Bittersweet

We have been playing lots of Softball for the past 3 months and Hayden loves it and so does the rest of us!


Friday night we had an awesome game, the girls played their little hearts out and it really showed.  There was one inning that they got three outs and no runs were scored, that is totally awesome for their age!  They also hit so good that we didn't even have to have a 5th inning because we were so far ahead of the other team.  It was so much fun watching them and cheering them on.  Hayden made some awesome throws and she hit very well too!  She is getting better and better with every practice and game!  Since we won, we played again on Saturday at 12pm

Saturday was scorching HOT and the girls tried to play their best but it just didn't happen.  I personally think they were just too hot to really get into it and enjoy it.   They did well hitting but they had a couple of mishaps in the field that caused several runs to happen!  Oh well, the point is that they played good, tried their best, and had fun...which is most important at this age.  We could have played up to 3 games on Saturday if we had won the first one, but it was kind of bittersweet....we wanted to win and play again but it was so hot that every body was suffocating.   We did come in 3rd place in the State!  GO WALTON!!!!!!  I couldn't be more proud of Hayden, her team and her coaches.  They all did a terrific job and worked together very well. 

Hayden,

Words cannot describe how proud of you we are!  You have come so far since T Ball last year.  You amaze us at the amount of determination you have.  You are also good at every thing you do and you always give it your all and that makes you our shining star!   I can't wait until the Spring to watch you get after that ball and knock it over the fence baby girl!!!  We love you to the moon and back shining star!!!!

Love Always,

Mommy, Daddy, Gracie and Colton

Lets Go Hayden, Lets Go!!!

Walton Allstars! 

Walton Allstars with their Coaches!



My Allstar!

Words cannot even begin to describe how proud I am of Hayden, she has really become a great softball player and I LOVE going to practices and games to watch her!  We have pretty much spent the last month at the softball field, every night and every weekend and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  She has learned so much and even wants to play in the yard with me, yeah me, not sure why...I have no experience but I get out there and throw, catch and pitch to her.  She loves it, and it does help her improve, the way I see it is if she can hit my pitches, she should be able to hit anything.  I love watching her be excited about something and the way she swings the bat is amazing, she has got to have the strongest arms of any girl I know! 

Last night was a very important game to our team, and we won.  The score was 18-17, it was a close one.  In fact I got so excited I almost passed out, that will teach me to eat better on game days!  She did amazing, half of the team has to hit off the coach and half of them get 3 pitches and two tries off the T.  Well Hayden has been a T hitter for the last four games, but she has only used it one time due to a bad pitch from the coach, she usually hits either the first or second pitch!  Which makes us very happy!  Last night she was picked to be a coach pitch, which means that she gets 5 pitches but if she strikes out on all 5 it is an out!  I was so excited but have to admit a little nervous too, it is so hard to explain!  Needless to say my little Allstar did just fine, the first time at bat, she didn't hit it very far but the girls on the other team had to struggle to get it so she made it to first base with no problem.  The second time she bat, she hit the 2nd pitch and it went pretty much to first base but it was going to fast for them to get so she got a Double!  The last time she batted was a crucial moment, our team was down by 7 runs and it was the last inning and here comes my baby.  She hits the second pitch and boy does she hit it!  It goes between first and second base into the outfield!  Talk about some cheering!!!!  With that hit she also got in two of our runners!!!  Sometimes I don't even think she knows how amazing she is! 

She played in the outfield and boy she got after the ball last night to.  She even slid trying to catch it one time, I guess my reminder to get after the ball stuck in her head last night.  She got two other plays in her position and made the prettiest throws ever to second base and our second baseman caught them.  They looked like professionals!  I felt extremely proud when Aunt Kim heard some parent way behind us ask "who is that in the outfield, that girl has an arm!"  I love it!  She does have an amazing arm, in fact she threw some to me yesterday and I just moved out of the way it was coming so fast, like I have said before I have no experience and no intention of being hit in the face!   She laughs when I do that and tells me to catch the ball Mommy! 

Thank you to Aunt Linda for coming to watch Gracie and Colton since it was such a late game, you have no idea how much we appreciate it!!!!

It was a great game and now we play again on Friday night at 8pm in Buford and if we win that we could possibly play up to 3 games on Saturday!  Then our Allstar tournament will be complete and we will have to wait until August to start Soccer!

For some reason the video from here doesn't look as good as the one on facebook, sorry but wanted everyone to hear how the whole team and parents were cheering her on and how she hit that ball!

Father's Day 2012

Father's Day this year was a little hard for me at first.  Every time I went to pick out cards I would read the ones from your Daughter and cry the whole time.  I miss my Daddy very much, especially now.  I was such a Daddy's girl when I was little, I had to do everything he did and I would follow him everywhere he went.  It didn't matter if it was working on TV's as long as I was doing it with  him.  When my parents divorced things became a little more complicated but I always loved my Daddy and will always be a Daddy's Girl or in my case....Daddy's little boo boo!  I miss him so much but I reassure myself that he is so much better off and free of all his pain and that he is watching down on me and all my babies everyday. 

Even though it was tough buying cards I managed to pick out the perfect ones for Mark and Pop!  Hayden signed the ones from them and Gracie decorated the envelopes.  We bought Mark a Wii, ours has been broken for a while now and we wanted something we could all enjoy!  Hayden was so excited about Super Mario and the Wii, she is now old enough to understand how to work it.  We also bought him a Monster Truck game to go with it.  I knew he would enjoy that!  We gave Pop some of his favorite candy and a picture frame with his 3 favorite people in it!  I think he was very pleased too!  We also spent Saturday morning watching Hayden play softball and then we went to Aunt Kim and Uncle Artie's house to swim, well Pop, Colton, Hayden, Gracie and Kim swam, the rest of us decided the water was way to cold still!!!  Hayden, of course had the most fun, that girl doesn't care how cold the water is!  Gracie and Colton got out when they started shivering.  It was a very fun day!  I am pretty sure Pop enjoyed all of it!

Sunday, for Father's Day I cooked breakfast and then we literally played the Wii all day long.  Hayden has my temperament and patience with things, she was screaming at the game, threw the controller and got very frustrated when she lost.  Mark thought it was hilarious....he kept asking me "this is how you used to act when you played nintendo"  and my response truthfully was YES!  I am not proud of it but I am a very competitive person and I don't hide my frustrations or feelings!  She will out grow it or well some of it anyway!!!  I finally had to make them turn it off at 10pm last night so that we could go to bed!  I think he had a great Father's Day!  I hope he did because we love and appreciate him so much!  He is the best daddy in the world!!!!

Colton's First Time at the Park

Today, we had to go pick out some more pictures of my Little Man so afterwards we went through McDonald's and got some lunch.  Then I decided to surprise the kids and take them to the new Park in Good Hope to eat lunch and play.  The Park was very nice and we were the only ones there, which is nice too!   They were so excited in fact Hayden's exact words were "this is the best day ever"  made my day, who knew the Park would make them so happy!  Colton had lots of fun, he got to swing and he mainly just wanted to walk around the playground.  He was everywhere.  The girls helped him slide a few times and he liked that too!  It was tons of fun but it got HOT very fast and Colton was ready for his nap, so when we got home I put him down for a nap and filled up their swimming pool on the deck and the girls had a great time.  It is the little things that make them the happiest! 

Here are some pictures of the BEST DAY EVER!

Hayden's Recital

Well, Friday and Saturday were Hayden's Recital and she did Fantastic!  Fantastic was the song they tapped to and I love Ballet was the ballet song.  She was by far the most beautiful girl there.  The recital was so good, Ms. Marie and Charlotte's School of Dance put on an amazing show.  It was very interesting!  I was amazed at how well everyone could dance.  Hayden has come a long ways since her first recital at 4 years old.  She has learned so much this year.  Thanks to Aunt Linda for watching Colton and Gracie on Friday night since it was so late and thanks to Laura for watching Colton on Saturday for us.  Don't know what we would do without our wonderful family. Gracie went Saturday to watch with us, I had to stay in the back with Hayden and her class and help them get backstage and back to the room.  It was very interesting trying to keep up with 14 little girls.  Hayden was so glad that I was there, she always wants me to volunteer.  Gracie loved the show and has decided that she wants to do point and tap.  I don't think she is old enough for point yet, but she can do ballet and tap, she is so excited she has been dancing around the house for days in her tap shoes that Mimi and Pop gave her for Christmas. 

 After the show on Saturday, Hayden immediately put on her softball uniform and went to play ball.  You should have seen the faces on people at the recital when she came out dressed for ball.  I even heard one man say "that girl plays Allstars too" like Wow!  What can  I say she is good at everything.  They lost their game, but Hayden had two amazing hits and was able to get the ball in the outfield and chunk it back in and I do mean chunk it.  She amazes me with how strong her arms are!!!   She did a great job, considering how tired she was.......we were at the recital from 8-12pm Friday night, back Saturday morning 10-2 and then batting cages at 2:45 and game at 3:30.  They placed 3rd place for this championship so they got their medals after the game which made some happy girls!  Needless to say she went to bed early Saturday night!!! 

Oh and we are...............going to see...................THE FRESH BEAT BAND in Concert in August!!!!!!  Hayden and Gracie are so excited, it is kind of for Gracie's birthday since it is Aug. 26th and her birthday is Sept. 2nd.  She says that this is her birthday party...I told her we would still have her a party and she said she just wants her friend Madison to spend the night with her.  So I guess we will see if she changes her mind.  Hayden wanted to sit on the front row so they would pull her on stage, unfortunately Mommy and Daddy can't pay $293 for one ticket so we told her that she would have to sit a little further back!  Silly girl!

Oh, one more important thing that happened Saturday!!!!  Colton is officially WALKING!  He is into everything and walking every where.  Now I have to find him some shoes to fit his fat feet.  I have tried on every kind and his foot is too chunky for all of them.  I finally found some NIKE sandals but they are kind of slick on the bottom.  Let the shopping begin!   He is adorable walking around.  He looks so big and we turned him forward facing in the car and he LOVES it.  It is such a great thing when they turn around, the girls were the same way it changes the car riding experience.  He is such a sweet baby boy!  I love him so much and am so proud of him!  Now the girls really can't get away from him...heehee!

GO Walton!

Hayden had a tournament game last night at Bay Creek Park, and man is that a nice park.  We are going to have to go back and look at all the playgrounds when it is not so crowded!  We got there early because she had batting practice at 7pm.  Then the game started at 8pm.  They all did an awesome job, I was proud of all of them.  There were a few little things that we could work on but all in all it was a very exciting game.  Hayden played 3rd base last night at first, but because the other team was hitting so hard into the outfield, Coach moved her out there because she has one of the strongest arms.  She made several good plays! She hit amazing, she only had to hit off the T one time, and she hit probably 5 times!  She always came up to bat at the most crucial time, when there is 2 outs and one on 3rd base, she followed through great last night and brought the girl in on 3rd to tie the game in the bottom of the 5th inning.  Which meant overtime since it was a tournament game.  We didn't win but it wasn't because they didn't try, it was a great game.  They have a game Saturday morning, but Hayden will have to miss it for her Recital and then they could have 2 games on Sunday.  I guess it depends on how they do Saturday.  I really hate that she has to miss her game, I so wish I could figure out how to be in two different places at the same time.  So proud of you Hayden!

Proud to be #1

She said she needed to pretend to bat to get the best picture.  Silly!

Check it out...this was on their dug out!

And there she is, my little All-Star! 

I was the Mommy that was jumping up and down and cheering on all the girls, but especially my girl!  It is so exciting to watch and it will make you nervous too!  GO WALTON!!!!

Gracie had an accident in her car seat when we arrived at the park.  I had just taken out all of the extra clothes in the car and was frantically trying to figure out what to do.  When I thought to myself....well, she is kind of little wonder if Colton's clothes would fit her...and they did...the shirt was a little small but the size 18mo shorts fit her just like her 3T ones do!!!!  And the outfit was appropriate for the ball park too!!!  Win for Mommy and lesson learned to restock the car back up for all 3 kids.  Gracie was proud to wear her outfit, I figured she would pitch a fit about it being a boy outfit but she was fine.

This picture is the loves of my life!  I love them all so much and I love it when they are playing together!

Busy Week

We have had lots of softball practice since my last post, and we had Recital practice for Hayden on Monday.  It is going to be a great recital but it is also going to be a long one...just warning everyone now!  She looked so beautiful on the stage and believe it or not she is the loudest singer up there or at least she was last night anyway.  Mark had Colton in the car, which they were both very tired of by the time we got done, we never imagined they would practice for almost 3 hours. 

Just so you can see how busy we are in the evenings...tonight we have softball practice at 7:30, tomorrow night we have a game in Grayson at 8pm, Thursday night we have practice at 7:30, Friday we have the recital at 8pm, Saturday we have recital at 11am and she has a softball game at 9 or 10, which she will have to miss! 

Colton is doing a lot of walking now, it is so funny to watch him, he is really coming into his personality.  He pretends to sneeze, gives fives, and shakes his head yes and no!  He is getting so big!  He loves his new swing that he got from Mimi and Pop for his birthday, we finally got it up and put him in it and he fell asleep within 5 minutes. 

Pop built some shelves for the girls room and then Mimi stained them and they were all finished up this weekend, so they came out on Sunday and put them up.  The girls were so excited!  I put all of Hayden's trophies up on them and lots of pictures and memories too.  Gracie will have trophies in the future so for right now I put baby pictures and some things from our first trip to disney world up there for her.  I didn't want her to feel left out.   It is perfect.  It looks so good in there and it doesn't look so cluttered on the furniture anymore. 

Gracie is so good at going with the flow, she has to find things to do at softball and she has to do a lot of sitting in the car waiting for Hayden.  She gets tired of it, but she is still good.  She has found that she loves to play in the mud at softball practice and basically just get dirty.  Colton loves to play in the mud too, he has decided that he isn't going to stay confined in the stroller anymore.