Kung fu soccer

My kids have never been much into sports. They have tried most of them but unlike most families we don't spend our spring and fall Saturday mornings on the soccer field. However Matt is old enough to play and so we spent the last month of Saturdays (and Tuesday nights) watching Matt do something...I'm pretty sure it wasn't soccer. 

See what usually happened was something like this:

during warm ups he would actually play and do what he was supposed to do. 

Slowly the game would progress and instead of paying attention to anything he would start posing and occasionally do some made up karate/kung fu moves. 

This would continue the entire time he was on the field.

Until he noticed I had my camera out. At this point he would tell everyone it was time to stop and take pictures...yes this did happen while the game was in progress.

After about ten minutes of watching the ball pass him by and all the other kids run around while he was walking around with his arms in his sleeves imitating a raptor , he would decide he was tired tell the coach he was ready to be done. 

So that was our soccer experience, it cracked me up every time he played.  But he seemed to enjoy it and keeps asking when his next ball sport is. 

It's a Girl

Christian here, posting for Natalie. Sincere apologies for the many months without a post. We've been pretty busy at the Bradley home. I probably ought to get the big news out of the way first up, we're pregnant, and it's a girl.

For those who haven't spent much time with us lately, Natalie has managed to be pregnant for 12 of the last 17 months (two back to back miscarriages, those sucked), and we still have three months to go. Natalie has magic pregnancy powers that make it morning all day long, and by that I mean that morning sickness is active around the clock. We had some real fun for a couple of months when she had to go on a daily IV drip to keep from dying of dehydration, just glad we were able to do it with the home hospice care service or we would have basically been living at the hospital. Baby Bellatrix as we've been calling her (no, that's not what we're naming her) has been about as much trouble as Matthew was in utero, but at least this one made it past the end of the first trimester so we're all pretty happy about it. We're due in July

That's probably enough baby stuff, what else has been going on around here? Lots.

Seeing the Christmas lights at the zoo.

Meeting stormtroopers at Comic-con.

Singing.

Cooking.

Snuggling cousins.

Growing mustaches.

Playing fetch.

Seeing American landmarks done in Legos.

Playing basketball.

Gardening.

And a whole bunch of other stuff, you know, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, work, play, school, all the usual. We'll keep you posted, just figured we should put something up in case you thought we just didn't want to blog anymore.

-Christian

Utah fans Sir, Utah fans are we

Growing up one of the greatest mysteries of my family was how I became a BYU fan. It didn't make sense and it was one of those great mysteries that didn't correct itself until the late nineties when I realized that I wasn't switched at birth, which was the leading theory in that mystery, nor did the fall on my head as an infant permanently damage me.  See it was about that time I became a Utah fan. The day I told my family still stands as one of the top ten moments in my brother's life. 

Fast forward ten plus years and I now have my own little family of Utes. They sport the Utah gear and they cheer for the U and it is good. They are still not quite sure while their mom yells at the tv when the people playing football can't hear her, but that will come.

To expand on our love for the Utes we attended the fan appreciation day with our neighbors. The whole family sported their U gear and we had Matty cheering "Go Utah" before we left the house. 

Fan day was fun. The kids got to sample some red snow cones, courtesy of the ski team...

Stand in many lines to meet players and try different activities.

Had super tall young men stand on tiptoes to help us make a basket

or get some encouragement from the players themselves.

Of course we weren't happy all the time. Matty has been getting his two year old molars and I guess he didn't sleep much the night before. Not even a bounce house could make him happy.

One things my kids could not wrap their heads around was why people pay so much to watch a football game. They also didn't understand why the suite tickets, which "are further away from the field, Mom." cost more than other tickets.

The one sport James has been asking us to play is golf. It was fun to give him a little preview and I loved that the team golfers took time to work with them.

So that's it. We are raising little Utes and so far their is no discord in our home, they seem happy to be Utah fans, even if they aren't sure what that means. 

Go Utes!

James the baseball star

Every summer we let the kids pick one activity that they want to do for the summer. This year Laine picked archery, Eve picked art lesson, and James surprised us all and picked baseball. He has played for the last two years but never really showed much interest in it. I always figured he played because his cousin was playing and that was fun. But this year his cousin wasn't playing and I was pretty sure we would be doing swim lessons, but to my surprise when we vetoed golf (a long story) he decided he wanted to play baseball. 

So we signed him up for coach pitch (where there are no outs and the coaches pitch the ball to the kids- think of it as glorified t-ball) and were so grateful that he ended up with an awesome coach. This coach took time to hold practices and really help the kids learn the game. I noticed a marked improvement in James this year. He hit the ball every time, and some times within the first three pitches. He was just so cute running around those bases with a helmet two sizes too big for  his head.  It was fun to watch him play with other kids and yell at them to run. 

It was fun to see him improve each day. I loved watching him field the balls and even throw it in the right directions-at times it would even make it to the person it was supposed to. I am glad that he went against tradition and that he actually had fun at a sport- it is progress people.

Super Summer Sports

It's that time again, the time where we send our little warriors our to participate in that sacred rite of passage-summer sports.  Here's the thing, our kids are great at many many things. They are super smart, fabulous readers, great speakers, talented piano players, and fast runners. Sports though, well we won't be waiting for talents scouts from the SEC, PAC-12, or even the Mountain West to knock on our door. 

This year Laine tried a new sport-basketball. She had little to chose from, finding a team sport that is less competitive and more let's learn and have fun is really hard once they reach 3rd grade, basketball was our only choice. She did well though, once she learned not to walk down the court with her hands behind her back. 

James took on the difficult game of t-ball. His Uncle Adam coached him and he got to play with one of his best buds, Boston.

 James was good enough to stop running towards home to pose for this picture. I snapped it while yelling for him to keep running.


Eve played coach pitch this year, the day I brought my camera though was the one day the coach had the whole team hit from the tee. Despite kids pestering him with "whys" he never explained this bout of coaching. Eve was not a fan of sports this year. She seemed bored most of the time, but she did learn how to throw a ball, so that was cool.

So we bid a fond farewell to summer sports, we will meet again.. Maybe.

Take me out to the ball game

Though I love the Yankees I am not usually a big baseball fan. I don't attend games, I don't watch it on tv, and I don't play. This wasn't always true, growing up my brother was an awesome player and we attended all his games. As a mom I get this opportunity again and I have to admit...I LOVE watching t-ball.

Due to Matthew's birth I was only able to attend one game this year- the final game. Luckily we had the field for both games that had a little shade and we got there early enough that we were able to snag the shady spot.

Matthew was grateful for the shade... as you can tell he really enjoyed his first baseball game.
My nephew Boston running towards third base!!! Please not the irony that I kid named Boston played for the Yankees. I thought Adam was going to have a coronary when we told him.
James running towards first base. He is a big hitter that kid.
See what I mean

Of course once you start moving to third base it is a bit slower.
The boys after their game. I love having cousins so close in age. These two have decided that they are playing soccer this fall.

Right after the t-ball game it was time for coach pitch. The girls were on the Angels this year. Here they are sitting talking with one another. They moved when I got closer but they were so cute together.

Eve at bat. she was so proud of herself that she didn't need the tee to hit off of.

Of course after that she got bored. Eve could usually be found on base swinging her arms around. This was also true when she was in the outfield.
Laine really improved this year. She hit the ball really well and had a great arm. The coach used her as the catcher often!
Eve swinging her arms in the outfield
The kids had a lot of fun together and love their trophies. We can't wait for next year's games.