Opening Day!

Yesterday was our 8th annual Little League Baseball opening day! This will be Brady's 8th season in Little League, although he's actually a Junior this year, playing on a larger field with open bases (runners can steal at any time, and leading off is permitted). His team this spring is the Astros, which is great because it's easy to get gear to wear in the stands.

Opening day is the day when all the teams are announced and the kids run out on the field, sing the National Anthem, say the pledge of allegiance, the little league pledge and throw their hats in the air. Then there are booths and moonwalks and a barbecue, and some games thrown in.

Here are the Juniors Astros getting ready to run out on the field:



Note the redhead pointing to . . . I have no idea what.

Juniors are 13-14 year olds, and they play pretty hard. Can you guess who the opening day pitcher was for the Astros?



I was stunned. Proud, but stunned. Brady's never pitched on a big field at all, much less on opening day. He's played on the big field for the last couple of years in select ball, but never pitched, or thrown a pickoff throw, or tried to hold runners on base.

He did very well for the first game, pitching 1 2/3 innings (the coach had them all on a strict pitch count - 39 pitches per player) allowing no earned runs and only 1 unearned run.



He was 1 for 2 at the plate, and the Astros won the game 10-4. That sweet boy patting Brady on the head in the above picture is Anthony Reed. He's on the Warriors, too, and is now one of my favorite people in the world courtesy of this picture. So much of middle school is kids picking at each other (even when they are friends - it drives me crazy) that any spontaneous show of kindness warms my heart.

On that note, my sister and I were talking baseball quotes on Friday, so here are a few of my favorites:

Baseball is a harbor, a seclusion from failure that really matters, a playful utopia in which virtuosity can be savored to the third decimal place of a batting average. ~Mark Kramer

Ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection. ~Red Smith

Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. ~George F. Will, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, 1990

Life will always throw you curves, just keep fouling them off... the right pitch will come, but when it does, be prepared to run the bases. ~Rick Maksian

Progress always involves risks. You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first. ~Frederick B. Wilcox

My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.
Hank Aaron

One of the beautiful things about baseball is that every once in a while you come into a situation where you want to, and where you have to, reach down and prove something.
Nolan Ryan

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.
Babe Ruth

Now these two aren't exactly inspirational, but they just make me laugh becaues I've met real people like this:

If I were playing third base and my mother were rounding third with the run that was going to beat us, I'd trip her. Oh, I'd pick her up and brush her off and say, 'Sorry, Mom,' but nobody beats me. ~ Leo Durocher

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base. ~ Dave Barry

One game down, 13 to go! Say a prayer for the boys (and coaches) to remain injury-free, and for the parents to remember that ultimately it's only a game. :-)

KC the Altar Server

KC has wanted to be an altar server for as long as I can remember. At one time she actually wanted to be a priest, but when she realized that wasn't going to work out, she decided that she wanted to be a "priest helper." Now that she's in 5th grade, she's finally old enough to do it, so the first available training she begged to sign up, and worked her first mass that very evening.

Here she is last weekend at the Life Teen (Sunday evening) mass:



Here she is preparing to help Father Drew wash his hands as part of the Liturgy of the Eucharist:



And here she is processing out after mass:



She's really adorable and does a great job. Generally, she likes to hold the candle during the Gospel reading, but now she checks ahead of time to make sure the reading isn't terribly long, because "that candle gets heavy!"

She loves helping, and we are so proud to see her up there. :-)

The Haircut . . .

Abby begged for a haircut. I love Abby's hair. It may be because my own is getting thinner and grayer that I become more and more attached to my daughters' hair, but I put off haircuts for them while struggling to get Brady in the salon as often as possible.

Abby wanted a haircut, and she had a good point that it gets harder to brush as it gets longer. So I agreed to take her to the salon for a haircut. And they cut. And cut. And cut. I actually had to go sit down they cut so much off. You could have constructed a Pomeranian from the hair on the floor. And when it was all over . . .



Of course she looked adorable. Mother certainly doesn't always know best - LOL.

Projects, projects, projects, projects . . . and practice

Something about this time of year, perhaps a post-holiday malaise on the part of teachers, always seems to result in a crazy number of projects for the students. We have been swamped, but there seems to be hope on the horizon as several of these projects have been submitted at long last.

KC's big project was science fair. She counted stars for a month and noted the weather conditions and moon phases. She learned that it's much easier to count stars on a clear night. I realize we already knew that, but it's all about learning the scientific method, not curing cancer here.

Here is her project, Stargazing:



Abby has to do a book report every week. Once in a while, we try to mix in something a bit more creative, so here is her actual book report on Freckleface Strawberry, her favorite book:


Brady is, even as I type, presenting his History Fair documentary on Segregation in Baseball at the regional competition. Bill is with him because, well, I tend to be a bit overprotective and I might have had a few words with the other 2 members of his group because I perhaps didn't feel like they were pulling their weight. Hypothetically. And perhaps some males in our household were worried that I might repeat those words in person, so I am banished until the awards ceremony this afternoon.

OK, in my defense, when the other group members volunteered to annotate the bibliography, after spending a week "working on it," one of the boys came up with some descriptions that I felt were not really . . . scholarly . . . and perhaps didn't reflect that much time and/or thought had been put into them. For example, the book "World War II and Baseball" was annotated as "Gave some social events that were occurring among the regular people." Really? Not so much a war as a cotillion? An excerpt from Satchel Paige's autobiography was referred to as a "semi-biography." Now, I will grant that Paige was prone to tall tales, but I don't believe there is an actual category know as the semi-biography . . .

Now you see why I was asked to stay home. Oh, well.

In addition to the school work, Brady has a Solo and Ensemble competition at 4pm this afternoon, then baseball practice from 5-7pm. KC has competition dance class in 25 minutes, she's supposed to alter serve in the morning, Brady has baseball practice for a different team tomorrow, a report on Galileo due Monday . . . and Abby and I are just happy to be here.

Of King Cake and Mardi Gras Beads . . .

This post is many weeks overdue, but the story is worth telling. It all took place between Epiphany and St. Valentine's day. But if you'll join me in pretending that it's several weeks ago, I'll go ahead and begin . . .

Houston has a strong connection to New Orleans, both due to their proximity and also due to the large number of former residents of New Orleans who resettled in Houston after Hurricane Katrina. But although I have heard for years about Mardi Gras, it is only recently that I learned about King Cakes. This year at the grocery story, in the papers, and especially the teacher's lounge, there were King Cakes everywhere. People would ask each other, "Did someone already get the baby?" This is a rather unusual question to ask in the teacher's lounge, so I was forced to investigate.

I asked our principal secretary, and she sent me this story:

The main thread to the story is that the cake represents the 3 kings who traveled to meet baby Jesus. The baby in the cake represents Jesus. The cake is shaped into an oval and the dough in entwined to represent the circuitous route taken by the 3 kings to see the baby and it also represents unity of all Christians. The tradition used to be that the person finding the baby was crowned king of the 12th night celebration. In more modern times, the person getting the baby is supposed to host the next party.

The colors: green – represents faith, purple - represents justice and gold is power or royalty.


Pretty cool? King cakes are a sort of sweet bread covered in glaze. I decided the girls and I should make our own low-fat version of the King Cake to prepare for Lent, and just to kill some time one evening while Brady and Bill were at baseball practice.

I found a recipe online for a King Cake that was more like an Angel Food cake than a sweet bread (and was low fat), so we decided to go with that one. KC mixed the ingredients:



Abby grated some lemon zest for us:



And . . . side note, quickly. I don't know if you can see the plastic bag next to Abby. Her hands get very chapped in the winter, and squeezing lemons with chapped hands is very painful. She used the baggie as a glove, but insisted on taking it off while I took her picture. Either brave or crazy - I'll let you decide.

We decided against actually cooking a plastic baby in the cake, so we used giant gumballs instead. In the stories I hear, whoever gets the baby has to bring the next King Cake. We decided that whoever found the gumball would be the "King" of our celebration. Then I hid 3 gumballs in the cake, because I didn't want them to fight over them.

Anyway, we baked the cake and prepared the glaze.

Once it had baked and cooled a bit, the girls drizzled the glaze over it:



Then added purple, yellow, and green sprinkles:



And we were ready to go. Bill's brother and his wife lived in New Orleans for many years (she still does, Joe passed away in 2003), so they used to bring the kids authentic Mardi Gras beads, which we still have tons of. So I dragged out the beads and threw them at the kids, the kids threw them at each other, really, any excuse to throw things in our house is met with much joy. When Bill and Brady got home, we threw beads at him (you have to catch Brady off guard, and then run, because he throws very hard). The girls both found gumballs, so we had two queens of our celebration!



Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez! Let the good times roll!

BTW - Cookie the bunny only wore the beads for a few seconds for the picture and only under direct supervision. He was never in any danger of choking.

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's day!

The girls still have class parties in school for Valentine's day (I sometimes wish we still had them in high school.)

Of course, many hours are devoted to selecting the perfect outfit for Valentine's day. Red or pink? Dress or jeans?

The girls ended up in these ensembles:



Yes, my poor kids go to school while it's still completely dark outside. Very sad . . .

Anyway, I crocheted the heart purses for them to bring their Valentines cards to school (actually, we don't buy cards, we buy little packages of Sweet Tart hearts and they give those out - no chocolate because of KC's peanut allergy.)

Needless to say, the girls were lovely and they had a wonderful time at the school parties. Brady's in 7th grade, and I believe in middle school they try not to draw any attention to the fact that there are both boys and girls in class, therefore no parties celebrating love, which suits Brady and me just fine.

After school was over, we raced to the baseball fields for some quick business (I got talked into serving as team mom for Brady's spring ball team, more on that another day) then off to Saltgrass Steakhouse where we waited an hour for our table.

The girls love Saltgrass and always try to act very grown up while they are there, particularly Abby. She was very gracious, thanking the waiter by name, "Thank you, James." The waiter's name was actually Jason, BTW, but we're all just supporting players in her world anyway.

We had a great dinner, and James, er, Jason was nice enough to compliment the kids on what nice manners they have. Which makes me wonder a bit just how poorly most of the kids he serves must behave (honestly, they didn't do anything more spectacular than say "please" and "thank you" and call him by the wrong name occasionally). Oh, well. i was proud, the kids were good, and the steak was outstanding. A great evening for all.



Happy Valentine's day to all!

San Jacinto Monument

Since we had a holiday off from school last Monday for MLK day, we decided to visit somewhere we hadn't taken the kids before. The weather was cold and rainy, so parks and bike rides were out of the question. We decided to visit the San Jacinto Monument. Brady's taking Texas History this year, and I hadn't been since I was in 7th grade. So we headed off to Pasadena!




We found out that the San Jacinto monument is 570' tall. It was built between 1936 and 1939 to celebrate the centennial of Texas' Independence (April 21, 1836). There is a museum on the ground floor with lots of items significant to Texas' history including an actual musket ball taken from one of only 9 Texas soldiers who died that day (in contrast, 600 Mexican soldiers were killed). The entire battle took 20 minutes.



Here we are hanging out by Stephen F. Austin, known as the "Father of Texas," and the man for whom the high school at which Bill and I work was named (it's difficult not to end a sentence with a preposition - LOL).



We bought 5 tickets and rode the elevator up to the observation deck which is 489' off the ground. When I was in 7th grade, we had to take the stairs all the way up. The stairs are only used for emergencies these days. Good thing, too - it takes 840 stairs to get to the deck.

The view out the windows is really amazing. Here is the Battleship Texas across the street:


After we'd had enough of the view (and I'd had enough of the height) we rode back to the lobby and headed off to the nature trail through the marshes that helped Sam Houston trap Santa Anna and his troops to secure the victory for Texas.



That's me in the Aggie maroon. It was very cold out!

Anyway, we didn't see any troops in need of assistance, but we did see an armadillo:



We headed across the street to have a picnic (a tailgate party, really, since we stayed in the car) and to get a closer look at the Battleship Texas.


Since we were really cold and it was starting to rain, and the Texas did not look heated, we decided to save the tour for another day.

We did have a good time, and the we all learned a lot. We apologized to the kids for setting them up to accidental learn something on a day off from school . . . LOL