Back at it....

Most of you know that Jacob broke his ankle pretty severely right before Christmas. It has been a long, slow, frustrating healing process for him with a few setbacks. During Spring Break he was finally cleared for activity....right in time for baseball season. Baseball has always been Jacob's favorite sport and it has become my favorite sport to watch him play. This year he is playing on the Van Wert 7th grade club baseball team and will move on to Pony League this summer. I'm not a huge fan of the cold, windy, rainy spring baseball weather we have in Ohio....but I love being able to watch Jacob finally get back at it and play sports again!

Jacob usually plays 2nd base...

Attempting a diving catch....he almost had it! (It will take me a while before I stop gasping when he does something like this....I'm still so worried about that ankle!!)

Beam my valentine....

On Saturday Jenna competed in the "Beam My Valentine" gymnastics meet in Huber Heights. This was her best meet yet. She really needed a good meet to help boost her confidence and get her excited about gymnastics again - she's been really struggling with it.

We rode with Jenna's BFF Savannah and her mom, Nikki. Nikki surprised the girls with Flip Tuck flip flops (say that 3x fast!) and matching hair ribbons. Too cute!!
Jenna and Savannah....

Jenna and some of the level 5 girls hanging out before the meet....

Getting instructions from Coach Monica....

The Flip Tuck Level 3 and 5 girls (Level 4 competed earlier that day)....

Jenna did really well on beam on Saturday. She got her first "9" - a 9.05 on beam! She was so excited!!

Warming up on beam....

Last minute advice from Coach Monica. ....

Showing off her ribbons and medals! She ended up getting 3rd on vault and floor, 4th on beam, 5th on bars and 4th all around for level 3 in her age group. She had some really good gymnasts in her group and did a great job!

Cross Country

Jacob is on the 7th grade Cross Country team this year. He originally decided to participate in Cross Country to stay in shape for basketball this winter. His team has done really well and has finished first in all but one meet so far this year.

His first meet was at Wayne Trace, where is was way too hot - but he did his best, kept running and finished the race!

The second meet was in Columbus Grove and was so much cooler! He improved his time by almost a minute from the first to the second meet!

Crestview was their fourth meet (Tiffin was their third - and he improved his time by another 40+ seconds!). He continued to run at about the same pace, and although he didn't improve his time, he only added a couple seconds.

His goal is to be under 17 minutes, which means he will have improved from his first meet time by 2 minutes. This weekend he ran in Ottawa (no pictures this week) and looked really good. Chris ran all over the course encouraging him and Jenna and I were near the finish line cheering him on. He was so close and ended up with an official time of 17:09 (although we think the time is off by a couple seconds - his coach even thought it was a little lower). He's so close to his goal and we are so proud of how hard he has worked!

Baseball....

The regular little league baseball season is finished (Jacob's team finished 2nd in the league!), which means now it's time for all star team tournaments. The 12U Van Wert Dons have played in 2 tournaments....and have been tournament champs in their age division in both!! The latest tournament was 2 weekends ago in Bryan. I took my camera along for one day of the tournament and snapped lots of photos of my favorite little league player doing his thing.

He usually plays 2nd base on the tournament team....
His hitting has really improved this year. It's so fun to see him hit the ball harder and get on base consistently!

He also gets to bunt occasionally....

Chris coached Jacob's little league team and is helping coach the tournament team. He's definitely our favorite coach!

Ready to steal 3rd....

He has done a great job fielding the ball this year too. It's hard to tell...but he made the catch here!

Love that he has such a big smile on his face. He truly loves baseball!