Baseball

Both boys were in baseball this Spring.  Nate had his first official year out of t-ball and Eli had his first year of t-ball (or any sport or activity).  It was a great season!  A bit exhausting, with two sets of games and practices, and with Joe helping out as a coach for Eli's team, but it was a good experience for both of them.  

Nate had tryouts before his season started.  He had two friends playing, too, but they are a few months older and a grade ahead of him.  He didn't quite make it into the same league as them, which was disappointing at first.  We got comments from a lot of people after the season started that he probably should have, but by then he didn't want to switch.  Luckily, he had a great coach who worked with him a lot, one-on-one.  And, he had fun being one of the oldest/tallest/best ones on the team.

Here he is practicing with two other boys and his coach.  I was so impressed that his coach would hold multiple practices a week so he could work with them in small groups and help them improve.

That's Coach Paul up there.  I wish I'd gotten better pictures!

They mostly played on the grass field but occasionally they got to play on the real dirt field with a scoreboard, an annoucer and everything.  Nate loved that!

We got a front row seat to watch the beautiful green hills gradually turn brown as the season went on.

We got tons of video of Nate's hits.  He very rarely struck out and often hit doubles.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures since I was so busy videoing.  He also got really good on defense as the season went on, too.  He was often on first base and he made a lot of great outs--including one he caught in the air!  It was sure fun to watch all the kids improve over the season.

Eli's season started out a little rough.  His team name was originally the Timber Rattlers, which he was excited about, but then got changed to the Lugnuts.  Not as exciting. :)  He complained about that for awhile but got over it eventually.  He was sometimes difficult to motivate to get to practice, but he didn't complain about the games.  That was entirely because of the snack shack tickets.  Every game day, they got to use a ticket to go pick out food from the snack shack.  It was all he talked about! :)

I couldn't help but sneak pictures of Eli in his first uniform:

A little catcher:

He hated that and refused to do it again. :)

It was funny to watch the t-ball games, sometimes with just as many adults as kids on the field, trying to get them to stay focused and stand up.

Playing first base:

I got a video of him getting an out right after that! 

He loved getting the ball and playing defense, but he would also get mad and sometimes throw tantrums if someone else on his team got it first. 

I loved these pictures of Joe and Eli in the outfield:

Before we knew it, the season was over.  We had the end of year parties and the boys got their trophies.  I forgot to mention that I signed up to be the team mom for Eli's team.  That was sure a lot of work in this league!  I don't know that I'll do that again.

Here's Eli with his coach:

Nate with his coach:

Marsha got that second one for us since she took Nate to his party while Joe and I were on a trip.  

It was a great season!