Indianapolis Children's Museum

I'm trying to organize our summer pictures, so thought I'd update the blog while I was at it.  Although, this trip to the Indianapolis Children's Museum happened before the baseball tournament that I previously blogged about, but who cares.  

I had heard from multiple people that the Indy Children's Museum is a lot of fun and worth the drive.  So when the weather forecast called for rain on July 4th weekend, we decided to make it a day trip and go.  I feel like we are on the clock with Children's Museums, because Doug especially is going to out grow them soon, so I jumped at the chance to go when we had a free rainy day. 

It had a lot of great exhibits.  Like assembling the sarcophagus.  Which was harder than you might think:

And the rock climbing wall for the boys.  Greg did awesome, and for some crazy reason was put on the medium difficulty wall, which looked tough. He made it most of the way up, but then was ready to come down.

Doug also did great and showed some impressive arm strength. He got on a slightly easier part of the wall and was determined to make it to the top:

All the kids enjoyed the various dig sites.  There were sites to dig for dinosaur bones and some to dig for the terra cotta warriors in Xi'an China!

There was also a real race car!

We also enjoyed the live theater and the planetarium.

What a Weekend

I haven't blogged in a while, because I overbooked our summer and we've been running around like crazy people, with barely time to eat let alone blog.  It's really my own fault because I signed the boys up for way too many camps and such this summer.  Not sure what I was thinking, although no one has complained about being "bored".  

But to last weekend - Doug made the All Star baseball team and they had their first tournament last weekend. It turned into a crazy, hot, nerve-wracking, exciting, hot, fun weekend full of baseball.  We played on Saturday at 1PM and won our first game in a nail-biter that was back and forth with us scoring enough runs in the bottom of the 6th to win.  (We only play 6 innings).  Then we lost our 2nd game, but won our 3rd game Saturday to get a spot for Sunday's tournament play.  

Sunday morning (720 AM) we started off with a devotion led by friends of ours (except we were late and only made it for the prayer, which I felt terrible about, but they understood, and I am still a rookie when it comes to packing, repacking, and getting everyone ready for these all weekend tournaments).  Our first game was at 830A and we played the number 1 seed in the tournament.  I was a close game, but we put up 5 runs in the top of the 6th which gave us a 6 run lead.  They came out hitting though and put up 4 runs with boys on base and 2 outs - and one their kids hit a good shot in between Doug (playing 2nd) and Hank (playing SS) and both boys make a break for the ball and Doug jumps and snags it - game over! Whew!

Then we run ruled the team in our next game (it was a rematch - we played the team we lost to Saturday night) and made it into the finals.  The final was a close game, we were behind by 6 at one point - and then we had 2 big innings and were up by 10 going into the bottom of the 6th.  We played tough defense and game over!

They had the awards ceremony next and each player got their own trophy.  Here's Doug getting his:

And here is Doug back in line ready to rip open the box to check out his trophy.  Ha!

And this was just the first tournament.  More ball this week too! 

Kid Triathlon

We really into baseball right now, and I hopped on here to give a baseball update, but I realized all the baseball pictures are on the other camera.  So, here is a picture of the boys from the kid triathlon last week.  They both did great! 

The boys are on the same team for baseball this year, which is wonderful for so many reasons.  It's nice to only have one practice and game schedule.  It is really nice to see them looking out for each other.

At the game last week, Greg was playing the pitcher position and Doug was playing 1st base.  I don't remember what exactly happened except the other team had a good hit and when our team tried to get the ball back into the infield, for some reason the ball was rolling towards home plate (someone might have overthrown Greg). I think at this point I might have yelled from the stands "Greg, get it!"At the same time a runner from the other team rounds third and heads for home.  Doug sees this and takes off for the ball - scoops it up - sprints to home - dives forward in a laid out position trying to tag the runner, as the runner slides into home.  The dust settles and the runner is called safe. Doug stands up, looks mad, but brushes himself off and heads back to first to lots of cheers for good effort.  Greg however stands at his pitcher position in tears because he was just sure Doug got him out and he was so mad for Doug.  Todd is out on the field with the kids and assured Greg it was okay and to stop crying (there is no crying in baseball after all) and get ready for the next play, which he did.  And to be fair, we were beating the other team by a lot and ended up run ruling them so that run didn't really matter.  Although if you ask Greg about that play, he will still tell you Doug got that kid out.

What we're doing now

A few months ago I decided I needed to get our family more involved with Chinese culture.  I signed us up for a Families with Children from China group, but as yet haven't been able to make it to any of their meetings.  I also spent some time on their website trying to find other activities (I was mainly interested in having the boys take a chinese class) and found a link to a Chinese School.  I emailed the instructor and we set up a class for Doug and Greg (and 2 other children) with the goal to teach them (simplified) Chinese. But the boys were thrilled with the idea that they would be able to take a class together and someday be able to talk with their Gpa in Chinese.  :) It has been wonderful and a month ago, when we were visiting with my parents, the boys and Gpa counted in Chinese together.  Here is the instructor showing Greg how to properly hold chopsticks.  Clearly, this information would have come in handy a year ago.  

Lainey is also taking a toddler Chinese class with the same instructor.  Since I sit in the back for D&G's class and am with Lainey for her class, I am pretty good at counting in Chinese too!

But Lainey's favorite class is her gymnastics class.  Once she got steady on her feet, we signed her up and she loves it!  She loves to jump on the trampoline, do a forward roll by herself, jump in the foam pit, hang on the bar and she really loves getting a hand stamp at the end!

Here she is once we pulled into the parking lot.  She unbuckled herself and was ready to go!

Lainey's Bar

Lainey had her follow-up with her orthopedic doctor this week.  Everyone in the office was so happy to see her walk in on her own! She is doing so well.  She loves her gymnastics class (if you ask her what she likes to do she says "jumping").  And she loves to run.  I know! The other day the boys were racing and she would run too and when she got to the finish she would say "more"! 

Her doctor wants her to keep her braces (she calls it her "bar") on for at least the next 6 months, but told me to be prepared to keep them on her until she is 4.  He is afraid if we don't keep up it her heel will tighten back up and her feet will flop back inwards, and we don't want that! Lainey is a very good sport about wearing her bar at night though.  

Here is a picture of her wearing her bar before she goes "night night".