Ben's Birthday Weekend

 We blinked and a decade passed.  It's unbelievable that our tiny, fragile baby Ben is 10 years old!  We had a wonderful weekend celebrating this incredible boy who has never stopped amazing us.

 

 On Friday, Ben took cupcakes to school to celebrate with his class.  After school, four of his friends came over for some nerf gun battles, xbox, and a sleepover.

I had gathered a bunch of empty boxes to use as forts.

They worked great, but even better later in the evening when the kids had a serious demolition derby.  I should have gotten pictures of that action!

Pizza and cake for the birthday boy!

 Saturday morning found the happy crew (Jack, Ben, Drew, Alex, Austin, Greydan) gobbling down their food so they could play some more minecraft and terraria before the parents came.

 

As soon as the last kid left, we were off to the baseball fields.  Because of another week of rained out games, the end of season tournament started weeks behind schedule.  As a result, it was single elimination and Ben's team lost a real heartbreaker against the #1 seed to end their season. We were proud of how they played and couldn't be disappointed that they all but beat the top team.

Alex's game was up next and they hung in there for an inning or two, but got eliminated as well.

Back home for showers and some more celebrating!

All the grandparents joined us to wish Ben a very happy birthday!

Sunday morning was his real birthday and the gifts were pretty exciting.  An encyclopedia of Chevy trucks for the boy who can't get enough of old trucks!

By far his favorite gift - an incredible camera from Mr. Scott's collection!  It's been lots of fun seeing the pictures he's capturing.

We rounded out the weekend with three more parties!  What could be better than cake and cookie cake?  Krispy Kreme basballs!

Ben's team party was at their sponsor's restaurant.  PDQ generously donated a free meal to each family!

Next stop was our neighbor Gabriella's party at Pump It Up.

Finally, we wrapped up Alex's baseball season at Main Event with some bowling and pizza.

Happy boys with their trophies!

It was a crazy and fun weekend and such a blessing to celebrate our little miracle, who's not quite so little these days.  We cannot wait to see what God has planned for this guy in the next 10 years!

Baseball Pictures

 We spent a wonderful weekend with Scott and Lou Anne during baseball season and we were so excited when Scott sent us some of the pictures he got during the baseball games.

I love, love this one because Alex had the ball and held this pose for what seemed like minutes, waiting to tag the runner out. 

 

 

Assistant coach Matt sending some encouragement to the Pirates!  I think it's a "Ruuunnnnn!" after a hit.

My favorite right fielder!

Thanks for the memories, Scott!

And one of my favorites off my phone (click to zoom in)...Ben sliding perfectly under a tag to score for the Yankees!

April

 April was a busy month but it was dominated by baseball.  The kids had a lot of fun this season, even if their teams' records didn't show it.  Ben had a terrific coach who taught him a lot and it was fun to watch him grow, improve, and steal lots of bases.

We had day games...

...and night games.

Scored some runs...

and celebrated with the team!

 We had a little more trouble getting excited about Alex's games because the kids weren't utilized in their best positions, so they got slaughtered nearly every game.  Alex played some great games, though, and he still learned a lot and did well playing coach pitch.

He played some infield...

...and did some catching.  He had his most success playing first base and shortstop.

I can't believe how these kids are growing!  I loved Ben's long pants this year...he looked so mature.

(until you see the rest of the pictures)

Ben's idea of the perfect breakfast buffet - a plate full of bacon and a few cookies.

The kids had an evening fun run at school this year and Alex loved getting to do a few laps with his sweet teacher.

Go, boys, go!

The big news was the enormous amount of rain that fell before tax day and flooded many of the Houston suburbs.  We got 13" of rain in about 12 hours and the kids were thrilled that school was cancelled.  We still got out a little to check out the roads and see how the neighborhood ditches could handle the water (very well, thank goodness!).  Our neighborhood and those around us were fortunate that no houses flooded, even though some streets were underwater for days, but older neighborhoods just a few miles away didn't fare so well.

The flooding was so extensive that school was cancelled Tuesday and Wednesday as well, then finally they just cancelled the rest of the week.  The kids thought they had hit the jackpot!  And the best news (for them) was that the state excused the school district from having to make them up.  Naturally, baseball was cancelled all week because the fields were underwater as well, so we found lots of other ways to keep ourselves entertained. 

Face swap was a lot of fun!  And a tiny bit creepy.

 This one makes me laugh every time!

 

We made a trip to the natural science museum...

 ...and visited iFly for the first time to use the vouchers that Santa left.  It was SO much fun!!

 

 

 

 

We also redeemed Matt's birthday races at the indoor kart racetrack.  Alex was so happy to finish in first place on his final race.

Ben finally finished reading his Animorph series - all 54 books!  We were so proud of him!!  Dyslexia is no match for this kid.

The kids had (another!) day off school for teacher inservice, so we enjoyed the nice weather with a trip to the zoo.

One of our favorite things about April is that the monarchs start passing through again and we love to bring the big caterpillars inside so we can watch the butterflies emerge and let them go.