Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The Ripken Way






Cal Ripken is coming to town! Or I guess I should say came to town. Cal visited our hometown last week to mark the beginning of a partnership with the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation. We had a chance to attend a local baseball clinic sponsored by the foundation. Admission was free and the guys from the local college team were on hand teaching the kids about some of the basics of baseball. Luke jumped right in after watching for a few minutes and we were keeping Blake with us at first. After all - he is three and as Justin would say "has the attention span of a spider monkey" at times. Well - Blake yelled out "Hey! I wanna play!" So - of course, who can turn down a cute 3 year old? The guys call him over, give him a baseball and teach him how to "pitch". He was on top of the world. Luke really enjoyed it as well especially since he began the day with a game of his own during which he got a big hit. I'm really looking forward to seeing how our community and the foundation partner in the years to come.

Window Washer


We never really had to worry about Luke smudging handprints all over the windows when he was a little fella. For whatever reason, this just wasn't something he was interested in. However, we certainly have made up for it with Blake. He LOVES rubbing is hands, fingers (sometimes tongue!) over every piece of glass he can find. After cleaning the doors and windows every other day or so I was hit with a brilliant idea. I sprayed the door and handed Blake the paper towels. So - now he also cleans up afterwards - which he seems to enjoy as well. So much for making him not want to lick doors but at least he's now helping with clean up. And - the added benefit is that this is just plain cute. And I know in reality that one day we'll miss all those dirty little prints.