Seth got some new basketball shoes earlier this week and he wore them to practice tonight. Do you think they make him jump higher?
When we were at practice, we ran into one of Seth’s friends from daycare. The two boys were happy to see each other. The last time they were together was August of 2009. I’m so glad they remembered each other.
Tonight was LilCrockett’s first night of basketball practice. He’s playing on a different league this year. His baseball coach is now his basketball coach and most of his teammates were his baseball teammates as well. The coach was only planning to form one team, but so many kids were interested in playing that he didn’t have the heart to turn them down. So he decided to make 2 teams. Here are a few photos from tonight’s practice. I’m still working on finding the best settings for the gym. It’s a bit tricky finding a bright enough exposure without getting blur with the kids’ motion. Notice in the bottom photo how LilCrockett is lifting his leg up to one side when he shoots. It’s a common thing for him so I think we need to work on his form. He is a bit taller than last winter, but it still takes a lot of power to get the ball up to the net at this age despite the lowered nets.
During the first Saturday of most every month, Crockett’s gun club hosts a youth shoot where the kids come out and shoot various types of guns. The club provides the guns, ammunition, and lunch afterwards for free….even to non-members. Crockett usually goes out to help because he enjoys teaching kids about guns and he would rather put in his mandatory work hours doing something fun like this rather than mowing. Anyway the kids are usually an older crowd….typically teenagers; but since today was the first morning of deer season, most of them were gone and it was a younger crowd. So Crockett had me bring our kids out to shoot. Rather than lug around my big camera, I brought along our new point-and-shoot camera to test it out. I think it did pretty well considering it was mid-day in bright sun.
After lunch, we went down to the lower gun range at the club and watched some IPSC (International Practical Shooting Confederation) pistol shooters getting ready for their match tomorrow. These shooters shoot at multiple targets (including moving targets, targets that react when hit, penalty targets, and partially covered targets, etc.). You might think of it as action shooting and it’s similar to how you would imagine policemen to train. It’s actually quite fun to watch. There were a lot of people standing around so it was hard to get some great shots.
Later this afternoon, I was prepping some stuff to list on eBay and Felix had to be close by. My activities were not very exciting so he quickly fell sound asleep. My gosh, can this cat get any cuter?!!
It’s sort of a sad day around here. Today is LilCrockett’s last baseball game for the fall season. In fact, it was a double-header and the games were played at 2 different parks so we had to hustle to get from Game 1 to Game 2. Happily our neighbors came out for the final game, but the team has definitely played better. The main coach was out of town so perhaps that was enough to make things a little off-kilter.
Shots from Game 1:
Shots from Game 2:
Sadly I failed to get photos of the neighbors at the 2nd game. I think I was a little game weary. We are so glad they joined us though.
I still need to take some more test shots, but I think my autofocus is working much better. Yay!
LilCrockett had a baseball game after school today and the neighbor girls wanted to tag along to watch. Here they are with GothGirl.
Here are a few shots of LilCrockett (red hat & red cleats) before my camera batteries died.
After the baseball game, the 3 girls and I went home to use the restroom, grab some warmer clothes, and make some hot chocolate before heading to the local college to watch my cousin’s daughter play soccer. I figured the lighting would be poor since it was after dark, so I didn’t bother to grab my extra camera battery. To my dismay, they had huge stadium lights on when we arrived and there would have been more than adequate lighting. Rats! I got a few photos on my iPhone instead.
Here are the girls at the beginning of the game…
And here they are towards the end of the game, all bundled up against the cold…
I couldn’t get a good shot of the game itself with my phone because the action was too far away and everyone was moving too quickly, but this shot does show how bright the lights were in the stadium…
I wanted to get a photo of them with the Prairie All Stars mascot, Cozmo, after the game but we were too slow and he was already heading inside for the night when we got near him.
Crockett decided to make a peach pie today and the kids wanted to help. With a pre-made pie crust and frozen peaches, it was pretty simple.
Getting the pie filling ready…
Beating the egg yolks to brush on the top of the crust…
The finished product….it tasted as good as it looked too!
That afternoon, our neighbors had a birthday party for the wife and two daughters, whose birthdays occur just a few days apart. We went over for a bit but then had to leave to go to LilCrockett’s baseball game.
Each game, he gets better and better. Today he scored his first double and he got 3 guys out. Here are photos of two of those outs. LilCrockett catch the ball as the opposing team member is running to his base. OUT!! Way to go, buddy!
Crockett got this photo of LilCrockett with his head coach. No, they weren’t holding up the game…..they were waiting for the catcher to get his protective gear on. I can’t say enough good things about Coach Long. He is so patient and motivating and the kids have learned so much under his tutelage.
LilCrockett trying to slide into 2nd base, but they got him out….
Running into home plate to complete his run…
Team huddle (with a few siblings too) after the game….
Happily I was able to get a photo of GothGirl today. She has become such a camera-avoider lately. I’m not sure why either as she’s a gorgeous girl. Anyway, I love this photo even though I did get a bit of glare on her glasses and Flickr/Blogger are not capturing the color correctly. I think I like this photo the best because she has a real smile rather than that pseudo, posed smile that she normally sports in photos.
Just when you thought baseball was nearly over until spring, LilCrockett signed up for a fall baseball team. It’s mostly boys from his spring team, though they are playing for a different local league, Springfield Southwest Baseball Association (SSBA). This time it is purely coach pitch as well, no tees. These differences mean changes in the rules and such, which I am still trying to figure out completely, which led me to the association’s website where I discovered this:
As LilCrockett moves up to higher levels of baseball, the rules will continue to change. Hopefully I can keep track of them all. Today he played center field, 3rd base, and catcher. He definitely still has to learn some tricks of the game, but did very well getting a few runs and tagging a few kids out.
Because they are in a new league, they were issued t-shirts and hats today. The team color is gray and LilCrockett is #7.
Getting ready to bat…
Running to 1st base…
Coming into 3rd base…
Getting geared up to play catcher…
End of the game. Did I mention that LilCrockett’s all-boy team played an all-girl team today. The girls gave the boys a run for the money! Funny but LilCrockett didn’t even realize that it was an all-girl team until I told him in the car on the way home. I think he’s in his own little world sometimes (plus the girls were all wearing hats anyway).
After school today, LilCrockett has his first night of baseball practice for the fall season. There wasn’t much else to do while I waited, so I took pictures and GothGirl played games on my phone.
We saw a fox at the edge of the cornfield surrounding one side of the ball diamonds, but he spotted all the kids and took off. Too bad as I’d been hoping to get a photo of him. Instead all I could do was photograph the corn.
LilCrockett fielding and throwing balls…
One-on-one batting practice with Coach Long…
I’m looking forward to a great season of watching coach-pitch baseball. And this year, they will even keep score and track hits and runs and such. My little boy is moving up in the world!
