March is Coming to A Close

At the end of March the girls had a few last swim meets before the season ended. This first picture is the Kamas meet and I love it because it shows how far ahead Brielle is, in the pink cap. Brooke came in second that race.

This race at Wasatch was pretty cool too. Brooke lost her goggles on the dive in at the start and still took 2nd place behind Brielle.

Group Picture!

March 27th Jacob played his last 2 basketball games of the season. He is so so sad it is over and is already looking forward to next year. We took some of the boys down with us and went to grab some food afterward. Crazy kids.

March 28th was Moms and Muffins at Old Mill Elementary. I love spending time with my boys. We had muffins and went to the book fair.

The best kind of Saturday!

Saturday was such a great day! Caleb has his first soccer game in Lehi, and he was so excited. He did not care one bit that it was pouring rain and freezing. He played his little heart out and scored  the teams only goal! They lost 2 to 1 but he had a great time.

We brought the whole family, and we pretty much froze. Hopefully the next game is a little warmer!

After a trip to Costco and some lunch it was time for basketball! Jacob and 3 of his other teammates from the white team were asked to also play on the black team for the March league because the black team lost about half of their players. It has been a struggle because a lot of their games have conflicted with each other. Saturday both of their games were at the same time so 2 of our players went to play with the black team which left us pretty short because we were missing some other players also. We snagged a player from the 3rd grade team and Caleb got to make his club basketball debut. He got to play the whole game with the big boys, and he was in heaven. I hope this is the beginning of years of watching my boys play ball together.

The gold team was short players that day also, and they asked Jacob to play with them after his game was over. Of course he was thrilled! He had a blast playing with them. He has a friend on the black team, and Ayden is on the gold team, so his dream is for the 3 of them to play gold together next year, and he plans on working all summer to get there.

After the games, I took my girls to watch the women's session of General Conference and then we went out for a treat afterwards. It really was a perfect Saturday. I love this time of life with my kids. I'm so sad that they are growing up so quickly, but I have also really loved every stage we've been through with them so far.

This Kid

Digging through Caleb's backpack always makes me smile.

Apparently he has hit the end of his rope. Haha! On the back of this paper he wrote, "It means you had a bad day." It makes me wonder what the assignment was. So funny.

Spring Has Sprung!

The leprechaun found our house on St. Patrick's Day! We had a kitchen covered in gold, if only it were real!

I think he loved the house the kids made for him.

We finally had some nice warm weather so on the 18th we had our first BBQ outside, and spent the day playing baseball, basketball and soccer in the yard. The kids wanted to start wearing shorts and set up the tramp, but we all know it won't last. Maybe in June kids!

Pack Meeting was on the 21st and Jacob earned some more rewards. He really does enjoy scouts when he has the time to do it!

Basketball and Soccer

Sports have taken over here at the Balch house. This week Caleb started comp. soccer with Olympia, so our weekly schedule includes swim practice for the girls Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 4 basketball practices with shooting practice and 2 games for Jacob, and Caleb has soccer practice twice a week with games starting mid-March. Plus he still goes to all of Jacob's gray team basketball practices. Add to that mutual, scouts, piano, and school and we are officially over-scheduled. I went into Caleb's room on Thursday and found this mess on his floor. But as long as they love it, right?!

Saturday Jacob had 2 games in Orem. The first one was a little heartbreaking as they lost in overtime. Grandma and Grandpa came up to watch and Jacob played awesome! He made 9 of the 21 points and he had a great time. They had 6 players the first game, but one had to leave so the 5 remaining had to play the whole second game. And they killed it! It was a blow out! They were pretty tired afterwards, but they were happy!

I love this picture because Parker's cute little brother always listens so intently to Charles while he's talking to the team.

After the first game Grandma and Grandpa took Brielle and Caleb to Salt Lake to watch the first RSL game of the season. Grandpa had box seats and those kids were in heaven!

Champions!

Tonight was the final championship game in Jacob's basketball tournament. I never knew a game could be so stressful and I'm worried it will just get more stressful as he gets older.  We got off to a pretty late start because the refs never showed up. Will from the high school team and the other teams' assistant coach stepped up to help us out. It was a pretty intense game toward the end. We were up one, then down one, then back up. It was all over the place. We ended up winning by one point and those boys were so happy! Almost has happy as their coach. It was an awesome day, and I have really gotten to like all the cute boys on our team. It's been fun to get to know them.

"Eyes up, do the work!"

Medals

Coach Lance, Parker, Luke, Ian, Connor, Coach Charles

Jacob A., Brayden, Jacob B., Jayden

Awesome job boys! Sleep well tonight, spring season starts tomorrow! Jacob's basketball schedule is about to get crazy. He has started working with a shooting coach, he's on the white team, and now he is going to play for the black team also. He's going to either love or hate basketball by the end of March!