Ladybugs

Belle is a Ladybug! We put her in softball this year with all girls, she's having a great time. Several of the girls go to the same school as she does, only one other kindergartener on the team, most are 1st grade, which means she's smaller than the others. It's a great team, they all play soccer together too, so we might have to do that with them in the fall. I really like the coach, she's so professional at coaching these girlies. Belle is choosing to bat left, which means she has a tendency to hit the ball down the first base line, and then she gets out at first 2 out of 3 hits, but she's getting better, hitting harder, more precise. She throws pretty well. So far we're really enjoying the team. One of the moms made matching bows with ladybugs on them for all of the girls so most of them are too pretty to wear their hats. Girls will be girls!

Longhorns

Jack is a proud Longhorn this year. He has the same coach that Belle had last year and he seems to be enjoying himself. He's one of the biggest kids on the team, like always, but this year it seems to be to his advantage because he's faster and hits harder. He bats left-handed which is weird but whatever, sometimes he throws left-handed too so we need to get him a glove for the other hand. He's a lot better player this year and more focused on the game. I think he has quite the future in front of him with baseball. :-)

First Bike Ride

Isabelle is an official bike-rider. She had tried a few times without training wheels and wasn't getting the hang of it and it had been about 6 weeks since she'd tried, but we were working in the backyard with the garage open, she looked in and saw her bike, asked if she could ride it, got on and rode! She was just totally ready this time. She's such a cutie doing big kid things.

FIVE

I'm a little late posting but here are pics from Jack's birthday. He got a basketball hoop from Mom & Dad and basketball cards from his sisters. We're still trying to figure out the right place to put the hoop so he hasn't got to use it much, for now it's laying down on the side of the yard waiting to be weighted down with sand. He had a pretty good party. He's getting so big so fast, sometimes it's hard to believe.

Metallic orange or tropical red?

So it's only 4 months later than promised but Christopher does have a new car. Well, not a new car exactly but it is new to us, and sooo much better. The Taurus was a good car while it lasted (10 years, 169,700 miles), but it has been dying a slow painful death for some time now. A crack in the windshield that covered half the window, gas gauge broken so you had to use the number of miles to know when it was time to fill up, a smashed door and drivers-side window that doesn't roll down, car cancer (rust), no a/c, paint oxidation, etc, etc, etc. Yesterday was the end of an era.

Since the car was worth nothing as a trade-in we applied for the Clean Air Texas voucher ($3000) and were approved. After much searching and huge headaches and walking out of several dealers who couldn't understand that we were there to buy a car not a payment, we finally managed to locate the perfect car and the perfect dealer. If you ever need to buy a car in DFW, we suggest you head over to Texas Motors Ford on the west side of Fort Worth and speak with the Snell Sales Team (father and son). They were wonderful, not one spec of pressure or haggling. We told them we saw the car online, $$ was the amount we were willing to pay, on x terms, and no extended warranty. Done deal.

The only question that remains is metallic orange or tropical red?

Easter Morning

Besides the fight over who got to have the egg with the dollar hidden inside and the insuing emotional breakdown by the oldest, the kids really enjoyed Easter morning. We learned all about how Easter eggs are just for fun but the real reason for Easter is "Jesus died and woke up on Easter." (Isabelle). And "before he died he had a feast and he let all the people come." (Jack). "Jesus died. On the cross." (Eva). We've been reading the Old Testament as a family this year and have recently been on the story of Moses so we talked a lot about Passover and Easter. I didn't think about it until it was too late (midnight Easter) but I should have bought a lamb roast instead of ham, in order to have our own Passover feast to reinforce the knowledge they've gained this week. Next year we'll definately do that, if I remember.

Petting Zoo

Over Spring Break, while Aunt Casi and Uncle Jonathan were visiting we went down to the Fort Worth Stockyards to watch the longhorn cattle drive. While we were there we enjoyed a petting zoo that was set-up on the lawn of one of the buildings. Here are some cute pictures of the kids feeding the animals.