You gotta have a catcher. If you don’t have a catcher you’ll have all passed balls. –Casey Stengel

Our three baseball players are all trying their hand at catching this season. Peter is the veteran and still going strong.

Derek is a good presence behind the plate, given his size. Ain’t nobody going to mess with him at home plate!

Jeremy began a bit tentative, not too excited about being up close to a swinging bat. But he’s getting the hang of it.

This pic of Jeremy up to bat is one of my faves…a Little Rascal!

Mom, you’ll never guess where we are.

This is how my phone conversation began with Jake on Saturday a few hours after he left to go for a bike ride with his friend. They hadn’t decided where they were going to ride, just that they wanted to do around 50 miles. I took a couple wrong guesses and finally gave up. He was calling from Millenium Park in Chicago.

He was quite proud of himself, having ridden from our house to the city. They took the Prairie Path until it ends in Maywood, so my first (motherly) question was: how did you navigate through the Austin and Garfield Park neighborhoods? He said they just kept riding and didn’t stop til they got to the Loop.

My next question was, “Have you taken a selfie yet?” Here they are at the bean.