When Jacob first started playing, I wasnt really sure about it. But now I'm completely ate up with it. Both my boys are playing. My youngest will be playing 8u on a select team this year for fall and spring ball. Hes super excited too. I love when Jacob takes him out to the pasture and helps his little bro out on some things(we made them a nice little baseball diamond in one of the pastures,  they are responsible for keeping it mowed and raked) I will pass along all yalls good lucks and well wishes to mr Jacob and definitely keep yall posted on how their games are going next week!

Momma, you gonna be in trouble with the girls coming around those 2--just saying!!!!

Good luck Jacob and Hornets

Thank ya'll so much! I'm so proud of them, in case anyone was wondering lol! 

Our Hornets take 2 wins home tonight! First game we smoked um... 29-2, 2nd game 13-5! I'm proud to say Jacob was MVP tonight!  He played catcher, he pitched and he covered first. These were 2 hour cap games... back to back. Hes totally wore out and gets to have a well earned sleep in tomorrow,  we dont have to play till 8pm tomorrow night. 

Heartbreaking loss tonight. Boys played really good. We had terrible umpires, honestly we arent "that team" that boo-hoo's over a bad call here n there but this was just downright baaaad! They cost us the game. There was a lot of people scratching their heads on this one, even the other team made a comment. A parent from the winning team stopped Jacob on our way out and shook his hand and told him he was a force to be reckoned with! That took the sting out a bit for him. We return tomorrow to play 2 games back to back, we must win both to advance on to the finals! Fingers crossed our boys can pull this off tomorrow! Itll all be over Thursday. I pray our boys can make it to the top 2 and battle for state championship! They streamed this game live on Facebook it was so cool, sounded like a major league commentator on there. My family got to watch from Arkansas and California and Alabama! 

Jacob had another scan recently and all is beautiful and clear,  praise GOD! Drs dont need to see him back till mid January, so that is wonderful news! Thought I'd just pop in here and give a quick update on our kiddo! Hes doing amazing, we've moved on from the Hornets into 11u select baseball and we absolutely love this team of boys, they adore Jacob too! Hes playing extremely well and making them coaches super happy they choose him to complete their fall roster! Jacob beat out 30 other hopefuls to get on this team. We won a pretty significant tournament this past weekend, that was so much fun to be apart of. We've been extremely embraced by this team it's like another family for us! Wanted to share a few shots from this weekend with yall...

From one momma to another, what a child you have there!!!!   I love your updates on ALL of your kids.   You have so very much to be proud of--super family.    Blessings abound 

Awww thank you so much! I'm a very blessed mom for sure! Watching him out there never gets old

I'm so happy everything is in the clear,i can't imagine the fear,and anxiety your heart has suffered.May God continue to bless your family.

Bump

So SO happy for you guys. God is good

i love Jacob (and family) updates!  Keep up the great work momma! 

Baseball can be life, a story of Gene Mattingly..... Readers digest condensed version... if you google him im sure you will find alot of articles.

Gene was the youngest with 5 older sisters.  His father just wouldnt give up hope for a son and hence we have Fredrick Gene Mattingly the 2nd.  Gene was born into a race car family where he and his dad spent many hours at the track.  His father was disabled in an accident at the track when Gene was in his teens.  This caused him to have to go to work to help out the family.  It postponed college a couple years but he finally was able to continue his education and even got an opportunity to play baseball for the University of Mobile.  There he met the love of his life, a hoosier playing basketball for UofM.  After college they got engaged and both moved back to her home town in So Indiana.  They had the first of 3 children a boy... whom they put a ball in his hand 3 hours outta the womb.  Payton grew into a very christ centered, handsome, awesome big brother, ball playing young man.  He tried lots of balls, football, basketball, but his love was baseball.  He hand his dad Gene spent lots of hours with baseballs.  Spring league, fall ball, all stars, travel ball.  His dad coached many teams as Payton grew and took an assistant position with the high school baseball team.  Payton grew and graduated high school.  He was offered a scholarship to play baseball at Olney.  Life was grand, until Paytons middle sister at 16 had a massive heart attack and passed away.  When tragedy strikes what does a family do to survive?  Well this particular story is one of baseball... baseball can be life.  In the spring of 2017 Gene was facing a devastating loss.  His pride and joy was in another state and it was the middle of high school baseball season where he was an assistant coach.  His community surrounded him with love and care.  Many of the travel league familys lifted him up and reached out from around the nation.  He became much stronger in his faith and you began to see God work in him.  The High school coach stepped down at the end of the season in 2017.  The position was offered to Gene Mattingly.  A devastated man, but one who loved God, his family, and baseball.  A little hesitantly in 2018 he took the position, to which he took a small southern Indiana 2A school to its first ever appearance in the Inidana High School Baseball state championship.  A feat he repeated in 2019.  God saved this man, and his family...... but sometimes baseball is life. 

If you took the time to read my ramblings... Thank you and may God bless you too.

I loved reading that! Thank you for sharing. Baseball is definitely our life right now. With both my boys deep into travel fall ball. Yes, its expensive, time consuming and every single weekend we have a tournament somewhere. But we wouldn't change a thing about it! These boys practice 3xs a week with their team and coaches and when they arent doing that they are playing baseball at home in the pasture. Someone mentioned to me the other day that I need to just let them be kids instead of focusing on baseball sooooo much. Well... I'm going to say, this much ball is their choice, they love it, they live it and they want it! We never ever force our kids to do something. However if they ask to play and agree to be on the team for the season, they will finish it, no matter what, we wont let them quit mid season because they just dont feel like it anymore. That's the only time we'd MAKE them finish something but thankfully,  that's never been an issue in our home. I'd much rather have my kids super busy in sports than just sitting around at home playing stupid video games. I hear the chatter around our town about all the kids obsessed with Fort Nite... which I'm not even really sure what that entails, I just know it's a video game that apparently takes majority of their time and brain ... because I've heard a few parents say their kids needed to detox from it. I see Jacob and our younger son, Colt learning, growing, making new friends, failing, succeeding, learning to never give up no matter what's the score, I see them learning to congratulate the opposing team when they win or lose, I see them deal with bad calls, I see them learning to handle pressure on the mound or in the batter's box, I've seen them be the game hero and I've seen them miss a ball or strikeout and end the game, I've seen the heartbreak and tears from defeat and I've seen the smiles and cheers from winning and seeing the pride in themselves when all their hard work pays off! These are life lessons that will carry on thru their lives. So to some, it's just baseball,  but for my family, its definitely life! 

I'm still buzzing from this weekends tournament! It was our last one of fall season. Jacob and the Hooks went 6-0 and took home the zone championship! 6-0 all weekend! So exciting too! They played some super competitive teams. The boys played 4 very tough games yesterday back to back, no rest in between games. Jacob made some amazing outfield catches. One stellar moment in the game he was playing 2nd base, kid hit a rocket right down the center, jacob ran and took a dive caught the ball, slid to a stop managed to get up to 1 knee and threw the kid out at home... it was freakin AWESOME! I have no voice today as I was the crazy mom in the stands screaming lol!! Oh so proud of them!!! Got some beautiful hardware and memories that'll last a lifetime! Here he is with his big sis... what a great weekend! We have less than a month to get ready for spring tryouts and then back at it come January training. I just had to share :-)

That's fantastic! WAY TO GO!

Seeing his smiling face always makes my day ....what a boy! Thanks for the updates!!!!! 

Two beautiful kids---such a wonderful family to be proud of!

Way to go, Jacob!  What a great story.  Thanks for sharing it with us.

Today we had yet another ct scan and I'm so happy to report hes CLEAR! Praise the Lord! Jacob is doing awesome, they are enjoying homeschooling and baseball season is fast approaching! Practices are started and he got selected to play on the Hooks AAA baseball team for this year, next stop, MAJORS! So very proud of him and his work ethic on the ball field. Going to be a great season and lots of fun with traveling for tournaments. Hes gotten pretty good at these ct scans ... like a seasoned pro. They arent the most fun thing to have to go do but he just handles it. Anyway I snapped a pic of him today during his scan to share... I'm so happy hes healthy and thriving and gaining some much needed weight!