Grand Slam Opening Day

Jaden and Cody's Little League season kicked off at the beginning of March with a full Saturday of baseball events. We started the morning off with a Little League parade. Here are our little Braves players before the parade began. 

From the start of the season, Jaden wanted to wear his socks pulled up high, "to look more like a real baseball player." It sure helped the coaches to distinguish one boy from the other!

Each Little League team decorated the back of a trailer with their team banner and various baseball themed decorations.

Not all of the Braves team members were able to make the parade, but the ones that did were sure enthusiastic! :)

Jesse, Caffrey, Beau, Korbyn, Lukas, Jaden, Cody

All of the league teams drove through our little downtown while parents and families cheered and waved on the sidelines.

After the parade ended, the boys took team pictures, and then we had a break until later in the afternoon for their first game. On our way home, we stopped by a donut shop as a way to celebrate our sweet Adley since the day also happened to be her birthday!

Thankfully, our little girl didn't mind at all that nearly her whole day was spent doing baseball activities for her big brothers. What a great sport and little cheerleader she is! I guess a donut with pink frosting and sprinkles will help anyone to be in a better mood! :)

After lunch and a little time to relax at home, our family headed back out to the ball fields. Cody and Jaden's team had been practicing for the past month, but the boys were still a little nervous to jump into their first game. Their coach tried out a couple different positions for each player throughout the game. Jaden played some first base and some pitcher. (Their age group is at a machine pitch level, so basically the pitcher position just means that the player has to retrieve the ball from the catcher and hand it off to the coach who is managing the pitching machine.)

Cody played a combination of outfield and shortstop.

When the boys were up to bat, BOTH boys ended up getting hits. Wahoo! We were so proud of them, as learning to hit off the machine has been quite the learning curve. Cody's hit brought in a run for his team-- his first RBI. :)

Jaden hit an inside-the-park home run! Yay! What an exciting way to kick off his season!

Unfortunately this first game was against a very strong team (the team that actually ended up winning the 7 yo league championship at the end of the season!). So our Braves team, which was comprised of several first-time players, ended up losing by a fair amount. Thankfully, though, Cody and Jaden weren't too downcast by this loss since they could be proud of their own individual successes. We were quite proud of our boys too... and excited for the baseball season ahead!