a day of celebration for Wyatt and Julia

Yesterday was the last day of Bitty Basketball for Wyatt and the day that Julia had a gymnastics performance, so we were busy, busy, busy.

Wyatt
Basketball hasn't exactly been the best experience for Wyatt. As the season concluded, Andy was given the job of handing out the trophies and saying something about each member of the team. I was unable to attend this little ceremony because basketball overlaps gymnastics on Saturday mornings. However, Andy did tell me what he said about Wyatt. He chose a person from the Bible to represent each of the kids and explained how that child was like the person from the Bible. For Wyatt, he chose Jacob (you might remember that Jacob's name means trickster, and it was a fitting name for him). Andy explained that Wyatt was like Jacob in that he was chosen by God. Of course God changed Jacob's name to Israel, and we know about Israel's (the nation) struggle. Andy pointed out that just as Israel did a lot of wandering about, Wyatt also did a lot of wandering about on the basketball court. He said Wyatt was beaming over the special attention paid to him.
Wyatt received a trophy for basketball, and it is actually a little picture of Wyatt. He was thrilled with his trophy and with the pictures that he received. He was very excited to come to gymnastics and show them to me.
As an incentive to end on a high note, we promised Wyatt a trip to McDonald's (or "Old MacDonalds" as he and Julia call it) if he would behave at practice. He was much improved and the family enjoyed dinner out.

Julia
Julia's performance at gymnastics was an exta event at extra expense. I had no intention of participating in this, but Julia's teacher talked it up, and Julia begged to do it. In the end she won her dad over. Julia was so excited about this performance. She told every family member that she saw between the date she registered and the event date and invited them to come and watch. Yesterday, she had me call and confirm the time for all of them and counted the number of people she expected to be there. When the number reached 10 (quite a fan club- Grandma, Aunt Tiffany, Aunt Tessa, Austin and Logan as well as the five of us - however, Zach did not make it home from wrestling on time), she got embarrassed.
The gym was packed and we found a decent enough place to watch. Julia did very well, and I was shocked to discover that my camera did not have a memory card in it (I am almost OCD about checking that before leaving the house- UGH!). I set it to allow pictures without the memory card only to come home and find out that it does not record them. It is for demonstration only. I had at least one great picture of Julia with her trophy :(
While Julia waited for the trophy and in between events, her aunts and grandma (okay, me too) would wave to her. She would duck her head in embarrassment. Who knows what to make of Julia? One minute she is charismatic and outgoing, and the next she is shy and hiding. It was fun to watch her enjoy this event and probably worth the 30 bucks.