Game On

Elinor and Faith had their season opener tonight!  The whole family was so excited to go to the game.  Some members of the family were only excited to pay their first visit of the season to the Snack Shack, but whatever the reason we were all there and happy to be there.  Elinor got a couple good hits in, which was to be expected now that she is such the veteran.

And little Faith got a great base hit on her very first time up to bat!  You can imagine the hysterical screaming and wild cheering that ensued.  We were perhaps a scene.

Els was so happy to finally get a chance to play first base.  

I even got to help out a bit in the dugout getting the girls in the right batting order and making sure they knew when it was their turn.  I felt so useful.

Earlier in the day we had our younger kids book club.  Like I said earlier, our book for the month was Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.  Me no likey.

And I didn't feel like doing a book club for a book that I did not enjoy at all.  I was stumped for games, discussion ideas, snack, everything.  I had put a block on anything having to do with Just So Stories.  When it finally came down to it the kids and I managed to come up with a few ideas, and would you believe it actually turned out to be a very delightful time with my young book club friends.

I made elephant ears for a snack in honor of Elephant's Child.

We played tug-o-war in honor of Elephant's Child's nose getting pulled by the crocodile into a trunk as we know it.

It rained this morning and we were bummed because we feared the softball game would be cancelled and it makes book club a lot trickier when we can't go play games outside.  Fortunately, the weather took a turn for the better.

The Just So Stories are all stories of origins that tell how something came to be-- like how the leopard got its spots.  So the kids all made up their own stories of origins.  Elinor's was about why the penguin doesn't fly anymore.  Someone else wrote about how humans got their ears.  Another was how the giraffe got its long neck.  Faith and Cannon also participated, but I'm not so sure they really grasped the idea.

Cannon drew pictures of octopi and told a riveting story of how the octopus and the monster were playing tug-o-war with him.  

And Faith's story is destined to be become a classic:  Why the old grandma did kung-fu.