Besides 4-H, we spend a lot of time in the summer at baseball games. My son plays on a little league team every year.  It's his favorite sport, and late every winter he starts dreaming about the games and getting his gear ready for the season. This year was his first year playing at a new level, so it was a learning year for him. His team started out the season with a difficult loss (they fought back from behind to come within 1), but went on to win every game the rest of the season. They even beat the team that beat them.  After the last regular season game, they were all given a plaque stating that they were the first place team. Then it was playoff time. As the #1 team, they didn't have to play the first round and they won their first game, sending them right to the championship game. Guess who they had to play? If you guessed the team that beat them the first game of the season, you're right.  This time, Eric's team couldn't pull off a win, and ended up second. Eric is happy with his season, and I am happy that it's over. I love watching baseball, but by the end, especially with the fair coming up, I'm ready to move on.

I have decided that blogging and I don't seem to get along in the summer. For some reason I just can't seem to find the time and motivation to blog on these busy, hot summer days.

Summer finds us in the middle of the busy 4-H season. Our fair is about 3 weeks away, so we are currently in "crunch time". That means we are working hard to finish all the projects necessary for the fair. We have 6 pigs, 5 chickens, 5 rabbits and a dog all competing for attention as well as non-animal projects to finish in woodworking, ceramics, archery, photography and fused glass.

This is my oldest working on one of his woodworking projects.

The middle child practicing his archery skills.

And, my daughter carefully painting one of her ceramics projects.

Usually, by the time the fair is over, I'm ready for the relative calm of back to school!

I have come to the conclusion that my oldest son, who's 14, isn't going to be able to find a pair of jeans that actually fit him. You see, he's fairly tall at 5'11", which translates into a 36" inseam. He's also quite slender, with a 29" waist. (I'm not sure I ever remember a waist that small). Add to these measurements, the fact that he really prefers certain styles, and it gets even harder. Thankfully, he's not totally fussy and realizes that since he needs jeans, he'll have to be flexible on style choices. He, like a lot of kids his age, likes to wear his jeans low (but not too low, or Mom gets mad), so we can get by with a 34" inseam. If he wears a belt (not a favorite thing to do, but it's better than losing his pants), we can go up to a 30" waist. I found a total of 1 pair of 30x34 while shopping yesterday. One. I know there must be more somewhere, but where? Where have all of jeans in the size I need gone? Has there been a run on skinny tall kids needing jeans all of a sudden?

At least my other 2 kids are easier to fit. However, #2 son has it in his head that he doesn't want to wear anything used. Since his brother's clothes from last year fit him perfectly this year, and since #1 grew so fast that he didn't wear out his clothes at all, #2 has no choice. Ok, I guess he does, but I don't think going without clothes is a viable option. Where do kids get some of their ideas? I've always shopped 2nd hand stores for all 3 kids for almost everything. I typically buy each of them a couple of new items each season, but certainly not everything.

OK, so I only have 1 child that's easy to shop for. At least she used to be, until she started growing up and deciding that the pink frilly dresses aren't what she likes anymore. We went shopping for an Easter dress. Like her mother, she's not a big fan of dresses, but she'll wear them when she has to. I was attracted to the racks of pinks, purples, yellows with cute hats, purses and gloves. You know the styles I mean. Her dress is black and white. It's very cute, but not the color combo I would have chosen. But, I must admit that it does look very good on her.

I guess it's time for me to realize that the days of easy clothes shopping for my kids are over. Some things were definitely easier when the kids were little. However, I love the age my kids are at right now. And, yes, I say that no matter what age they are.

It's been a long time since I've had a few minutes to sit down and update this blog. I've been preparing for Christmas and, for the last few days, celebrating it with my family. My parents, 2 brothers and sister and their families all came for 3 days to Wisconsin for Christmas. There were 24 of us total. Over the next few days, I'll fill you in on some of the things we did. One of the activities that we did was a snowman making contest. The conditions were perfect, and we had 4 terrific snowmen in my front lawn. Here's some photos of the creations:

Chicago Bear

Franz Wall the Christmas Caroler

The Fisherman

Stanley

The judges, my brothers and a nephew, had a tough job, as you can see. They chose the "diplomatic" approach and came up with 4 categories: best classic snowman ("Stanley"), best sports theme ("Chicago Bear"), Best hair/most creative ("Franz Wall"--those are pinecones being used as hair) and Best of Show ("Fisherman").

Unfortunately, it's been so warm and rainy that the creations have all disappeared from my front lawn. All that's left are the photos and the wonderful memories.

This week has been busy with various Christmas activities. We spent a couple of hours ringing the bell for the Salvation Army. Our homeschool group signs up every year, and we always take a turn with some friends of ours. We had a bunch of kids singing Christmas carols and ringing bells. My oldest even juggled for a little bit. That's amazing since he doesn't like people watching him at all. This picture is actually from when we rang bells last weekend for our 4-H group. It turned out better than the ones from yesterday.

After bell ringing, we went to church to set up for the Christmas program. Actually, I set up for the program and my kids helped pack boxes of food that will be delivered to families from our church's angel tree ministry.

Our church Children's Christmas program is tomorrow, so I've been busy getting ready for that. We had our last practice this morning, and it went fairly well. Hopefully all the kids will remember the 2nd and 3rd verses of the Christmas carols.

After practice, my daughter had a trampoline competition at the gym where she takes gymnastics. Trampoline is her favorite event. The athletes were divided based on age and the level of the routine they were doing. She got a gold medal, as did both of her friends who were also competing. Here's my daughter with her best friend, proudly showing off the gold medals.

Now that I'm home again, I'm making 3 dozen cookies for the Christmas program tomorrow. I have to get them baked, decorated, and put into little gift bags for all the kids who are participating. Once that's done, I need to wrap the gifts we bought for our church's angel tree ministry.

It's a busy weekend, but I wouldn't change any of it.

These are my 3 kiddos.  "E" is 14 and loves sports, especially baseball and is the mathmetician of the family. "G" is 12 and loves geography, but please don't make him do math! "J" is 9 and enjoys gymnastics and science. The dog is Buddy, who helps with the cows when he's in the mood to do so.