One Wild March Weekend part 1

It all started with a visit from my brother Lee, his wife Katherine and their four kids for a few days.  Toss in a wedding where Phil, Evan's brother, and Jessica were to be married, family pictures, wedding festivities and the Easter holiday and you have one insanely fun, but busy weekend.

Amelia and Kassie have a great deal in common.

Lee tossed balls to whatever kids had a bat and they whacked them all over the yard.

Tommy would not smile when I tried to take his picture.  So I got this...

And this...

And this...

And, finally, this...

 Then there was a game of backyard trampoline basketball in which players shoot from the concrete court,

The trampoline...

Or the trampoline while you are bouncing and your cousin is running back and forth in front of you...

Here's Simon relishing in 4 seconds of individual trampoline time...

And Katherine and JD who wisely stayed indoors while the crazy children ruled the back yard...

Here's Mark sporting his family picture duds...

And Samantha with a little left over lunch...

 Because I had the camera out, I made another record of Dylan's snaggled grill.

   

And we had to chuckle at the matching hand-me-down pajamas which were not only identical, put procured from two entirely different sources.

We took a Richardson (my side) family photo on Friday evening and then rushed over to a park in Mesa for a pre-wedding gathering to have a picnic and meet all the rest of Jessica's family before the big day.  I took no pictures of this, sadly.

I'm going to blame the lack of sunlight for my oversight.

play ball

Dylan has been asking to play baseball since he could talk.  The plan was to sign him up for t-ball last year, but he was vomiting the last day to sign up and I took that as a sign that maybe it wasn't in the cards.  So we decided that this was the year.  Amelia decided that she would play with him even though she's the oldest on the team and the only girl.  Now we have two little league Pirates in the house.

Here they are with their buddy Quinn after their first game.

Sometimes, the dugout is more exciting than being on the field.  Our little team has a lot of first time players and they're not the best when it comes to paying attention during the game.  As a result, there have been a few good hard smacks with a baseball during an inning because a player was

1.throwing dirt in the air and watching it float in the wind or 

2. tying a shoe or

3. watching a plane fly overhead or 

3. taking off his glove to see if it covers his entire face.  

Our coaches are incredibly patient.  

Each game I pray that no one gets hurt.

A weekend at a cabin

Over President's Day weekend we went up to Strawberry, AZ to stay in the cabins where Evan and I spent our college-student-budgeted honeymoon.  These cozy A-frames were perfect for a weekend to reconnect.  

And there was snow.  Not a great deal as the week had warmed up since the last dumping, but there was still enough on the ground the first couple of days to really have a good time.

Amelia made a Kirby snowman.  

Simon made all sorts of footprints in the snow.

Dylan worked with Evan to get the snowman started.

 Amelia and Simon helped, too.  

And eventually, we had this:

Simon wanted to hug him, but this was as close as he got.

We decided that he needed some hair, so we punked him out with a green spiky Mohawk.

And then there was a snowball fight, boys against girls.  Amelia and I were laughing too hard to throw many balls and then the boys took over the table with all the ammo. So I have to say with a sad salute, that the girls lost.

Then there was sledding...We had so much fun that my camera died.  With all of the nearly melted snow, it was tough to find a good spot and the snow play area was closed.  So, we kept driving down the woodland roads with Evan's ever lucky radar in high gear.  Finally, we came upon a closed off road in the shade with the perfect width and slope to slide down on our somewhat flimsy plastic sleds. It was awesome.

Annual Rogers Leaf Festival

Amelia did play in the leaves this year, but, apparently, not when I was taking pictures.  So she will not appear below.  But Dylan and Simon, on the other hand, played in them daily--multiple times.

The neighbor kids informed us that we have the best leaf pile on the block and some even asked if they could take a few bags home to play with.  I am not sure that a few grocery sacks provided the desired effect, however.

Random winter stuff

The Mario Bros. obsession extends beyond Amelia.  She has discovered that Jacob is one of many cousins who also loves the mustached plumbers.

And then there was ice...

It was a little nutty, but we actually had four days of freezing temperatures earlier this year.  For the desert, that's pretty significant.  And the evidence of the freeze is still visible this spring as there are dead brown chunks of leaves mixed in with the fresh new leaves of very tall trees all over the valley.

Simon in his "not-a-box."   

He's holding a Power Rangers phone, actually called something like a Power Ranger Super Samurai Mega-Morpher.  

When you ask Simon how old he is he still replies, "I'm a Power Ranger." Confused? Obsessed? 

Or just two and a half?

I found more Christmas pics

And one more shot of Amelia on mismatch day for school.  Her socks were neon yellow...

Here's the giant gingerbread man that my mom brought over.  The kids decorated and ate him in one felled swoop.

And then here's a bit o' Christmas morning...complete with pajamas, presents, smiles and nonsense.