My life in summer consists almost exclusively of taking Dorrie to her Dada’s softball games.

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My new nephew arrived on Thursday, but due to craptastic hospital visitation policies and a Saturday wedding we had to go to, I haven’t seen him yet (aside from a painfully adorable picture taken by my mother in law…). However, since Wesley’s parents were… busy, but he stayed at our house for a few days and rocked out with Dorrie. It made for a busy, crazy week, but both of them seemed to have a spectacular time.

We had breakfast (To create a makeshift toddler table: Pull the end table away from the couch and add two chairs from the Target clearance racks. Finish with IKEA bowls and silverware.),

ran some errands,

got some celebratory ice cream,

then of course had to go right into the bath after the ice cream disaster,

and finally did some nice dry, clean, (mostly) naked toddler dancing.

Hopefully Wes won’t look back at the time his parents were in the hospital with any trauma. As long as I take the bath pics down by the time he’s dating…

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We went to a family friend’s wedding in Detroit this weekend. Dorrie enjoyed it quite a bit.

Then she adored the Fathers Day Tigers game with Grandpa.

…and worked really hard on keeping score like Dada.

We had a good (though tiring) time!

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She holds the bat for a moment…

Then swings it and throws it on the ground and goes “runnin’ and runnin’ and runnin’!”

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On Friday night we went to my husband’s softball game (he’s in 3 leagues, so he has games Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights during the summer), thinking that we were avoiding the scattered storms that really looked like they were going to miss us to the south.

Um, not so much. It POURED. And then, of course, all the guys agreed that they wanted to keep playing rather than cancel the game.

But at least I came away from it with some cool shots…

I really loved the colors in this one. (ETA: Wordpress squishes my horizontal pics slightly, so you might want to click through to see it correctly if you’re getting some wonky pixelation on the fence.)

That mud spatter all the way up his back is from running the bases.

Dorrie was not interested in staying under her giraffe umbrella (that has eyes and ears, and is painfully cute) with me, she much preferred catching the raindrops in her mouth.

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*I was so tempted to say “Soggy Softball” or possibly “Soppy Softball” but then I decided the alliteration was far too much and I should control myself.

Dorrie’s love and adoration for the huge concrete balls at our local Target knows no bounds.

Every time she sees a Target logo, she says “BIG! Red. BALLS!!!!

I think we might possibly go to Target too often.

Happy Love Thursday Friday, everyone!

Yes, she has the word “no” on the top of her head. It’s like a Toddler Thought Bubble.

That is my cutest shot of the week. My COOLEST shot of the week is here:

If you click on it, it will take you to the large size - which is far cooler than the small. I took that while sitting in the passenger seat, through the drivers side window, while my husband was driving north on Lake Shore Drive. I’m pretty impressed with myself.

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Dorrie loves baseball. She requests it on TV - one day she wanted “beefall” and I ended up having to turn on the Sox because the Cubs were on an off day. That is true, deep, unconditional love. I wouldn’t voluntarily listen to Hawk Harrelson call a baseball game for anyone but her.

So yesterday my husband called at 5pm saying he had tickets to the Cubs game that started at 7pm. A half hour downtown plus 10 minutes picking him up from work plus another half hour to the Cubs shuttle parking lot plus another 15-20 minutes on the shuttle bus to Wrigley - we had to leave NOW. So we did.

Dorrie loved it. She has been great at every baseball game we’ve ever taken her to, but this one was even more amazing. She cheered, she stood on the little step (these seats are right before an aisle, so there’s no barrier of other seats to keep her from running off) without getting off of it, she sat on Dada’s lap and asked for the pitcher to “frow ball a-DEN!”

And, as you can see from the picture, she got very offended when the Padres started scoring runs.

She sang along to “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” and when it was done made us sing it “One mo TIME!”

Then in the top of the 8th inning, she had a little milk and fell asleep, and stayed asleep until we got home.

There’s nothing like sharing things you love with someone who loves them too.

Happy Love Thursday!

Dorrie is pictured here playing with my husband’s aunt. This was on Saturday during our traditional Mother’s Day family get-together at White Fence Farm, so we managed to get a little outdoors time in before the Chicago area decided to have a massive downpour. She had just a little energy to run off, in case you can’t tell…

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My husband’s co-worker had the post-baptism party for his 2 month old at a great beer bar. Now THAT is my kind of party. Getting to go to a bar without having to find a sitter? Brilliant.

I sort of wish Dorrie was better in focus, but at the same time her reaction was worth it. And I think the blur of her thrilled response to the “BALLS! ROLL IT, MAMA!” was totally an accurate depiction of the moment.

More best shots here.