Day 71

Since I missed GothGirl’s volleyball game last week (I took LilCrockett to his basketball game, which was at the same time), I wanted to try to get some more photos of Mia in action.  I had a few OK shots. 

Sadly, GothGirl’s team lost all 4 games this week.  It was nearly a repeat of last week, though this week the scores were closer.  Last week they played a team of 5th grade girls that were one year older than our girls and quite a bit more experienced in volleyball.  They also had some great servers with serves that were nearly impossible to return.  This week it was better but our team still lost.  There are several reasons:

1) Most of the girls on our team are playing volleyball for the first time ever.  They need to learn to go after the ball (some are quite timid with it), become stronger servers, and help their teammates.  Basically, they need to get more aggressive.  I think that will come in time.

2) This league only gives 2 practice sessions before starting the games.  They are allowed 15 minutes of warm-up/practice team before each game but it’s not really enough.  We’re hoping to get the girls together for practice once a week to improve their skills.  It’s hard to improve during the games, especially since the amount of volleying is pretty minimal at this level/age.

Here’s GothGirl getting ready to serve.  She’s a fairly decent server.  Many of the girls still struggle to get it over the net despite serving well in front of the normal serving line.  Consistency is also an issue with our servers, including Mia.  It’s fairly ironic as the team name they gave us is Top Servers! 

Day 70

Today was my day off and I spent most of the day doing one of my favorite things….scrapbooking!  The only photos I have of the day are pictures of my scrapbook pages.  Here’s one of them.  You might recognize the photo on the page from my Day 52 post regarding our trip to the theater to see Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never movie.  I wanted to scrapbook this photo before I lost the movie ticket stubs. 

Day 69

Today was our 2nd session of Girls on the Run at the elementary school and it was my day to coach.  It was cold & very windy outside, so we did our activities inside.  During our laps (in the hallways), we had the girls walk, jog, skip, crab walk, hop, & slither like snakes to break up the monotony.  I think they had a lot of fun and we enjoyed teaching them about positive thoughts & actions.     

Day 68

I didn’t think there would be much opportunity for photos today, but I managed to catch LilCrockett searching for cool rocks in our landscaping while waiting for the bus this morning.  The lighting (it was an overcast day) was perfect so these photos are SOCC (straight out of camera).

If you haven’t noticed, LilCrockett loves his blaze orange hunting hat.  He wears it quite often, so you’re likely to see it in a lot more pictures.  He also loves the color black (like his sister GothGirl), so perhaps I should start calling him GothBoy

Day 67

I didn’t get around to taking any pictures tonight either…..well, no great quality pictures anyway.  After school, we had our first Girls on the Run session and I am a coach.  Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera along.  I did take some photos with my iphone, but we were indoors due to rain and so the poor lighting coupled with moving girls didn’t make for great pictures. 

As soon as GothGirl and I got home from our fun afternoon, we all hopped in the car to drive down to see my cousin’s new little baby.  Once again, I forgot my camera.  We were part-way into our 45 minute drive when I remembered the camera was at home.  Late already, we didn’t have time to turn back for it.  That’s OK though because it was pitch dark when we got there and the lighting was low in the house for the baby so my pictures would not have turned out great there either. 

So, I thought I’d share some photos I took of LilCrockett last Friday when the kids rode the bus home from school.  We have a large mimosa tree in our yard and the branches are perfect for climbing, which is just what LilCrockett decided to do that day.  Most of the photos I took turned out great and so I decided to post a bunch of them.  Love that natural light!

Day 66

I didn’t get around to taking any pictures tonight after work.  Instead, I went for a walk/run and then spent the evening helping GothGirl with homework and doing some other tasks.  Here’s a shot from last Friday.  It was Furlough Friday for me, so I let the kids ride the bus home from school since I was going to be there. 

I happened to be out in the far side of the yard taking some photos when the bus arrived.  GothGirl got off and started walking up to the house.  I could see LilCrockett making his way towards the front of the bus, but I guess the driver didn’t see him (and forgot that he was supposed to get off too) because she started to pull away.  She got as far as the driveway to our detached garage when she stopped.  LilCrockett finally got off and looked like he wasn’t worried at all.  Crisis averted (and I’m glad I didn’t have to follow the bus to the next stop to get him!). 

Once they were both off, I made them pose for a photo.  I turned the photo to black and white using The Pioneer Woman B&W Beauty action because both kids had on clothes with a lot of contrasting color and print, which was distracting.  By decreasing the opacity of the action, it brought back some select color giving it a muted, aged look, which I love.

Day 65

Though this first picture is not stellar or artistic by any stretch of the imagination, it’s beautiful to me.  I woke up this morning to find that my husband and the kids were sorting socks.  This is a first as I’m lucky if I can get anyone besides GothGirl to help, and her help is usually only on rare occasions.  Last night I wrote out chore lists for everyone and this task was on my list.  How sweet to wake up and find that all of them were working together to knock out one of my chores.  Especially when it’s one of the chores I dread the most.  How many different kinds of white socks can one family have?  Anyway, I thought this act of love warranted a photo!

  

The end of the day was capped by another act of love too.  I never get tired of seeing Crockett reading to our kids.  GothGirl is too old to be read to anymore, so it’s LilCrockett’s turn.  The lighting wasn’t the best for a photo, but it’s still beautiful to me.