It's My Life

The Kansas City Royals won The World Series this past weekend. Yes. They. Did. We were proud last year when our last place Royals came back and clinched a wild card ticket . They were the Cinderella story of baseball last year and fought their way to the World Series only to lose out in Game 7 to the San Francisco Giants.  We did not get discouraged. If you would have asked any Royals fan in Kansas City, we would have told you on Opening Day this past Spring that this was going to be our year. We had unfinished business. We took care of that business last weekend by finishing The World Series in five games and defeating The New York Mets. On Tuesday of this week, our city threw an amazing victory parade that an estimated 800,000 people attended. Schools closed for the day, employers allowed long lunches, college students missed classes, and even government offices closed. This championship has given something more than a giant trophy and bragging rights to our cit...

Every spring we look forward to the return of longer days, green grass, and warmer temperatures! But we also look forward to the return of baseball!  The Boy has been playing for a few weeks already and boy have some of his games been pretty chilly. The Husband and I are co-managing/co-coaching an all girls tee-ball team for the second year with another couple.  Five of the girls returned to us from last year. We are so happy to  have an amazing group of girls who will become great ball players. Managing and coaching little ball players comes with a few struggles: they misplace equipment, they grab each others things, they get distracted, and of course they get excited. We learned a few things last year that have really helped us this year. 5 Tee-Ball Lessons We Have Learned Sharpies!  We made sure on our very first practice that we had Sharpies in hand. Sharpies have been great at marking each girls equipment. We had them on hand again the ...

One of our favorite movie’s of all time just celebrated its twentieth year anniversary. The Sandlot was originally released four years before my son, The Boy, was even born.  He actually got the movie for a present when he was three years old and he loved it so much that we wore that VHS out. Have you seen this movie? Or maybe a better question would be, “How many times have you seen this movie?”  When it came out the late, famed movie critique, Roger Ebert said The Sandlot was a summertime version of A Christmas Story.  The story is about a young boy who recently moved into a new place. He meets eight boys who play ball together and although he has no baseball skill, out of necessity he becomes their ninth player. All goes well, unless you count the black-eye, until their baseball gets hit over the fence. Then they encounter “The Beast”, a rather large dog that eats baseballs for dinner. The movie is funny, memorable, totally quotable, and is a cute story of a gr...

We started a new adventure at our house. An all girls t-ball team.  The weather has not cooperated with us so we have only had 2 1/2 practices. There are a few things that stand out as different with girls T-Ball versus boys.                         The color pink.  There may not be crying in baseball but there can...and is..the color PINK.  Not just in our clothing choices. We have pink bats, pink gloves, pink sports bags. We have PINK! We also have sparkles. Who needs cleats when you can play baseball in Sketcher's Sparkle Toes tennis shoes. Why hasn't the major leagues thought of this?  And my favorite...we have hair bows. Boys may wear baseball hats but girls wear hair bows. Really cute large ones! In fact, we need larger helmets because they don't fit. Girls have more hair than boys. I think someone needs to re-invent the batting helmet to allow for hair bows. ...

The heat of summer is upon us. In our part of the world, we have averaged about 102 degrees per day for the past four days. What do you do when it is this hot? Well, a smart person would stay where it is air conditioned. Catch up on some movies? Clean house? Or at least, find a body of water and stay immersed. Yep, that is what a smart person would do. Us? Well, that is not how we spent our time in the hottest days we have had this year. We spent it on the ball field playing in our state tournament.  I am thankful for easy-up tents and cold wet towels. To celebrate baseball and to take our minds off the heat, I made a baseball cupcake cake for the team and their fans. {Selfishly, I got to continue to clean out my pantry, bake, feed others, and not have a bunch of sweets in my household for me to eat!} So, today's post, Made By Me Monday is all about Cupcake Cakes! In an attempt to keep cleaning out my pantry of items I no longer should have on hand, I have several boxes...

The Hawks won the USSSA "A" World Series 14 and Under Championship yesterday. I love the look on the pitchers face. It says it all. "WE DID IT!" 2011 Hawks World Series Baseball Team. Our victory was truly a team victory. This team worked so well together. Everyone contributed to this win. The Coaching staff getting showered with affection...or is that water? The only bittersweet moment in the tournament is that The Boy was not at the championship game. He is on vacation with his father and missed it. Here is his trophy along side the team trophy. I can't wait to give it to him when he gets back home next week.