baseball year 2

Some highlights from this year... 

• Belle was one of two girls on the coach pitch baseball team this year.  
• She is getting better at throwing and hitting, but still a bit scared of the ball still with catching :)  
• Running onto the field so excited to play 2nd base... forgetting her glove in the dugout :)
• showing up for practice in a cute shirt and biker shorts... not knowing the practice had been changed to a game (yes, I'm one of "those" parents)
• my little lefty going three for three!

ready... hat, gloves and t-shirt... check

a bit timid at the start of the year, but getting at least one hit every game!

The fans!  usually busy at the playground

Grandma & Grandpa were the biggest fans... with camera in hand!

4th of July

Belle, MaryAlice, Tirzah and I watched the fireworks from Skyline Parkway with a bunch of friends from church.  I'm not sure if the girls enjoyed the fireworks as much as they enjoyed going from lap to lap :)

hailey, betsy, danielle & owen, jessica & belle, calla & MaryAlice, Tirzah & Mary

The girls spent most of the night fighting over Jessica & Calla's laps!

Owen liked sitting with the friends!

MaryAlice discovered her love of miss mary!

we did actually watch the fireworks

MA is supposed to be smiling for the camera :)

Belle had to wear her red, white &  blue tie dye shirt she made in school

We had a lot of fun, but will not pick the "on the ledge seating" so soon with kids!  Thankfully there were many eyes on the kids because the few feet of ground between falling off the ledge and the road definitely made me nervous.  We stayed for the entire show and got home after 11pm.  All the girls were asleep in the car when I finally got home.  What a fun evening!

fashion party

One of Belle's friends had a fashion themed birthday party.  We had a lot of fun picking out fancy to walk the catwalk.  Belle had a ball!

Oral surgery

not so happy with mom wanting to document this

It's funny how many times Abby has been under for some procedure or another, but how nervous I was when Belle had to go through it.  It was a deja vu moment.  It suddenly brought me back to Abby's first procedure and all the nerves I stuffed somewhere came back.  Abby has issues, but Belle... My Belle.  It was all about real life and typical kids.  Belle had an issue.  She doesn't have "issues".

I find myself "giving them back to God"
over and over and over again
I try to hang on to them and forget who's really in control
I want to protect them
It's my job, right?
No... it's not

getting ready for the monkey gas

My job is to point my girl to the one who can protect her
Who will never leave her nor forsake her
To place her hand in the one who's the Rock, unchanging
To be human along with her and glorify our God together
To Reflect the God I love

I put her in His capable hands on this day
His reminder to me that He loves and cares for her far better than I ever could
Not a big life threatening deal
Oral surgery
Pretty routine, but...
I grew this day along with her and knew the moment she told me she was scared as we wrapped up our pre-surgery shopping therapy at Justice that this was what this was all about...
She needed to rely on her faith this day
not mine

recovery...

Oh how I love this girl!

Just Dance!

Friends of ours let us borrow their Just Dance Wii game and we're addicted.  We need to move the TV out of our room so it's not so weird playing on our bedroom...  Check out the action:

Miss Meg and Belle

Daddy joins the action

I couldn't be laughing harder unless I was watching myself!

MaryAlice joins Belle

Mik is on the clock so she has no choice but to join us!!

Good sports!

Storybook Character Day

For St. Rose's storybook character dress up day Belle went as Fancy Nancy and boy was she ever "Fancy Nancy!"  She looked adorable! 

Father/Daughter Ball 2011

This year marked the first year Andy took Belle to the Father/Daughter Ball and Belle couldn't have been a better date!  She was ecstatic to say the least.  She & I spent the day getting her "all dolled up!"  We made a big day of it starting in the morning with a fresh shower and on to nail painting.  Not only did we paint them, but we put glitter in the paint and added glitter polish on top! 

The next couple hours we watched Cake Boss while I spiral curled her hair.  Her hair usually doesn't keep curls very well, but all the hair spray that we never use must've paid off because these curls lasted for days!

She picked out a beautiful brown dress Auntie Andrea had gotten for her for Christmas a year or so ago.  She added patten leather brown shoes to match.  To top it all off she put on her fancy wool coat that we never really get a chance to wear because our church is so casual and she's go entirely too many coats to choose from.  Abby always needed something different than what she had for some reason or another, so we often have duplicates of things like that.  I guess it's one of the benefits of having Abby as a big sister.  Some of her hand-me-downs are unworn.  

At around 3:00 we headed to our friend's house for pictures and to ride together in their bus for the big event!    They were all dressed up so cute and were positively glowing!  Our friends have five of their girls who go, so they also take grandpas and a couple good friends so each of the girls got to have their own date and didn't have to sit out or dance alone when it wasn't their turn to dance with Dad.  It just added to the fun for Belle as she loves "the friends." 

At the dance they met up with our good friend, Dan along with his beautiful daughter Kate and their foreign exchange student Pompoii (sp?).  The girls are in high school and took Belle under their wing and showed her how it was done.  Belle is often a bit shy when it comes to stuff like, but this night she go into it quite quickly and had a "Ball" (pun fully intended).  I still need to get more pics from Mr. Dan because he seemed to take more than Andy.  Don't they know that Mom wants to see it all? 

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To top it all off Belle won a door prize... a huge bear!  She was beside herself with excitement! 

Belle and her buddy Hosanna posing pretties!