June recap

 Game 2...

 3rd baseman this game.

 It was horribly windy, poor guy came in with dirt in his eyes.

 5th birthday cake.

 It was homemade red velvet cake.  Not a huge hit, just the homemade seven minute frosting, yum yum!

 One of his favorite gifts was a rope.  He wants to be a real cowboy.

 So he's been roping an old vacuum.  "Gotta rope this steer."

 "Ok, I'll put it over."

 "Take it down."

 "Tie them up, done!"

 Game 3...on our 5th birthday...

 2nd baseman and let me tell you, being next to a girl was not a good idea.  It was show off time.  She was equally disgusted and admiring.

 He took time out to smile on 1st base for the photo, and I didn't ask him too!  I wish I could have got the ham-i-ness on video.  Lots of his friends were on the other team so it was social hour the whole game.  He got saluted by one friend and patted on the head by another.

 We rode on his preschool's float in the parade.  It was fun!

 All the kids with the workers before the parade.

 The Monday before this he hurt himself at t-ball practice.  The day after the parade, he decided to scale the stairs wall and vault over the railing, being a superhero.  This reinjuried the injury and he had to take him to get checked out.  Pulled his hip muscle down into the leg.  He had to miss Game 4 and be very careful in what he did.  It was a long week for all.

 We wrapped up in bubblewrap.

 He decided that Mamaw had to make him a cape.

 Game 5...enter the 100 degree heat.

 Was pitcher again.  He does a great job in that position.

 This month we've had 3 barred owls take over the yard every evening.

 They've been fun to watch and listen too, but it's a little worrisome that they will want to eat Hershey.

 Game 6 was this Wed evening.  It was still 100 degrees at 6:30 pm.  We pulled out all the stops.  He wore a neck cooler and a wet wash cloth under his baseball cap.

This game he played 1st base and tried to intimidate the players and had them touch his neckcooler.  Sigh.  This is also the game where he went for a ball following the baseline and crashed into the runner.  They hit hard enough to both fly backwards and fall down.  (Matthew's hat was knocked off.)  Matthew's cheek and eye ran into the runner's helmet.  The helmet won.  Matthew's checkbone was blackened and his eyebrow swelled up and bruised.  But after having his face washed, rewetted gear and a hug he went back out for inning 2. 

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

It started with an invitation to read.

And Matthew and I accepted the challenge. The lady on the left is the other second grade teacher. Matthew loves her. I'm not surprised, she was my second grade teacher and I loved her too. (In fact I still do.) She sponsors the event. The other lady is our principal. I'm VERY sad to say both are retiring this year.

He may have lost sleep, but he loved every minute of it. Getting ready for it and some cupcakes got my creative juices flowing, so since the next day was Matthew's snack day AND Dr. Seuss's birthday, I decided I HAD to make a Seuss themed snack, especially since that was this weeks theme at preschool too.

Voila! Cat in the Hat hats! I did not use a tutorial, nor have I seen these on the net (probably because I've never looked), but I'm sure someone has come up with them before me. Or something similar. But this was a fly by the seat of my pants snack that I made up at the absolute last minute, in the grocery store. The frosting would have piped better if I'd had my real piping set and not a sandwich bag I'd cut the tip of a corner off of, but hey, they were good enough.

And yummy. At least that's what he says his friends told him to tell me.

Twas our day to bring the snack...

...so not a creature was stirring, not even our mice! Hopefully the kids like them, they ended up being a pain to make.

Valentine's Day wrap-up

In the afternoon, Matthew and I did make 100% homemade sugar cookies, yum! Matthew's rolling and cutting skills have gotten super good. And he even listened when I said not to eat the dough because it had eggs in it. He didn't try once.

As surprise for the hard working Daddy, homemade heart pepperoni pizza was waiting when he walked in the door (as well as warm cookies.)

And as a bonus for you, a photo from Matthew dancing with ribbons at storytime today. Hope you all are having a good week so far!

Making Christmas cookies

Matthew decided to wear the apron I had a child.

Thanks to Auntie, now I have a 50's style apron to bake in.

Matthew's first year helping cut the cookies out.

Sometimes he needed a little help.

Our first pan of cookies all cut by Matthew.

Homemade biscuits and apple butter

For awhile now Matthew has been wanting to help me cook. Normally it involves working over a stove with hot pans and liquids, but when I'm baking, I've been trying to let him help me.

So last month when we were knee deep in apples, we made homemade biscuits to go with our homemade apple butter.

Matthew got messy, made a mess, and some biscuits.

They turned out very yummy! Matthew gave it a thumbs up.