What am I going to do with that boy???

I know we want our little boys to be "manly men" and like boy things and be rough and tough, but I do believe Brady might be a little bit on the ridiculous side. This past spring, I was shopping for "Easter" outfits when I came across this really handsome button down dress shirt in a pale pink with a tie to match. I of course showed it to Brady where he proceeded to fall into near convulsions at the thought of wearing pink. Needless to say, he does not own any pink clothing. He also refuses to wash his hands in public restrooms where the soap is pink. Are you kidding me?!? He loses that battle each and every time. So now he has been invited to be in my cousins wedding! Wow, what an exciting thing for a kid. I was so excited to tell him! Here is how the conversation went:

me: Brady, I have some exciting news for you.

Brady: What?

me: Ashley wants you to be in her wedding!

Brady(with the "you're tricking me" look on his face): Moooommmm!

me: No really, she wants you and Jack (one of my other cousins who's 3) to be the ring bearers. You get to wear a really handsome suit and walk down the aisle holding the rings.

Brady: ummmm, No Sank you!

me: But Brady, you get to get all dressed up. Remember how Uncle Kyle got to be in Mom and Dad's wedding? You can be just like Uncle Kyle.

Brady: No sanks, Mom.

me(sternly): Brady, you're going to be in that wedding and you're going to look handsome and you're going to be happy about it and that's it!

Now I am going to have to break it to him that not only is he going to be in a wedding that he apparently doesn't want to be in, but he's going to have to wear PINK! Oy!

Putting the "Art" back into Party!

Oh how I love to throw a party! And this has been the season for parties! With all the babies popping up around here, we've been able to have lots of showers. I have had the pleasure and blessing to be able to co-host several showers at the church for the different future Mom's to be. And now we are having one for Kelly at my house!

It seems now a days, people stray from the "fancy" parties and it really makes me sad. More days than not, we're eating pizza off paper plates as we half sit half stand through the meal, so that we can once again rush off to make it to such and such activity (trust me I know, that was tonight's menu).

I am a member of a club here in town (that is made up mostly of women twice as old as me) who still enjoy entertaining to the fullest! I have grown to appreciate the art of entertaining. Not only the creative aspects of themes and decorations, but the social aspect of being a truly gracious hostess. We have become so focused on making things "easy" that we have forgotten that the reason for opening up our home is to make our guests feel special.

I recently opened up our house for a social gathering of these ladies (about 40, give or take a few) from my club. We had a blast. We ate delicious food (mostly home-made by said Ladies) served on beautiful polished silver and crystal platters, sipped beverages from glass goblets and wiped our puckered lips on cloth napkins. We called each other "dahling" and said things like "oh, how divine" and well, OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. But you have to admit, sometimes it's nice to just sit around and chat about politics, religion, family and life over a nice plate of hors d'oeuvres.

So I mentioned to one of my friends from the club about some of our upcoming parties and she invited me to come "shopping" at her house. So Kimberly and I met her at her house and we literally went shopping for all the beautiful dishes we needed to make a picture perfect party! This woman is truly amazing and oh so generous. She had a closet full of glass dishes. Luncheon plates, hors d'oeuvres plates, dessert plates, cups, saucers, polished silver, glass goblets, crystal platters, you name it she's got it and enough to serve well over 70 people at any given time. But what is even more amazing than that is how spectacularly organized everything is. She knows exactly what she has, where it is stored how many and what pieces will match it! All I can say is I want to be her when I grow up!

Last Soccer Game

Sorry for the delay in posting. I have been a bit under the weather for the past 2 weeks, plus we have had a lot of baby shower stuff going on! Last night was the kids final soccer game of the season. I must say, this has been a great program for the kids. It was a great way to introduce team sports to them. Abbey and Brady really enjoyed the program. Brady scored a goal last week during one of his games. He was so excited.

Brady and Katie Sue were on the same team and both of them have improved dramatically from the first game of the season. They had an excellent coach that really worked with them on the skills of the game. Their team was really good too. There were several "superstars" on the team. However, there is one little boy who was bound and determined to get a goal last night, so each time the ball got close to the goal he would run into the pack and pick up the ball with his hands and move it to right in front of the goal and then kick it in. Brady was highly offended with the fact that someone on his team was "cheating." There is another little boy who is an absolute brute! He didn't care if you were on his team or not, he would knock down anyone who was anywhere in the same vicinity of the ball. It got to the point where the coaches would have to sit him down because he would hurt too many kids. Brady learned very quickly to stay away from the pack when this little boy was on the field.

Abbey, I think may have finally found her "calling." She has been begging to play soccer for several years now and I just couldn't bring myself to put her in a sport that is so physical. But she finally talked me into it, and I am so glad we did this. Abbey really surprised me. She was put on the team of 2nd and 3rd grade girls. She of course was the smallest on the team, but she did get the nickname from all the parents on the sideline of "Animal Abbey." She was really aggressive (in a non-hurtful way).

At her level they actual play positions. Although her coach was a dud and didn't really teach them much about the game, there was a father of one of the girls on the team who would help coach the team every once in a while and he really worked with them on the skills. Abbey played forward most of the season. And like I said she was always in the pack fighting for the ball. She had no fear of the other girls/team. She also figured out when the ball was close to her teams goalie, if she hung out near mid field she would be able to get the ball when it would get kicked away and she could take it most of the way down the field and pass to a team mate who was stronger at kicking into the goal. The last couple of games of the season though she has been playing defender and she really did well in that position too. Goalie is hard for her, but when she is a defender, man she charges the ball coming towards her goal and gives it a boot out of there. Sunday night they will have an awards ceremony for all the players and everyone will get a trophy. Like I said this program has been a great start for my kids and they have already said they can't wait for it to start back up next year.