Since it was a gorgeous fall morning (65° and no humidity!) I decided to take Katie for her first walk down the street…
It took a bit just to get her out of the driveway—she walked around the car about three times. 🙂
I love that you can see her pigtail in her shadow!
Stopping to take a break in a neighbor’s driveway:
She kept bringing me pinecones!
Playing in the dirt!
Katie’s been pretty good with naps since Owen started school…but sometimes this happens on the way to pick him up.
She slept for about 20 minutes…then thankfully still took her real nap around 12:45.
Charlie laid there JUST long enough for me to get out my phone, start the camera app, and snap one pic…then she bolted!
Katie was having a ball outside.
Owen found this in Katie’s room and had fun dancing around in it.
He wore it downstairs where he left it…then Katie found it.
You can kind of see how she floats around…legs just trailing along behind her!
Well, this morning was the first Special Needs Baseball game day! We drove around a bit until we found it (I’d never been to that complex before), picked up Owen’s shirt, and then it was a waiting game before all the registration stuff ended and volunteers got everything ready. And speaking of volunteers, there were a TON of them—a church group and a biker group along with friends and family—enough for a few on each base, ones to run with each batter, ones to have fun in the outfield, and many to just stand and cheer! (They told me later that there usually aren’t that many until later in the season.)
I had only brought my telephoto lens so I had to make Owen stand about 10 feet away to get a shot. Yes, he’s wearing it over his regular shirt—that was his choice. And I could kick myself for not taking more to have one with better lighting. Oh well. And yes, he had to go potty at that moment—that’s where we headed next. 🙂
Katie wasn’t really enjoying being strapped into the stroller, but since I wanted to take pics, I didn’t really have any other options. (In the future I likely won’t be taking as many pics so I can let her wander.) But she wasn’t really that bad (it could have been much worse) and she enjoyed everyone stopping to talk to her or wave at her. And I tried to keep her placated with milk, snacks, and toys.
He found a ball right away!
Lining up to be divided into teams. He was on the Crushers and they were in the outfield first. They even had a parent sing the national anthem!
Owen’s buddy in the outfield.
There was a lot of this in the outfield.
Bowling?
I think he was going for the fumble recovery. 🙂
Waiting for his turn at bat.
Picking a bat!
On second base!
Third base!
Running for home!
Back in the outfield.
I’m not sure why, but there was spinning.
Back up to bat!
He started running the wrong way, so the volunteers helped direct him! This is one of my favorite pics—even though it’s definitely not the best pic—because it shows how awesome and supportive the volunteers are!
Running to second base!
Coming in to a high-five!
Game over! High-fiving everyone!
You can’t really get a good feeling for how crazy it was. There were so many people around, the game being announced play-by-play on loudspeakers, lots of not-playing going on, no scoring, kids running to whatever bases they want, two or more kids running at the same time, some older kids actually hitting the ball and adults in the outfield taking care of those balls, some kids refusing to bat/run, etc. But it was fun and Owen had a good time…so yes, there will be more weeks of this.
Then they announced that lunch would be served at the pavilion, and Owen was hungry…so we went. Thankfully there was just a prayer before eating—which is just fine with me. They had hot dogs and popcorn—and if you can believe it, Owen ate an entire hot dog, bun and all! For the first time ever! WOOHOO! Then he wanted to play on the playground which was very close…so we went. And I finally got to let Katie out of the stroller and she had A BALL!
As we were leaving, Owen said “That was awesome”…and I’m guessing he meant the baseball, though I guess he could have also been referring to the playground as well. But it was a good day that gave me 428 photos to edit down to 58. 🙂 Next time I won’t take nearly as many!
FedEx delivery rang the doorbell and woke Katie up early which was annoying since I was desperately trying to grab a 10-minute catnap…but they were so cute I couldn’t be mad. Some of the pics are a little blurry, but I think they show the action well. 🙂
Also, I tried her hair up today…it’s super cute but hard to do since she obviously doesn’t sit still and therefore it’s hard to wrap the teeny bands multiple times.
This is what Katie does with her food if you put her too close to the table.
I got the old recliner out of the garage (that Owen rarely used) and of course, he wanted to sit in it right away…and then as soon as she saw it…watch out. She LOVES sitting in it.
Owen has been through two dollar store punching bags, so this time I went premium with the Eco-Bonk Grizzly Bear. Since it cost 10x as much, I expect it to last 10x as long…and seeing as how the other ones lasted about a month, I think we’ll be good. 🙂
Technically the bear’s name is Jackson (he’s wearing a name tag) but Owen has named him Boppy, like the similar inflatable punching bag on Doc McStuffins.
And introducing him to Katie…
She’s started doing this throaty guffaw lately and it just cracks me up.
Katie got a hold of my laptop and I have NO idea how she did this.
She also managed to turn the wifi off and screw up my N key so that every time I typed an N it opened a new Evernote window. Thankfully rebooting fixed that.
The scary thing is how FAST she did it. Normally I turn on a program I have called “Toddler Keys” which renders the keyboard useless…but I was just stepping away for two seconds. And I turned around and she was SITTING ON MY LAPTOP KEYBOARD. Oh, HELL NO, little girl. So now I have to physically put it away if she’s in the same room. Stinker!
This is mostly how it went today:
Luckily I got one decent shot…
Before she ripped off the sticker.
Especially putting on other people’s things! She had a BALL in Owen’s shirt today. She’d pull it on over her head but be in the arm hole—and she’d scream. So you’d pull it over her head and leave the arms out—and a few minutes later both arms would be in just fine. Then she’d get stuck taking it off—and she’d scream again. It would be annoying if she wasn’t so cute.
The weather was cool enough today to actually want to go outside…so we did! The kids managed to stay on the deck for awhile, but then Owen got interested in the hose and wanted water…
He’s helping her put on his shoes. 🙂
Or at least dressed like one in Owen’s Lowe’s apron and goggles!
Before I went out to dinner with some friends. Owen refused to be in the picture so it was just us girls!
I had saved this outfit of Owen’s…but I don’t have a picture of him in it.
Look at those post-nap curls!
Screaming Katie…
Usually it’s a round-robin: Maggie lays down, Katie notices and heads over and gets in, Maggie begrudgingly leaves, Katie gets bored and leaves, Maggie returns, Katie returns, Maggie leaves…
But this morning Maggie stayed. 🙂
This is what I get to listen to off and on all day every day—this is her reaction to me taking something away from her or telling her no. It gets old FAST.
Katie has no fear about crawling up on the table. Thankfully she’s already pretty good at it and can also get down on her own.
I’m amazed they were both looking at me!
We had people over for pool and dinner (the friend who said she’d grill for me) and Katie was up on my lap. She reached for Owen’s goggles and wanted them on so I put them on. Then she reached for my empty bottle. And amused herself for MANY minutes just like this:
It was one of those days when both kids were trying my patience (even though the morning was fun at the playground) so I just decided we were all going to go out in the pool. I was hot and cranky, the kids were cranky, and the pool needed attention because I’ve been neglecting it. (It doesn’t ever need a lot of work, but it does need to be cleaned out now and again.)
Katie’s new (used) size 2T suit (which is none too big). (I can never seem to find both pieces of her suit when I want them and I don’t always want her to go nekkid, so I just bought a $3 suit from the resale shop.)
So I stepped in the pool and started cleaning out grass and bugs and whatnot when I realized WOW the water level was REALLY low—like below my knees low (it’s usually quite above my knees). By the time all was said and done, I had put about 5″ of water back in! FIVE INCHES! I’m sure some loss was due to evaporation, but I’m sure the majority of loss was from all the kids playing in it, hanging over the edge and letting water pour out, using squirt water toys outside the pool, etc. (We have rules, but honestly they’re somewhat hard to enforce when there are six kids under six running wild—though we do try!)
So while I was “working” (skimming the whatnot out), the kids had fun, too…
After an hour or so in her floaty, Katie wanted OUT. She did pretty good walking by herself (and only slipped under once—which barely phased her) but I was a nervous wreck so we didn’t do that for too long. It would have been better to let her do that when we first got in and the water was 5″ shallower!
