Do You Rock The Rally Towel?

I know, I know... we're already past baseball season. Heck, we're almost to next season! Only a month and a half until pitchers and catchers report, but really, who's counting?


Anyways...


While we were in FC visiting the Awesome Family for Jerome's birthday, we went to a Rockies game. Now, you have to understand something. In our home, there are two major seasons of the year. Baseball and Football. There is the lesser season of Basketball, but it is used mostly to sustain our sports senses until the major seasons roll around again. And, yes, the girls have this bug too.


Here are our girls' opinions on baseball:

Katrina - The Rockies are the best team ever (that's my girl!). Daddy's team, the Astros, are stinky poo. The Yankees (our pastor's team) are even worse. They are stinky cheese, which is the worst designation a sports team can receive in her world.

Madison - Every team is the Rockies. The Rockies win every game. We love the Rockies.

Violet - I like Wockies. Ooh, lights. Go Wockies (as she dances like a crazy person).


Katrina has been to a few Rockies games, but Madi & Violet had not. What an excellent opportunity to indoctrinate our youngest small ball disciples, while encouraging the fervor of the eldest?


Question: Have you ever attempted to get four children, all under age 6, and four adults, one of whom is prego, out the door on time to drive an hour to get to a game on time? Let me tell you, it's an adventure.


Traffic was, of course, special once we reached Denver, so we got to the game in the middle of the first inning. Had Daddy had his druthers, we would have been there 2 hours before the first pitch. But, he is learning to compromise, and was a good sport about it.


Did I mention that the game we went to was against the Cardinals, with the Division lead on the line? There were just a few people there. Like more people than live in our entire county.


So, here's the beautiful prego Kristin, trying to be as comfortable as possible while the baby girl is karate chopping her innards. And the awesome brother Adam. And the Pax Man, who was slightly hyper and giddy to be there. Even if he had no clue why he was there.





Aren't you proud? I allowed myself to be photographed! And, of course, Madi was too enthralled with the game to pause for a photo op.

We sat in our favorite section, right in left center, under the JumboTron. Easy access to concessions, close to the restrooms, close to the action and the playground for the kiddos. But just look at all the people! See, I wasn't kidding!

Here's Madi enjoying her first ballpark hot dog. Even though she didn't eat it.

The night we went, it was Rally Towel Night. The first 10,000 or so fans got free rally towels. Because we were late, we did not get rally towels at the gate. But, once we sat down, every parent, grandparent, uncle, college student, and drunk fan within 50 rows decided that the kiddos could not go to their first game without a rally towels. Here is Violet, modeling proper Rally Towel etiquette.

And, here she is demonstrating why we were so grateful to receive so many rally towels.

Pax actually sat still for a few moments, enthralled by the lights and people. Remember, I said a few moments. Which is actually a long time for him.

Madison took full advantage of Pax's inability to sit still to get some lovin from her Auntie.

Yup, as long as Pax had his trains, and Violet had her ice cream and pom pom, they were happy campers.

And what did our eldest child think of the game, you may ask? Well, she spent the entire ride down there deciding what she was going to spend her birthday money on. Once we got to the stadium, she was too excited to eat her dinner. She mooched peanuts off of the nice man sitting next to her (more on him later). She found a Cardinals fan her age a few rows back, and got into an argument with him over which team was better. She carefully chose her treasures at the Dugout Store. She sang and cheered and screamed and waved her rally towel, memorized the lineup so she would know when her favorite (Mommy's favorite) players were up to bat. She scarfed her ice cream in under a minute. And generally had one of the best nights of her little life.

It was so much fun to begin to share our love of baseball with our daughters. The nice man who sat next to Katrina was there with his youngest daugher. She is now 21. He began taking each of his three daughters to games when they were 4. He has taken each one to a game, just daddy and daughter, every year. That's a lot of hot dogs. And a lot of memories.

When Katrina sat next to him, you could see his eyes light up. He and his daughter shared with us, through the 9 innings, memories of games, stadiums, players. But more importantly, they shared their relationship. Here was a dad and a daughter that were able to weather the often-difficult road of growing up through a joined love of a game. I'm sure they've had their moments, their disagreements. But they always had baseball. Something they could share.

I pray this for my husband and our girls. That we, as parents, will be intentional in raising our girls. Intentional in spending that quality time with them. Build a relational foundation that will weather storms.

Because it may have just been a baseball game to that dad, but to the daughter, it was life.

Thankful Thursday... some special family

Blah - has it really been almost two weeks since my last post? I even took the laptop with us to Phoenix for Thanksgiving, with every intention of posting witty, clever posts every evening from the hotel after the wee monkeys were fast asleep.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

Instead, the children usually went to sleep around 9, I stayed up talking with my parents until about 10, then I read until about 10:30. Then I went to sleep. If you know me, you know that is a miracle in and of itself. But we were super busy during the days, so I ended up exhausted.

I promise, I will update all on the adventures of Blegers in Phoenix. Because, believe me, there were adventures. But, for today, I am so thankful for this little man.

Our little nephew Pax decided to move to Fort Collins this summer, and rudely took his mom & dad with him. We got to go visit them for Jerome's birthday, and we had a blast taking photos of the cousins. Violet & Pax are a month apart, and too funny when they are together.

See Mom, we're too cute to get into trouble.

I told you we could fool them, Pax.



And now, we will dump sand. Everywhere. Including our diapers.

But Violet, can't we chase the squirrels for just a minute?

And some stinky boy (Jerome) took a photo of blech me alongside my stunning, amazing, gorgeous sis-in-love. She is due with our beautiful niece Blythe this January, and Uncle Jay-Jay and I are counting down until we get to hold this beautiful bundle of joy in our arms.

Although I do find it entertaining that we are standing in exactly the same pose. Maybe it's a mom thing...





And another photo of my amazing nephew boy.

Isn't he darling?

Every now and then, Jerome will get a call from his brother Adam's cell. Except that it's not Adam. It's Pax. He has somehow figured out the combination of buttons to push to get Uncle Jay-Jay on the phone. I know, right? Smartest kid ever? But those phone calls melt his heart, and brighten his day.

I am so in love with this family, and so grateful that God allowed all of our paths to cross so that we could become family.

Just a typical Saturday...

... in the Bleger house. We woke up around 8 AM, thoroughly enjoying the extra sleep time the girls gave us. We got ready, had breakfast, and headed out. We had a list to accomplish.


We drove to Farmington with minimal drama, always a plus. Went to the mall to price mattresses at the furniture store there. Realized that the mattresses were still cheaper at Sam's. Drove to Sam's, met my mom there, bought a twin size mattress (more on that later).


Next stop was target, where we purchased our presents for Operation Christmas Child. Every year we take the girls to pick out presents for this organization. Operation Christmas Child takes our presents...






... and deliver them to children in orphanages around the world. For most of these children, it is the only present they will receive. And, for our girls, it is a time to teach them what Christmas is really about, how blessed they really are, what it means to give. It is really neat to watch them look forward to this, to eagerly choose presents for little girls they will probably never meet.


After Target, we headed to the pet store. Why, you may ask? Because on Friday, Jerome brought home a fish. Apparently, one of his coworker's roommates moved out, leaving the fish. And somehow he convinced Jerome that it was a really good idea for the fish to live at our house.


He seemed to forget - I killed three beta fish in college. Fish are not my friends. Fish are food. We thought we had a brilliant thought - give the fish to Celine, Jerome's sister. But, when the fish came home, the girls promptly named the fish Sammy and began fighting over him. So, he's ours...


So, the trip to the pet store became a trip to get a tank that the cats couldn't get into (buffet=bad), and two friends for Sammy. Because apparently Sammy was lonely. So, now, I give you the Rat Pack. Sammy, Dean, and Frank. Although Sammy did die this morning while we were at church. So the remaining Rat Pack have been renamed Phineas and Ferb.

After the pet store, we met my mom for lunch at Fuddruckers (hallelujah), then headed back to Sam's to get our grocery/large quantities of sandwich baggies/diapers out the wazzoo.

So, why did we get a mattress?

Because Violet is two. And, as much as I hated to admit it, she was ready for a big girl bed. So the new mattress went on Katrina's bed (the top bunk), and Katrina's old mattress was paired with the matching box spring and set up in Violet's room. We dismantled the crib (sniff, sniff) and put it in storage. Hopefully, to be used again someday.

Violet was happily playing with her sisters while we did this. But, once her room was set up, she was all about it. "My big girl bed!"

She went to bed just fine, slept great. She even stayed in bed until we came in to get her! She's getting too big for me.

Once the girls were asleep, we had one more task to accomplish...

My man now has no hair! Don't ask me why he decided to shave his head in November, but
I think he looks cute. And, bonus for me - sometimes he gets his head stuck in his sweatshirt!


Yup, just a typical Saturday...

Thankful Thursday... God's Provision

This whole experience these last two years, if nothing else, has taught me so much more about trust than I ever expected to learn. While I am nowhere near where I want to be in trusting my Daddy, I am learning.


This week we have seen His provision in ways we would have never expected.


Katrina has been growing out of clothing, especially dresses, at a ridiculous rate. Some of our friends gave us clothes their daughters had outgrown. Included in the sack were four dresses.


Jerome closed a deal today that we sincerely doubted would get done. The client is in extreme physical pain, is very emotionally unstable, and has treated Jerome, well, like dirt. There have been numerous times that any other agent would have walked away. Jerome stuck with it, and today it closed. Right when God knew we needed it.


Another friend brought a garbage sack full of sweatshirts and jackets to our house last night. She was in charge of clearing out her kids' school's lost & found, and getting rid of everything. We now have at least a dozen new sweatshirts for myself & the girls.


We really needed two new tires and front brakes for my van. But we didn't have the money. At all. This week, we got a bonus from a client that was the exact amount we needed to do both.


When Jerome's parents left for France at the beginning of the month, they also closed the restaurant downtown for the month. Yippee, our mom got her first real vacation in who knows how long. But, they had a lot of food leftover that would go bad before they opened the restaurant again. We got sent to, essentially, clean out the fridge. Needless to say, this month my grocery bill has been diminished because of my in-laws' blessing. Much of the food we were given were items I won't normally buy - things like bacon, asparagus, French cheeses, grapes. My sweet mom-in-law even had the bakers bake six loaves of sandwich bread & freeze them so that we would have plenty of that while the bakery was closed.


Do I still worry? Unfortunately, yes. Do I still have trouble trusting God's plan when I can't see it? Yup. But, . Because is it getting easier to trust, even when I can't see? Absolutely. And weeks like this one, I never want to forget.


What are you thankful for this week?

Mama's new toy

One of my fav bloggers, MckMama, besides being super mom of four tiny hineys, is also a pro photographer. She often shares tidbits & tricks to help the photo-editing-impaired, such as myself.


This week, she shared how she creates the beautiful photo collages on her blog. And, while Photoshop terrifies the snot out of me, I really, really wanted to be able to make cool collages.


But Photoshop is how much? Seriously? For a disk?


Yeah, not happening.


Basically, my photo editing needs are simple. Get rid of the red eyes. Fix the photos taken when it's too dark for regular light but my brilliant flash doesn't think it's dark enough for it's expertise. Perhaps hide a facial blemish or two? But really, that's it.


Yes, I have a point and shoot. Yes, my husband has been pestering me for eons that we need one of the fancy-schmansy cameras that he and his techie buddies drool over. He would use it for work. We could take amazing photos of the girls. Whatever. I see the price tag, have a minor heart attack, and tell him politely to fuggetaboutit. I would rather be able to feed my children this month, thank you very much.


But, it would be nice for my children to not have the evil possessed look in their photos.


Enter - my new favorite toy. My cousins introduced me to Picasa last year at Thanksgiving. I watched them turn ho-hum everyday family photos into beautiful art. And it seemed really simple to use. Simple enough for me.


And, bonus! It was free! Seriously!


And, it is super easy to use. Easy enough that, the other night, I sat on the couch and edited ALL of this year's photos. I was then able to take my newly-edited photos and create something for some people for some upcoming holiday. Sorry, but they read this blog. Had to be vague.


And, I was able to create this:




My first collage! And, while I am by no means even considering the possibility of thinking about considering myself to be anywhere near the level of most of my friends, I can now edit my photos and create a collage!


I know, I'm proud too.

Other proud moments in our home this week included Madison's return to non-runny poop, Violet's success in climbing out of the tub on her own, Violet's subsequent lesson in the physics of water on a tile floor, and Katrina mastering the art of little sister wrestling. All in all, a momentous week in our home.

Techie Junkies

Since the girls have discovered the internet, this is how we spend many evenings:

Gathered around the computer, playing virtual princesses, practicing spelling and math, or just helping Mom on the farm. Oh, and sending Daddy chickens. They really like to send Daddy chickens for his farm. Or turkeys. Hmm...are the children trying to say something?

And although the youngest is still in the "look at piturs" stage of computer saviness, she still has just as much fun as the sisters.

All this to say - I will take snuggles however I can get them!

Please don't call the fashion police!

Yesterday, I let Madi pick her own outfit. This is what she chose:

And she just couldn't understand why I had issues with it! Oh well, give her time...

I called her a grape-flavored leopard the rest of the day.