned on dragging it around all the time. I'll keep you posted on any other new, exciting, or unexpected happenings around here.
It sure hasn't been boring around our house lately.