Hunter’s fans

Over the past week I will have watched Hunter in six basketball games. We are fortunate enough to have family within in driving distance and Hunter has fans at his games.  My parents, Nathan’s parents, my brothers, sister, Nathan, Elizabeth, Anika and I have all been to games. Tonight Anika and I did a road trip an hour north for a game. E stayed home with her daddy for an evening of rock throwing at the lake and early to bed. Hunter rode home with us and it was fun to just have an hour to talk together. This Saturday we will be at our usual Saturday jamboree in a neighboring town. In the above picture you can see Anika’s little legs out of her sleeper. A warm September has led to many hours spent in a hot and sticky gym! Anika handles the warm temperatures, loud buzzers and cheering all in stride. She gets held plenty and fed at halftime breaks!

These pictures were from last Saturday when my siblings joined our family to cheer on Hunter. Joe videotaped. Kirsti and I took photos while taking turns at baby holding. A few people have commented this week when they see Anika at how much her face is changing. She still looks just like her daddy though and is as cute and sweet as ever.

Nathan and Robbie both were on Elizabeth patrol. E keeps herself busy often by playing with her friend Emerson whose brother plays with Hunter. Their favorite bleacher pasttime is playing with pretend food and giving us our personlized concession stand orders. They give us pretend coffee, milk, water, hot dogs and usually some ketchup too. After some playing in the bleachers, E needs movement and we work hard to keep her off the court, instead running the halls outside the gym.

Robbie is a basketball coach so he had some advice to shout out to Hunter last Saturday. And I am an…intense mother who has comments to yell but have greatly improved at keeping my mouth shut. Did you read that statement? Yes I am quieter at games. Not quiet, just quieter. Maybe my grandma will sit by me again at a basketball game. She likes to sit quietly at games and avoided sitting by me at my siblings high school games years ago. When I am about to shout at a dumb call or play now, I remind myself it is elementary school basketball AND I do not want to be refereeing any of these games. So I will just try to be the encouraging but intense mother and not the ref.

Hunter will always have plenty of “advice givers” aka family members cheering him on and reminding him with our shouts to “Rebound!” But that is just because we love our basketball playing boy Hunter James!