Chelsea All Star Poster

This is my first attempt at making a sports poster for David's All Star team.  I am printing these 20x30 am selling them to our team parents.  This same picture will also be put on the back of t-shirts that they can order too.

PS - I know my blog has turned into all photography lately....it's really all that I'm spending my free time doing now...but I intend to get back to crafting once life slows down a bit.  Hmmm, let's hope that happens....

Moody Invitational Champs

This was our first weekend of All Star games and we played in the Moody Invitational.  The boys played Clay, Clanton and then Clay again.  They won all three games and thus were the Moody Invitational Champs!

They played really well and definitely deserved this title.  Next weekend we'll have another tournament - hopefully we can pull out some more wins.  :)

It's All Star Time

David made the 7U All Star team this year and we are so proud of him.  He's playing first now and is doing really well at that position.

We've got a great looking group of boys.  It's always fun coming together at the end of regular season baseball and playing with some of your best buddies.

Season Champs

This morning was the championship game for the 5 and 6 year olds.  

David's team ended the regular season 2nd place.  They played Tuesday night (while daddy/coach was out of town - and who insisted on play by play texts throughout the game...I may or may not have failed at the play by play texts.    I got this video that I posted a few days ago of his last second three to seal up the win.

They won that game and played in the semi-finals on Thursday and won.

And today was the championship game.  Against one of his best buddies team.  Such a hard position to be in.  I wanted to cheer for Walker and for him to have a great game (but I wanted David to win).  I can't WAIT until middle school when all of his friends are on the SAME team. 

In the first quarter we were trailing by 7, then came back to tie it up in the second quarter.  The rest of the game was a real nail biter.  There was lots of cheering, nerves, great shots and great blocks from both sides.  The other team was undefeated the whole season and truly played a great game today.   We came out on top this time.  David scored 18 of our 19 points today.  

I'm loving the double 5's that Eli is giving Brad.  

The team with their trophies.

David and Coach after the game.

David and Walker.  Good friends.  Before and after the game.  

Now it's time to move on to BASEBALL!!!!  First game is this weekend.

All Stars - State Tournament

Well, All Stars has been over for a few weeks now...so it's high time I update about the season.

It was GREAT! They came in....

Second in Invitational.

First in District.

Second in Area.

Third in the STATE!!!!! Woo to the hoo!

They played hard and were coached well.

Next up, football, baby. :) Practice starts next Monday. Brad is head coach. I'm team mom. Let the craziness commence.

Area Champions!

Last weekend our Chelsea 6U All Stars played in Wilsonville. AND won that Area Championship! They played 6 games in 4 days. The team that we had to play (twice) to win the championship had already beat us 3 times. But the boys dug deep and played hard and came out on top. I thought Brad was going to have a heart attack on the field!!

It was a great weekend!

David and his best friend, Ethan:

Love this:

All Stars

So, it's baseball season.

My blog posts are all about baseball now, since that's what is encompassing all of our time now. It's a ton of fun. No complaints here.

The only complaint is that I go back to work tomorrow after being off for medical leave for the past 3 weeks. It's going to be a rough return to the office. Blah. :(

But back to All Stars - here is another cute picture of our team I just had to share.

We had a tournament this weekend. After 8.5 hours at the ball field with a long rain delay, we ended up losing the first game but winning the second. So we've moved onto the next game which is tomorrow at 6pm. It's a double elimination, but luckily no matter where we end this tournament we do advance to next weekend. :)

Support

The terrible tornadoes that recently hit our area came through Alabama on a Wednesday (April 27th to be exact). By Saturday, our regular season baseball team had pulled together a bunch of stuff to pack some zip loc bags full of necessities.

Each bag was packed with a toothbrush, toothpaste, wash cloth, hand towel, finger nail clippers, bottled water, soap, comb and a package of bandaids.

Brad printed out some pictures of our team so that the boys could sign them. Each bag had one picture included.

They all took pride in signing their names. I thought they would enjoy dropping items into each bag, but they actually had no interest at all. The parents packed the bags while the boys kept signing away.

We were able to complete 29 bags and we gave all the left over extras to New Heights United Methodist Church so they could make more bags.

While this was a very small donation to some folks who lost everything in the tornadoes, we think it was great to get the boys involved in giving something to people in need.

Double Play David

This weekend is the Chelsea 6U invitation in Vincent, AL. We won our game last night and won both games today. This means we play tomorrow at 5:30 and if we win that game we play in the Championship at 7:00!

Our boys are doing SO great.

David got a double play today - and for this he earned the game ball!!!

This is the whole team. We have one good looking group of boys!!!!

Giants Party

The 5/6 Chelsea Giants are undefeated for the second half of the season! Woo-hoo!

We had the team party at our house on Saturday after our game and we had a fabulous time. The weather, company, and food was all great.

And here is one of my favorite pictures from the day:

I'm headed to the hospital for a pretty big (in my opinion) surgery, but I'll be back in a few days to get more pictures posted from our party.

CHAMPIONS!!!

I may not have mentioned this before, but Brad is head coaching David's baseball team - the 5 and 6 year old Chelsea Giants.

We have quite a few kids who have never played baseball before and some who have played for a couple of years. We've got a pretty good mix of capabilities. I've come to learn the following over the past 5 weeks:

We have the BEST kids in the league.

We have the BEST parents in the league, they seriously are all so great.

We have the BEST coaches in the league (especially the head coach...no - I'm not biased).

We have some of the funniest kids, too!

I've had fun watching these kids learn to hit the ball, field the ball and throw the ball. They've improved so much since mid March.

Chelsea breaks the baseball season into two halves. The first season ended this week and due to our record (6-2) we made it to the playoffs. We played Monday night and beat the #3 team. In this game David caught a pop fly and had an unassisted triple play. Go big D!

Then last night we played the #4 team (who beat the #1 team) and we beat them. So....that makes us:

FIRST HALF CHAMPIONS!

Now we have one more half to play. But we have sealed in a spot in the very last game of the season (between the two half champs). Can't wait!

GO GIANTS!

Best Friends

Ethan and David

My Heart

One last All Stars post

So my iPhone 3G takes pretty crappy pictures, but these are the only pictures I have of David's last All Star game....so they'll have to do. And it's better than nothing.

This one was taken while the National Athem played. It absolutely melts my heart. Please note that his hat is in his left hand over his heart. Precious, I say, precious.
The first is the final picture taken of his All Star team. Aren't they all just adorable (especially the one in the middle row on the very right? That's what I thought.

The end of All Stars

Well after 3 weeks of All Stars baseball, it's over. We lost against Moody last night...so that ended our attempt to win the state championship. But we should have won. :(

Unfortunately, we didn't like the head coach. He is a nice guy but we we felt a LOT of frustration with him....and so did all the parents and other coaches....so it wasn't just us. He did what he thought was best for his son....not what was best for the team. He played his son at first base and he was not good at catching balls...even those thrown right into his glove. And that's kinda important when you play first base. Ya know? His son made a few good plays, but should never have been playing first.

He actually took David off of 3rd after the first tournament (reason: unknown, he never told David why he did it, awesome, I know). But last night the 3rd baseman was out of town so he put David back on 3rd and he did fantastic. He got lots of outs and didn't let a single ball get past him. Clearly, he should have been playing 3rd for all tournaments. Now we know.

No, I'm not bitter. Much.

I can promise you that David will NOT play on a team that he's coaching next year.

Anyhow....the boys did great and we got to know a great group of people. Some of the boys will even be at his school next year and maybe even in his kindergarten class.

Can't wait for next year!

Here's a recap of All Stars and what has transpired over the past 3 weeks:

9 - number of 2 hour practices

10 - number of days at the ball park for tournaments

14 - number of games in those 10 days

1 - number of times he had 3 games in the same day

2 - number of times he had 2 games in the same day

19 - number of days in the last 22 days that we were at the ball field for a game or practice

28 - number of hours we've spent in the sun

15 - number of loads of laundry I've done solely to make sure he has a clean practice or game uniform

80 - number of dollars we spent getting into the tournaments each weekend

24 - number of bottles of water we've gone through

18 - number of Gatorade bottles we've gone through

All Stars was fun for us all, but also very tiring. While I am sad it's over, I'm kinda glad to get back to some normalcy. But that won't last long, since football starts in mid-July. Can't wait to see how David handles football....he's excited now and I'm hoping that will continue once the season starts and he's practicing in 95 degree heat.

Chelsea 5U All Stars

Chelsea 5U All Stars.

Aren't they cute?

The season isn't over yet. They've been playing great. This weekend is the state tournament.

We won last night and today. We play tomorrow night and Monday night. Might have more games after that if we keep winning.

The end.

EDITED TO ADD:

We played Gardendale tonight and they have one heck of a team. Anytime we hit the ball in the air they caught it. They creamed us.

We play Moody tomorrow night...we beat them last weekend, but they have a great team....so we'll see. If we lose tomorrow, then we are out. If we win, then we play Tuesday night.

All Stars

David played spring ball with our local community and he was asked to play All Stars at the end of the season for the 5 year old team. He played 3rd base during the season and he is also playing 3rd now.

It's been crazy getting back from vacation and and immediately going into All Stars (with 4 practices a week and tournaments on the weekends)....It is a bit overwhelming getting laundry washed from our trip, grocery shopping, cleaning, and baseball practices....but I'm hoping it will be worth it and we'll all have a fun time. Ask me in about 2 weeks and we'll see how I feel then.

We are proud of out little star. He has a game tomorrow night and between 1 and 3 games this weekend (depending on how well his team does)...so I'll let you know.

Oh, and it's kinda cool that his team is the BULLDOGS! We are huge Samford bulldog fans, so he thought it was kinda cool that his team is the bulldogs too.

Spring 2010 Baseball

I don't like baseball. At all. I never have. Well, except for when the Braves were really good in the early 90's (I think) and I would watch the World Series with my dad. I'm a bit of a band wagon fan and thought it was cool that the Braves were doing good and they were from the city that my brother lived in....so I became a fan while they were good. Then they stopped being good and I stopped being a fan. I know, I know. Terrible.

So considering the fact that I don't like baseball - I have been pleasantly surprised at how much I'm loving David's spring baseball this year. He's playing coach pitch (last year it was t-ball) and he's doing really well. He plays 3rd base (and is the only infielder who is not a coaches kid). His throwing, catching, fielding and hitting has all gotten better in just the past 6 weeks. He is trying really hard to get better and we are very proud of him.

It's also nice getting to know other kids and parents in our community (quite a few that he will go to elementary school with next year).

We are almost half way through the season and his team (the Dodgers) record is 3-3. He's had quite a few good plays and scored every game at least once.

Here are a few pictures from one of his recent games.

Go Dodgers!

Tball

I may have mentioned it before, but this spring David is playing t-ball. He loves it and is doing really well. He's one of the older kids on the team, so he can hit really well and run fast, but when it comes to chasing the grounder he won't. He pretty much lets all the kids run after it....unless of course his little friend, John Deric, is chasing it...and then David runs and tries to beat him to the ball. They have a little mini-competition going on each game just between the two of them. Coach Deric has let David play first base, third and pitcher.

Here are a few pictures from his first game.
He's a good slider, while most kids hit their knees and fling themselves forward he knows to kinda lay down and slide on his hip. He really likes his baseball underwear and will tell you about them if you give him the chance (they are boxer briefs with padding on the hips).