Baseball Is Fun!

I learned something new this weekend...baseball is fun to watch! Up until Saturday I have always associated baseball with watching my brothers pick grass in the outfield. Of course this was like, seventeen years ago, and I have to admit, I have never really watched a game since then.

This week though, we had the opportunity to go to the game of our friends' little boy. He pitches for the Copperas Cove Cardinals, and he is pretty good. The fun part for me was just sitting in the stands and cheering, eating sunflower seeds, and avoiding foul balls.

Conner pitching. This was a strike out pitch, so pretty cool I got a picture of it.

My handsome hubby enjoying the game in his ever supportive Cardinals hat.

And here we have the Lake family...

Janette Lake (and Bennett)

Kevin Lake (and Bennett)

Camille Lake (and Bennett)

These guys really like Bennett. :)

And we really like them! In fact, I think Camille is going to watch Bennett for me for three hours a day, Monday through Thursday, while I go to my design class at Central Texas Collage starting June 22. I am really going to miss the little guy, but it will be during his nap time so I won't miss much. Camille is great with him too, so I'm not worried.

On the way home from the baseball game we stopped at this community garage sale thing randomly going on in the middle of town and did some second-hand shopping. I am now the proud owner of a near perfect Chutes and Ladders game, and some dang cute (and CHEAP) clothes for Bennett when he gets a little older. Yay for cheap stuff!


And the most exciting thing this week is that Bennett's hair is officially long enough to blow in the wind! (He was born pretty bald.) I don't know if you can tell, but this is the best picture of it I could get. Oh, the simple joys of life!

Megatron vs. Elmo

Monday night is Family Night around here, and although we are not the most consistent with that whole spiritual lesson thing, we are pretty diligent about making sure we have a lot of fun together. This week Matt came home from work with two kites and a container of red and yellow water balloons. Since I am terrified of water balloons, (actually, any kind of balloon tends to throw me into a panic,) we decided to just throw those at the fence and move onto the kite flying.

Anyway, here's some pictures and a movie...yes, the movie actually works this time. :)

The kites Matt brought home were Elmo for me, and Megatron for him. This is my kite.

Flying High!
As you can see, I have no problems getting Elmo up and going. What can I say? I'm a natural. :) Matt, on the other hand...

Try...

...try...


...again!

And once Megatron finally made it up, it was a challenge to keep him there! First he tried to break his string and escape to our neighbor's house...

Luckily they were in their backyard, so they caught him before he could make it to the hills.

Then Megatron thought it would be funny to dive-bomb a couple of innocent bystanders who were out taking a walk at the wrong time...The poor girls managed to dodge out of the way just in time, but there was a lot of screaming involved, and I don't think they will be walking past our house again for awhile.

There was also a close encounter with a car, (there are NEVER cars on our street...until we try to fly kites) but I was laughing too hard to get a picture of it.

It was pretty entertaining watching Matt, more so than actually flying Elmo! In the end, we decided that Megatron just wasn't made of the same tough stuff as Elmo, and Bennett had to agree. That's why, when it was his turn to fly, he chose to use my kite. And, like me, he is a natural. :)

Planting A Garden - Step One...

This was pretty much just a regular old week for us here at the Hargrave home. We did manage to accomplish a few things however, some of which I will name below and narrate with pictures, because reading is not all it's cracked up to be for me lately...and I don't feel like writing either.

Some of these feelings of anti-literacy may stem from the fact that I am once again in school...kind of. I started my LAST Communications class online this week (hip, hip, hooray!) and will begin my LAST art class sometime next month. Both of these classes translate into Bachelor's Degree, AKA, diploma, AKA, finally, and it cannot come soon enough!

Oh text book, how I love you.

I also got to go to a doctor's appointment in San Antonio and visit Mary, Wayne, Bekah and Nathan while I was there, go visiting teaching, feed the missionaries dinner, and kill a record number of spiders in our bathroom. My life is riveting!

Matt had a great week, too. We spent a fun Memorial day together in Lowe's, where he got his dream weed eater. It was like Christmas for him, you should have seen his face. On Friday we went out to lunch with some of the people he works with, and he also got a new calling in our ward. Three callings, actually. He is Assistant Scout Master, Deacon's Quorum Adviser, and Young Men's Secretary. All of these callings are really the same thing, but he is SO excited to be Scout Master. He has already pulled out his old shirt and created the most complete handbook I have ever seen. He is going to be great, and the boys have no idea how lucky they are to have him.

Matt with the infamous scout shirt. (He didn't want me to take this picture because it wasn't ironed yet. Haha! Oh, I love this guy!)

Our Bennett-Boy has also accomplished quite a lot this week, including becoming an extremely proficient eater and sleeper! Mom is thrilled about both these developments. Bennett will eat seven minutes (exactly) on both sides now, and consistently sleeps from 10 p.m to 5 a.m! That's a good solid SEVEN HOURS of sleep, for those of you who are math deficient like me, and let me tell you, I am loving it! He is such a good little guy, and pretty dang cute to boot!

And now to the garden. We have been wanting to put this in for awhile now, but we finally did it this weekend! Here is how you too can do it.

STEP ONE...

Create a gate in your fence big enough for a large truck to fit through.

STEP TWO...

Fill the back of the large truck up with dirt and shovel one million scoops of dirt into the outline of your garden. CAUTION: May cause severe blisters and back pain.


STEP THREE...

Look Cute.

STEP FOUR...Shop for plants and vegetables at your local Wal Mart

STEP FIVE...

Take a nap.

STEP SIX...

Plant what you bought.

STEP SEVEN...

Eat some lunch.

STEP EIGHT...

Finish!

(There is supposed to be a stinkin' video here, but after trying to upload it three times I gave up. I will take a picture later and post it. Right now I am tired of looking at this screen. Sorry!)

BONUS...

Play some football in the park with Mom and Dad.

And on a more random note, I have developed some new theories concerning the breeding habits of the ducks at the park that may or may not involve a chicken and/or a vulture...

Oh one more thing! I was inspired by Chantell's blog about the greatness of buying stuff for cheap, so when we passed a little garage sale on our way to Wal Mart we decided to stop and see what we could find.

This is a foldable pack 'n play we got for ten bucks. I love it! I mean, I will be the first to admit, it isn't the cutest or the newest little thing, but it serves its purpose and we will keep it around for awhile.

We also found a couple of these magazine holder things, so we got five for two dollars. Now my office is completely organized! Maybe this is only exciting to me...?

Anyway, it was a really good week, even if not much happened.

VICTORY!!!

At last, a decent video! Since Bennett has started becoming more interactive I have been trying diligently to get a shot of him smiling and cooing...which he seems to have no problem doing as long as it's not on film! My camera is FULL of movies of "Bennett Bloopers", where he freezes up or starts fussing the moment I push record.

This morning though, I broke the cycle! Bennett is at his best in the mornings, and when he is naked. Today was both. Long story to the nakedness, involving a diaper change that went horribly, horribly wrong around 4:00 am, but it was worth it in the long run!

I also have to quickly post this picture that just defines my life lately. I had laid this little boy down on his back, thinking I was safe since I had fed and burped him several hours earlier...boy was I wrong. I don't even know how this is physically possible, but as you can see, he somehow managed to launch his spit up across the room. Our child is truly gifted.

The Cajun Experience

Well we all had a great weekend this Memorial Weekend, but first things first...I FINALLY GOT A PICTURE OF BENNETT SMILING!!! I have been trying and trying to get this picture, but every time I pulled the camera out he would get so distracted with the blinking red light he would just go into a trance and sit there. My favorite part of his smile is his eyes, which crunch up just like Matt's. :)

Mary (Matt's mom) was born Cajun in Louisiana, and this weekend we got to hang out with her family, who are the funnest people I have ever met! They are all about relaxing, eating seafood and having a good time. The reason we were all there was because Mary's cousin's daughter, Courtney, was getting married in Palacious, Texas, right on the Gulf of Mexico, so we got to go! It was fantastic!

This sign pretty much sums up what is available in Palacios, Texas.

This is The Luthor Hotel, where we shared a suit with Mary, Wayne, Bekah, Nathan, and Sarah. (It was a pretty big suit, with two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room.) This hotel is SUPER old...and somewhat haunted. In it's heyday though, it was like, the place to stay, and there were pictures and letters from movie stars like Shirley Temple up on the walls. You should look it up on the Internet...it's pretty cool.

This is a shrimp boat, just like on Forest Gump! There were A LOT of these here! One of Mary's family members owns a pretty decent shrimping company, so we got to go on his boat (this picture isn't of his boat, but it looked pretty much just like this.) We had a big lunch out on the dock, and guess what we ate? SHRIMP!!

And me and Bennett got to sit in the Captain's chair!

Bennett and Matt getting their sea legs. "Ahoy, me Mattie!" :)

After the lunch on the dock we took Bennett to the beach to have his first swim in the ocean! The water in the Gulf is pretty warm, so we decided it would be ok to strap him up and let him go!




He didn't really appreciate it at first, but once he got used to it he was a natural. But of course, the binki had to come along for the ride.

Just chillin'.

Drying off

All bundled up. What an easy-going guy we got!

After our swim we played on the beach a little.

And I made a sad little sand castle, but I was still pretty proud.

The actual wedding was beautiful. It was the first wedding I have been to that was of a different faith (it was in the Catholic church) and it was pretty cool. This bride's dress was AMAZING!! It took a year to make, and she worked with the designer to ensure it was perfect. Wow.

The flower girl's dress was an exact replica of the wedding dress, only miniature. It was so cute, and the little girl was pretty cute too.

This was in no way a "low budget wedding." This is the limo that took the couple from the church to the reception hall...four blocks away.

I wish we would have gotten more pictures of the actual reception hall, because it was like out of a movie. There were ice sculptures everywhere, two huge wedding cakes, a live band, and an entire room full of endless food! It was all catered, and I am talking about a full course meal of chicken, beef, green beans, rice, mashed potatoes, pastries...and of course, shrimp!

This is the stage where the band played. Dancing was a ton of fun!

Even with all this fuss though, Bennett was none too impressed. He spent the majority of this weekend sleeping and looking cute. But even with this totally non-social attitude he made more friends than I have ever had, and completely stole the show. :)