BASEBALL BLISS

Baseball practice was shockingly rained out most of the week...Only because of the massive puddles on the field, but the head coach managed to secure a dry field to practice on even though he couldn't be there. It was at Union University, a private college here, and you have to get permission to practice there. We thought this was really going to be a nice place because the landscaping all around the campus is beautiful.

It's a giant U for Union (the picture is from January's big snow)WRONG! The so called "field" was filled with lumps and bumps, a few stumps for bases, and no back fence. Somehow, Nathan ended up hitting and pitching to the kids all practice long. Despite the junky conditions, I think he kind of liked it.

Brooke and I were an hour late because Brooke had a giant meltdown out of nowhere. She was perfectly fine and suddenly had these giant tears rolling down her face while I was brushing her hair. I know I wasn't hurting her hair, but she wouldn't tell me what was wrong. We sat down and she just hugged me and bawled and cried.

It took a while to get it out of her but she finally said in between her sobbing, "I wanna go home...I wanna go home to Texas!" And then she cried on my shoulder some more. She was just so sad that it felt like a dagger hit me straight in the heart. Turns out that on the way to practice Cole told Nathan that he is tired of Tennessee and wants to go back to Texas. What?!

The kids must have a had a pow-wow the night before and decided they would throw these words at us purposely trying to break our hearts. It worked, but unfortunately, moving back to Texas just doesn't work that way. We go where the job sends us.

They never mentioned anything about Texas again that day, and the rest of the day turned out really nice. Brooke had fun running around the giant trees during practice and playing with her toys, and then managed to sweet talk her daddy into eating lunch at Chick-fil-a.

We ended up buying one of those big tubs of baseballs and taking the kids out to an empty baseball field to work on some things with Cole before Nathan has to go out of town. We figured it wouldn't last long because Brooke would get bored quickly. While I was batting we made her stay in the dugout, and I guess she decided that her mommy looked so stinking cool swinging away that she wanted to do it, too. We were shocked that she wanted to try. We told her just a few things and she was ready to go.

OH...MY...GOSH!!!
Nathan and I think this has to be one of the cutest things that Brooke has ever done.

I put Cole's hat on her to keep her hair out of her eyes because the wind was blowing so hard.She stepped up to the plate 3 times...And the bucket has 3 dozen balls in it! Amazing. I think she was really proud of herself for doing something like Cole. She just may have the natural athletic ability gene that runs all throughout our families after all. Love it!