Opening Day

The first t-ball game. It proved to be just as entertaining as we suspected. Ella was super excited about it (minus the fact that it started before she usually wakes...but the feeling was mutual for both mama and daddy). Once we awakened our sleeping bear, we headed off to the ballfields for a morning of fun. Ella was very excited that her uniforms were purple, because "pink and purple are girl colors." As for the 8 little boys on her team (and all the dads in their coordinating shirts) I'm not sure what they thought about it. But, nonetheless, the team got started with their warm-up,

jumping jacks,

and push ups.

Go Mudcats!

For this age group, each child bats every inning (3 pitches and then a hit off the tee) and only advances one base until the last batter when they clear the bases. So the last batter of the inning gets a home run! ;) Ella has been doing a little switch hitting the last few weeks in practice. Based on how she holds her bat, the coaches decide on whether to make her bat left or right handed. So I guess we'll see what she ends up doing! During this game, she batted left handed in the first inning and hit the ball off the tee.

The second at bat, Ella hit right handed. And she actually hit a pitch (it went about a foot and half away from home plate). She was the last batter this inning (she just had to go potty) so she got to run the bases. As she was rounding third, she realized the crowd was all cheering for her, so she locked eyes with the crowd, stuck out her bootay, and ran as prissy as she could home; all with keeping her eyes locked on the stands. Here she is on deck with Daddy:

She was less enthusiastic about fielding. It does take a while for 12 kids to bat, but Ella managed to fill her time with playing in the dirt, looking around, and even talking to some of her teammates. With a few prompts, she managed to keep a "ready" position, even though she didn't touch or even attempt to get the ball the entire game.

 

But once the game was over, she got her sweet reward...a POPSICLE! At 10:00 in the morning...

Then she got to chat with some of her fans for the day: