So. Much. Baseball.

It’s summer, which means that our weekdays and weekends are dictated by where and when Mason plays baseball. The other weekend we traveled to near Indy for a tournament. And while the point of traveling is for baseball, it really is about so much more than that. Caleb and I got to spend a few days with just our little in the middle, and it was a great time for us all. The Stars didn’t come out on top (the team they tied in pool play went on to win the whole thing, so Mason was happy to say his team hung with the best). Outside of playing ball, the three of us ate at some great restaurants, played a round of putt-putt, and fit in a trip to an Air Force museum (Mason’s current obsession are airplanes, so he was thrilled with this quick stop!). Our Star played well, and even got to pitch (19 strikes in 31 pitches. Not too shabby for a non-pitcher!). 

Thanks for the memories, Indiana!

May bits

 The pieces of our May puzzle. 

{This kids has green eyes sometimes, and crazy hair all the time.}

{The weather felt like winter, but ready or not, it’s time to get our yard summertime ready. Off to all of the nurseries!}

{We moved roughly one million Hostas to various locations around our house, including this very wet and shady corner of our backyard. So. Many. Hostas.}

{Also in our backyard: this very large camper that our dingbat neighbor took for an off-road joyride while the soil was very wet and squishy. It stayed there for about six weeks before he hooked up a couple of trucks to pull it out. Bringing the redneck country to suburbia must make Caleb feel right at home.}

{Our backyard does provide a pretty fantastic backdrop for summertime sunsets!}

{The first ever middle school dance for this bunch. Mason came home and his exact words were: That. Was. Amazing. Nothing beats a crowded gym full of sweaty and hormonal adolescents. I remember these days with just as much excitement as Mason. High fives for getting back to normal in this crazy Covid world!}

{Last day of school for these two. And both earned the all A high-honor roll. For the second straight quarter. A couple of smart cookies who worked their booties off for those grades!}

{And the last day of school for this third grader. Leaving behind the best teacher ever is just as hard as it looks. We will be forever grateful to have had the one and only Miss McDermott teach all of our kiddos—and Mason twice. She really is second to none!}

{Camryn finally had her time in the spotlight! Dance recital dress rehearsal and stage rehearsal before the big night. She is used to applying her own makeup in a heavy fashion, so stage makeup felt right at home on this tiny dancer!}

{Mason’s team is struggling this year, but managed to pull off a second-place finish at a tournament. Work hard. Play hard!}

{This is how Jacob prefers to spectate Mason’s games.}

{I missed a step in our basement on the way to watch Jacob’s conference track meet. I had to walk but couldn’t walk. Probably not broken, but Ima tell you what, that hurt like a mother!}

April Bits

 The pieces of our April puzzle. 

{A few days early, but nothing beats the tulips on Michigan Avenue!}

{Moulin Rouge. My mom and I have had tickets for this show for over two years. Covid kept changing our plans, but we finally saw it. And now I’m in love. It was AMAZING!}

{Mason made the family pancakes with a recipe that no-doubt came from Tik Tok. Raspberries and an insane amount of powdered sugar garnish for the win!}

{Cam spent the day hanging with her old built-in best friend and former next door neighbor. Picking up right where they left off!}

{A lounge-in-the-laundry-basket kind of Sunday.}

{Ruh-Roh. Sometimes Molly doesn’t love it when we leave her home alone. She lets us know that by eating  our shoes.}

{Nice-ish weather means that all family members attend the baseball game. Dogs included.}

{Camryn’s school sponsored a Color Run for anyone who wanted to participate, and because free is about the right price for this activity, she did it. And then said she didn’t need to do that again!}

{Snow Cone day at school. And by the looks of the clothes, there may have also been actual snow.}

{This guy went back to work. Kind of.}

The Basement Hallway

With the way our house is laid out, we technically have two basements: one that’s kind of above ground and one that’s definitely below grade, which makes things confusing. But the “basement basement” —which really does nothing to make things less confusing— is for storage and laundry and is nowhere anyone should want to be. 

But the regular basement, that’s coming along quite nicely. In the hallway alongside Jacob’s bedroom, and across from the basement basement door there once was a closet presumably to be used for board games and other gotta-have-it-but-never-use-it crap.  We didn’t need a spot for that stuff, we needed a place for shoes, jackets, and backpacks, so we ripped out the closet and transformed it into a mudroom-type area with bench seating, cubbies for shoes, and hooks for coats. There isn’t a proper mudroom in this house, so making a resting place for all of the daily clutter was key. And this works out just perfectly! 

Way to go, Jacob!

Jacob finished up with his track season on Tuesday, and to say that he did an amazing job is quite the understatement! This is a new sport to him, and he has never been known as a runner, but, WOW, he can run! He qualified for 5 events in our school district’s conference meet: long jump, triple jump, 100 hurdles, 4x200 relay, and 4x400 relay. Only two students per gender per grade per event are invited to the conference meet, so to even make it that far is quite an accomplishment. Athletes could only compete in four races, so Jacob dumped hurdles to focus on the others. He didn’t medal in the jumps, but that he even can get his feet to hop, skip, and jump in the right order amazes me so he deserves a medal for that! His relay teams were missing their fastest runner and placed 4th in the 4x200, but took the gold in the 4x400. Jacob killed his personal best on that run and to snag first place in the last race of the meet had that boy beaming! And of the seven middle schools in our school district, the boys at Jacob’s school came in third place with overall points. A great finish to a very cold—then hot—season. Couldn’t be more proud of Jacob’s efforts and pushing himself out of his comfort zone to try something new without his regular crew of friends. 

Oh, he was also named Athlete of the Month at his middle school this month. Woot! Woot!  {Getting ready to hand off the baton in the 4x200}

{Zipping by in the first leg of the 4x400 under the lights. Lots of hours after it all began.}

{The 7th grade boys who medaled in the conference meet.}

Jacob’s Room

With the exception of Jacob, everyone has a bedroom on the upstairs floor of our home. But I think it is a teenager’s right of passage to snag a basement bedroom as the first step to independence, so this bedroom was perfect for him! Basement bedrooms can be ugly. Soffit and odd wall ledges are necessary to cover up the guts of the house, and this room was exactly that: ugly. I wanted to create a space for Jacob that felt cozy—but not like a basement—and could grow up with him for the last handful of years he will be home with us. 

The before: Ugh. It was a nondescript room with icky old carpet.

The after: Ahhh. New paint. New carpet. A built-in bookcase. And decor that speaks directly to our sporty guy. I hope he loves this room as much as I do! 

While we couldn’t get rid of the soffit, we were able to transform it into more of a cozy sleeping nook filled with sports paraphernalia. And a dog. 

The built-in that Caleb designed and constructed hides some of the wall ledge that we were battling, and it gives Jacob the perfect way to display some of his favorite things. It’s really amazing. 

I think this room is one mini-fridge away from being the perfect studio apartment. Sorry not sorry that there is no room for a fridge. 

Bathroom 3

The basement bathroom is coined as “Jacob’s Bathroom” because it is directly outside of his bedroom in the basement. But it’s amazing and everyone should use it! 

It started out as a decent-sized room with an unnecessarily small shower. So we gutted that space and put in a wall-to-wall shower. This bathroom was the first room that we tore into, but we quickly halted progress as we trudged through the rest of our bathroom renovations first. I’m glad we did, because we had a few hiccups along the way that were much easier to fix with open walls! 

{The before. Blah. It was obvious that the previous owners painted over some thickly painted stripes on the walls, which left some raised patterns that needed to be figured out. And that shower. Makes our master shower look big!}

And… the after!

{A full wall shower with glass doors and a patterned tile was just what this bathroom needed! We textured the walls to cover up whatever had been painted over to give it a fresh feel.}

{A charcoal colored hexagonal tile floor and black accents give this room a masculine feel for our teenage guy, but the accessories on the shelves remind him that he needs to share!}

This bathroom is on point, and I love how it turned out. Well worth the wait!