Bryce 7y8mo

Bryce had a good month.  We spoke with him about the need to get more sleep so that he would feel better, and after designing an action plan that we all agreed to, he was able to sleep through the night and go to sleep without too much help for 30 out of 33 days.  We all feel a little better after a month of better rest.

Some other highlights included his incredible ability to yank his own teeth out when they get loose.  He sets his mind to it, that he has a loose tooth that needs to come out, so he just takes care of business and proudly presents his new hole in his smile.

While we were attending our final spring training game of the year at the A's new home in Mesa, Bryce caught a foul ball that Billy Butler had hit at the ball boy on the first base side.  The ball boy fielded the ball, spotted Bryce and tossed it to him from about 10 feet away.  Bryce caught the ball with his bare right hand and a smile instantly lit up his face.  But it doesn't stop there, prior to the game they had made an announcement that any fan catching a foul ball was allowed to come to the Legends booth and get a complimentary autograph from their choice of the three players signing that day.  Brett asked Bryce if he would like to get his ball autographed, and he agreed to go check it out.  While we walked over to the booth, Brett prepped Bryce with a little history about the three guys signing.  So Bryce made his selection and asked Rollie Fingers, Baseball Hall of Fame Relief Pitcher who won three World Series with the A's between 1972 and 1974, to sign his ball which he did.

Another big accomplishment he worked on while we were in Arizona was tying his shoes.  He had the patience and time to work on it and practice it while not having some of the other distractions of home competing for his attention.

That is the tooth I just pulled out, no problem.

That's Rollie Fingers and he just signed my foul ball.

Here is my dollar I got for helping pass food down the aisle and the foul ball I caught.

Are you kidding me?  Batting practice is over already, we just got here.

I'm working on my $9 foot long corn dog...Mom said this is the only one she'll ever buy for me, so I better enjoy it.

I just caught a batting practice hit that Juan Perez tossed up to me.

This is an awesome Lego train display at the McCormick Railroad Park.

And sometimes, you might get a little rain in the dessert the first week of spring training.

While Garrett keeps score, I write down some names of the players and do some drawings.

I was the first one on the board for the day and none of my brothers unseated me as champion of the family.

Griffin 5y11mo

Griffin is already making plans for his 6th birthday next month.  He is still a little guy who at times wants to be a lot older than he is.  At other times he wants to fly under the radar and leave the attention grabbing to his older brothers.  He liked getting autographs this year, but he doesn't quite have the aggressiveness that Garrett does.  Maybe that has something to do with the fact that he still can get squished in a crowd.  This year in baseball, he is one of the four returning veterans on his coach pitch team for 7-8 year olds, and he is completely unfazed by that.  In fact, he liked it when one of the kids on tee ball played a practice game with them, and Griffin realized that he was younger than that kid.

Either the ball is getting smaller, or I am getting bigger.

I'm cute, throw me a ball!

Dad, can I help you keep score?

I am locked in the jail car...and I love it!

The beautiful wiffle ball field at Sloan Park.  We played here for 30 minutes or so before the game. 

Food is a good thing at a ball game.  Yummy.

I learned to blow bubbles with my gum at spring training!

Maybe someday I'll be one of those guys out there on the big ball field.

Garrett 9y10mo

Garrett has really enjoyed the new baseball team this year.  He wants to be one of the pitchers on this year's team, so he has been working hard trying to get his command of the strike zone down.  However, he also wants to "look" like a good pitcher, so he has experimented with all kinds of different leg kicks to find what he is most comfortable with.  He also has a new thing to figure out, what to do at his younger brothers' games.  He wants to be helpful, but he doesn't want the responsibility, yet, of being a base coach, so he is trying to learn what that means and the duties attached to that.

Yeah, I have grown up so much, that the ball really is starting to look small.

Starting Lineup at the Giants home opener against the Athletics.

Dad caught me so I could get some work in throwing since I missed a game and some practices while we were down in Arizona.

Ready to get some autographs.

Weapons and Cats

A funny thing happened one night while Dad, Bryce, and Griffin were in the garage right before bed trying cleats for the start of the new baseball season starting the next day.  The power went out, so Mom and Garrett ventured out with flashlights to help them.  Unfortunately, the door locked behind them on their way out to the garage and we were all locked out of our house!  After checking all the windows and trying to remove the hinges on the door, we came to the realization that there weren't a whole lot of options for getting back into the house anytime soon.  So Brett decided to use his "battle axe" to make a hole big enough to reach through to pop open the lock.  At first Joy thought Brett was going to make a hole big enough for us all to climb through, but that would have been a very big hole, so this wasn't quite so big, but the event sure gave the family a new story to tell.

The hole in the door surgically created with a swinging axe.

Lightsaber duel anyone?

Leia take on a fleet of tanks and is pretty sure she is going to win.

Luke pretends that he lost the battle and is playing dead...I thought only dogs played dead?

Theo tries out his camouflage...maybe not the right color..but it really works at night.

Timmy and the boys playing guns outside...Griffin likes his high position.

Modesto 5K

Normally, we run a half marathon this time of year.  However, when you have been sick and unable to workout for the four weeks prior to the race, you really shouldn't try to kill yourself when you haven't trained.  So Joy downgraded us from the Half to the 5K the day before the race (we had signed up in December).  When Bryce heard Joy talking to the race officials at the Expo that we were ONLY doing the 5K, he said, "I've run a 5K, come on, you guys can do more than that!  Maybe you guys should come home and run on the treadmill some afterward."  Having our pride damaged by our son's comments about the 5K race, we considered this the start of the road to recovery and a nice morning together.  We ran the whole race together and finished it in under 30 minutes, so we considered it a success.  In fact out of the 800 plus runners, Joy finished 3rd in her age group and Brett finished 7th in his age group.  When is our next race?

Thunder Star Wars Day

Star Wars family day at the Stockton Thunder hockey club called us to venture to the game and enjoy the company of Gusto, Ali, Anton, and Ellis.  You can't beat a Star Wars event and when you get a hot dog and soda along with your ticket, well it becomes a win-win, even if the Thunder lost, 4-2, to the Alaska Aces.  All of the kids ended up with free Thunder hats and we met a lot of Star Wars characters to take pictures with.

This is what we all look like in Thunder hats, too bad they are moving the team to the Adirondack Mountains.

Gusto with Anton and Ellis.

Mommy shares some time with Ali.

Garrett found Boba Fett to pose with in honor of Dad's favorite.

TIE Fighter pilot and Shadowtrooper with the boys.

Garrett met his match with this Jawa.

Two Imperial officers, a Jedi, Stormtrooper wearing a Thunder jersey and a Mandalorian soldier with the boys.

Chewbacca in his bounty hunter disguise from Shadows of the Empire.

The whole family with a Mandalorian.