Tommy's First Outing As A Pitcher

Tommy's team is a little short on pitching and his coaches felt he had potential, so they put him in last night. He didn't do to bad. He can get it across the plate, not to quickly, but it get there. I was impressed that it didn't rattle him at all. He kept his Tommy smile and had fun with it. His team is having a tough season but....whatever doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. Right?

@#$%#!!! Rabbits

My poor garden! I have never had the rabbit problems that I am having now. They are eating everything in sight. My wonderful husband put chicken wire up around certain areas that contain roses, but we can not fence everything. This Asiatic lily below had at least six flower buds on each stem last night.....they are now gone as well as most of the leaves. I am sure that plant will live, but there will be no flowers from it this year.
This rose should have leaves on it. This whole little section of roses have been stripped clean. It now has chicken wire around it, so hopefully it will rebound.

And ....if it isn't the rabbits. It is some little green worm that has eaten most of the leaves on the roses. I have now turned to chemicals, which I do not like to use (bad for the earth) and have started spraying the entire garden. It's to bad chemicals do not work on rabbits :)

Nick's Graduation May 16th

Well he did it! Our son made it through high school. He was ready to be finished and cannot wait to start down at UNL. He intends to major in Wildlife Biology with an emphasis in Herpetology (snakes). Pete and I are excited for him, but we are not so sure that we are ready to let him go. That will be a long car ride back from Lincoln in August.

We were planning on having Nick's party in the backyard, but the weather had different plans for us. Thankfully, we have wonderful friends next door who provide their garage. It is a new building with lots of room and counters. It worked out great and Nick had a little over 200 people come through. He requested Italian food (shocking) and Pete complied with sausage and peppers, meatballs and Italian beef. We nearly ran out of food and we did run out of cake. The kids particularly liked the root beer keg!

Nick's shrine.

Nick is behind the balloons visiting with some baseball friends.

Thank you to Aunt Connie, Andy, Kelly, Michael, Joe, Michelle, Joey and Kylah for coming to see him.

Big Birthday Week

Nick is 18 today! It seems like just yesterday that Pete asked if I would be willing to have more children. I told him that I already had 2 daughters and I would only have more if he would guarantee a son :). And being the type of guy that he is, he promised a son! A lo and behold a son was born. He delighted everyone, except Ashley, who wanted her new baby brother to disappear. She wasn't happy about giving up her "baby of the family" status and throughout their growing up together, she did try to eliminate him a view times. Pete was so excited he sent our friend Cherie out to buy some blue spray paint. He then went home and sprayed "It's a boy" on a sheet and hung it from our garage. You know the saying...You might be a redneck if ...(fill in the blank here).
Nick has provided us with 18 years of entertainment. A boy we thought was shy thrived on the stage and in speech meets. He now wants to go off to college to be a Herpetologist....he wants to play with snakes. Ewww. He wants to go off to jungles and find the most dangerous varieties and milk them (for anti venom, for all of you going in a weird direction). He expects to go off with the Peace Corps in the summer of 2010. I think he is going to provide is with a lifetime of entertaining stories.

Here he is this morning with the traditional Mickey Mouse pancake. He is surrounded by 18 Cub colored balloons and the traditional Mylar balloon. He gave me strict orders not to post this picture. That worked out for him, didn't it?

I neglected posting on Ashley's Birthday. She turned 24 on March 30th. She was my very shy child who hid behind Mommy when someone was over. I hear the incredulous laughing now. For anyone who knows her cannot believe that would be true. But I assure you, that for a brief little moment, she was shy and if you can believe this, quiet. Later in life, she sang everything, everywhere. The Little Mermaid songs were often heard coming from the bathroom. And once, I overheard her reading the back of a shampoo bottle in an advertising type of voice.

As a teen, she angered every adult that she came across. You see....Ashley was always right, just ask her coaches! She gives a little now, but....well, just ask her husband John if she has given up that stubborn streak. But God is good, he has given her a lovely daughter with the same disposition! My mother was fond of saying that my behavior would come back to haunt me in my children.....it's so nice to see that it just goes on and on.

As an adult, she is doing very well working a personal banker and as a mother and a wife. She has worked very hard to get her life to where it is now and Pete and I couldn't be any prouder of her.

Isn't she beautiful?

I am so blessed to have four happy, healthy children! Give your child a hug every day and tell them how special they are!

Spring Fever!

I am so excited that it is finally April. This is the month that the garden comes alive! My rhododendrons have buds and will be beautiful.
I have leaves! William Baffin, a Canadian rose, has already started to leaf out.

I am not sure you can tell from the picture, but my Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry is just full of flower buds. It blooms with the prettiest little white flowers. In a few months it will have berries, which the birds will eat in one day.

And this is my most favorite place to sit and view the garden. Soon there will be peonies, hostas, daylilies and daisies surrounding it. There are two Blueberry Muffin viburnums planted just behind the watering can. I hope that they bloom this year. Welcome April!

Arlington's Prom

Nick and Callie went to her Senior Prom this Saturday. I thought Callie looked wonderful despite having walking pneumonia. The afterprom was in Omaha at an arcade/funplex called Thunder Alley. They had a great time.

Nick and Callie have been dating 6 months now!

The Arlington crew that they went with. There is apparently a shortage of guys in their small village.

Baseball has begun!!!!

First Day of Spring and first day of High School Baseball. I was fortunate enough to have back to back games at our home field. The beautiful weather that we had earlier this week did not stick around of course. It was in the fifties and windy, pretty uncomfortable. Tommy was regretting not having on any under armour. Tommy is on the Freshman team, other wise known as the reserves. He started in left field and his moment of fame was catching a line drive in the 5th inning. He was up to bat twice and was walked both times. Bergan won 7-6.


The varsity player arrived midway thru the freshman game. That would be Nick huddled up in a Cedarville hoodie.

Nick is back-up catcher and 2nd base. He is also the DH, which he played tonight. He was walked, struck out twice and hit a double. Bergan won 10-0.

Nick doesn't intend to play summer Legion ball so this is a bit bittersweet knowing that this will be the last few weeks of watching him play ball. The time just went by to fast.