New Experiences

 New week, new sport.  The excitement of this week was that the baseball season is officially under way.  We got to start out the season with a tournament on our home turf, here in West Linn.  This is Merrick's first season playing on the full-sized fields.  That means that for this tournament, we got to play most of our games on the high school field.  And that means that Merrick got to pitch on the high school field for the first time ever.  It was a pretty cool experience.  The tournament was a 13/14U tournament and Merrick's team is 13U only, so we definitely know how that situation has played out in the past.  However, the boys really held their own.  They won three of four games and only lost the last game by one (7-8).  Add to that that yesterday was gorgeous and it was just about as good of a first weekend as you can get.

Also this week I had a fun experience.  Two weeks ago, a local photographer posted on our community social media page that she needed models for a shoot she was doing for a dental office.  I happened to be free when she needed help and the pay was really good so I decided to throw my name into the hat.  I had to submit my information and a full body shot.  I did that and then kind of put it out of my mind.  Well, a few days later I heard back from them asking if I was still available and still interested.  I stressed for two days about what to wear, but it ended up being such a fun experience.  Everyone at the shoot kept asking if I modeled as my full-time job.  When I told one of the women that this was actually my first time, she was very surprised.  She said I have a really great professional look and that she had selected me out of 25 candidates.  The photographer told me that she wanted to gift me some headshots as a "thank you" and indicated that she would like to work with me again in the future.  Not sure if it will ever happen, but it was super fun nonetheless.  Now I guess I can add "part-time model" to my resume.

Changes

 Surprise!  I'm here!  Really the person who is the most surprised about that is me.  We just got home from a weekend in Bend for the second state tournament and I really didn't think I would make this happen tonight.  I'll probably keep this short and sweet but, here we are, so let's get on with it.

The state tournament was good, not great.  We went 3 of 4 on the weekend, but our loss came early and knocked us out of the championship bracket.  In the end the highest we could finish was 5th place, which we did.  Overall, this season has been a mixed bag.  We definitely didn't have the success of last year, however, by design, Merrick was "the man" on his team.  That meant that he played approximately 80% of the time, often playing the entire game if it was a close one.  It was so great to have so much time on the court.  Now it's on to baseball and the first tournament is next weekend!

The other exciting news of the week is that Elsie lost her first tooth.  We discovered on Monday morning that one of her bottom, front teeth were loose.  I pointed it out to her, and she was SO excited.  She spent the rest of the day wiggling it and showing people.   Combine that with at lunch, she bit into a chewy bagel and things started to escalate quickly.  By early evening, she easily tugged it out.  It all happened a little too fast for me.  Neither of the other two kids lost any teeth until they were in school, but this girl likes to do everything early it seems.  The tooth fairy visited that night and brought origami butterfly money.  I do wish time would slow down.

Elsie's Birthday

 My apologies for the lack of blog post last week.  We were traveling home from a basketball tournament at the coast and didn't get home until very late.  Truth be told, there is a lot of traveling in the next few weeks, so blogging might be a bit spotty for a bit.  I won't say much about our time at the beach, but it was a blast and here are a few pictures to prove it (oh, and we took 2nd in the tournament after a tough overtime loss by 1).

While we are on the subject of basketball, and before we move on to the good stuff this week, this weekend was the first of two state tournaments.  I won't get into all of it, but the tournament started out great and then took a turn yesterday afternoon.  The team we played brought in two very good club team players that hadn't played with their team the rest of the season. We still beat them, but then they worked their way back into contention and, when we played them today, they brough in a third club team kid and we just couldn't compete.  After that devastation, we just couldn't get it back together and we lost our second game too.  We ended up coming in 4th in the tournament.  We'll see what next week brings.

The big highlight of the last couple weeks was Elsie's birthday.  The celebration started with a friend birthday party.  We had 13 four- and five-year-olds running amuck in our house and Elsie had a blast.  We made homemade pizza, played with birthday cake playdough (made out of frosting), had a dance party, made necklaces, had a pinata, and of course cupcakes.  I was exhausted by the end, but Elsie was happy and that is what really matters.

A few days later we had her actual birthday.  We woke up that morning to a snowy surprise and a 2-hour delay for school.  That meant we had extra time in the morning for a few presents and homemade pancakes.  Eventually, we made it to school and celebrated there with cupcakes.  Unfortunately, C.C. got hurt pretty badly at school that day and had to come home early, but that meant that the girls had the afternoon together to play and take it a little easy with some extra tv.  That evening, we had my family over for cake and ice cream.  It was a little rushed because the snow started falling again and we wanted to get everyone home before it got too late, but I don't think Elsie noticed or cared. 

Everyone made it home before it got too bad, but we ended up having snow days the next two days. That just made for some extra birthday fun with sledding included.

 We wrapped up the birthday festivities yesterday with Elsie having an "Auntie Day" with my sister, Emily.  They went shopping, got mani/pedis, and went to the movies.

To say she is a loved and spoiled little girl is a huge understatement.  We were so surprised when she even got a birthday card in the mail from a woman who works at the bank that Elsie made friends with.  She makes friends everywhere she goes.  We are so blessed to have her as part of our family.