Evan is SIX

We have been up to our eyeballs in birthday and end-of-the-school-year fun around here. Evan turned SIX yesterday. So hard to believe. Six years ago we were sitting at a Longhorn Steakhouse timing contractions before heading over to my granny's house for my cousin's birthday celebration. At 6:19 the next morning, the most beautiful baby I had ever seen was laid in my arms, and my love for that sweet baby has grown every day since. Even though he is not a baby anymore. Now, he is a handsome, sweet, sensitive, pensive, smart, inquisitive, cuddly, and caring big boy.



We had his birthday party for his friends at his karate studio. The kids had a blast. We really didn't know what to expect, but we were pleased with what we got! The kids started out with some warm ups, and then played games, watched demonstrations, etc.



Here are some pictures of the warm-up. The sensai(s) taught them some stretches and animal poses after letting Evan stand up front with them to "bow in".





Here are the kids watching one of the weapons demonstrations. And some pics of the instructors demonstrating weapons and breaking boards. I was a little leery of having 16 kindergarten boys sitting down during a birthday party, but they were fascinated with the demonstrations, so they didn't seem to mind sitting. (And it was never for long.)

The kids also got to "spar" with one another using padded weapons. Evan sparred with his buddy Hayden and with his sister. Pressley gave it her all, but she got smoked....

One of the last games they played before cake was called "drag racing." As you can see, the kids partnered up and each held onto a short piece of canvas as one dragged the other from one end of the floor to the other. Some of the partners were a little unequal in their sizing, and you'll see below, Sensai Doug had to push Pressley's 7 year old cousin, Abby, while Pressley pulled her.

Finally, it was time for cake. Evan wanted a Power Ranger theme for this year's party. He didn't just want one power ranger; he wanted three. I told him I wasn't making any promises, but that I would give it a shot. I think it turned out pretty well, but it is definitely one of the toughest ones I've done. Good thing I keep getting better, because apparently these kids are going to keep pushing me to my cake-decorating limit!

Happy Birthday, sweet Evan. We could not be more proud of the big boy our baby has become.

May I just brag on Evan some more?

Evan had his last karate test of the school year on Saturday, and he earned a second yellow stripe. That means that the next time he tests, he should become a yellow belt. He has learned so much and enjoyed himself so much in karate this year. Our last karate "hoorah" will be on Saturday, when he has his birthday party at his karate dojo. It will be fun to see him let loose and just have fun with his friends.

After the karate test, we had to hustle on over to the soccer field for the last soccer game of the season. Evan played really well...again. He has really embraced soccer this season and enjoyed it so much more than seasons past. His team had an end-of-the-season pizza party immediately following the game, and the kids all had so much fun together. The team presented the coach with a ball that they had all signed and a gift certificate to say thanks. And the coaches presented each of the players with a medal. While handing out the medals, the coaches gave Evan a little something extra.... a new nickname. They said they had decided to call Evan "en feugo" because he had been on fire for the last several games! Yay, Evan.

Well, that is all for tonight. I am tired. I'll brag later on how well both of the kids did in their preschool music program last Wednesday night and how proud I was of Evan at his first practice swim meet last night. Or maybe I'll just wait to brag after the first actual meet next week.

I will say this: I know I haven't said too much about Pressley in the last couple of posts. But, she is just as spunky as ever. She was devastated this past Sunday when I got to wear my "slippers" (which is what she calls my peep-toe heels) and she didn't have any slippers to wear to church. She pouted and fussed and fumed all morning. I told her if she would just wear her Sunday shoes or her sandals to church without further whining, I would take her shopping for some new church shoes she would love. So, she woke up this morning and wanted to put on a church dress for the shopping trip. I resisted and suggested that we save church dresses for church and find her something more comfortable for shopping. Through crocodile tears she told me, "But mommy, I don't want to be comfortable! I want to be beautiful!!" Oh, boy. Are we in for it or what?

I don't recall how I eventually prevailed, but she did wear a more suitable dress for shopping. We found a pair of shoes that she seemed to love, so I asked her if those shoes were going to make her happy next Sunday morning when I put on my "slippers." "Yes," she said. "Humongous happy."

I'll believe a drama-free Sunday morning when I see it.

Soccer and Art

And, yes. To answer your question, that is the cleverest (ok, most clever) title I could come up with tonight. It's been a long day.

You may wonder why it has been a while since I've posted...or you may not have noticed. Maybe you've been too busy to notice. Maybe you have a schedule that now includes gymnastics, soccer, swimming, and karate, with swimming being every night of the week. Oh, wait. That's me.

So tonight should have been swimming from 5 - 5:45 and then a soccer game (to make up for one that was rained out earlier this season) at 6:00. I did not know until I went to the bus stop today that swimming is now 6 days a week as opposed to the 3 days it has been for the last 2 weeks. Apparently the only reason it was 3 days the first 2 weeks is because Agnes Scott charges us for lane time and we didn't want to have to pay more than necessary. But now that swim practice has moved to the neighborhood pool, they can make us be there as often as they want.

I asked Evan if he wanted to go to swimming for 30 minutes before his soccer game, and would he have enough energy to play soccer if he went to swim practice. He said he wouldn't have enough energy for both and that was that.

So we went to the soccer game only, which was fabulous by the way. Evan is just kickin' some major booty out there this season. So much so, that after he had scored his 4th goal about 15 minutes in (he would go on to score 6), the parents starting saying things like, "Boy, Evan is on fire tonight!" and "What did you feed that kid for dinner?" (Why, yes, he does appear to be on fire. Too bad I didn't think to feed him dinner before the game. Just think what he might have done...)

I had planned to take the kids to Moe's for dinner after the game because daddy is out of town, and what mom do you know that cooks when daddy is out of town? However, when the good moms arrived at the soccer game with the kids that were still wet from swim practice, they informed me that tonight was Art Portfolio night at school and they had packed dinner for their families so they could eat in the car and go straight to Art Night. To which I replied..."Uhhh. That was tonight??"

Well, you'll be happy to know that we made it to Moe's for a super-fast burrito (For Evan, there is no other kind. I've never seen a kid suck down a Joey Jr. as fast as this kid can. But I digress.) and still made it to art night. Granted, the hallways were somewhat deserted when we arrived, but the doors were unlocked and there was art on the walls. So, by my standards, we made it.

Below you'll find a couple few photos of my multi-talented eldest child. MVP on the soccer field (according to me) and budding artist:

Oh, and this is the butterfly - one of many - that kept landing on me during the soccer game. I know most people think butterflies are all peaceful and tranquil and beautiful, but have I mentioned before that they creep me out? I mean really creep me out. I may never recover from that one visit to the butterfly house at Calloway Gardens. [shudder] It is a wonder that I remained composed and took this photo (of my chest) instead of getting up and running away screaming like a little girl! But I thought that might be bad form.

And, I might be a wee tad biased, but I think this just might be the most handsome 5-almost-6-year-old I have ever seen. I mean...look at that kid!

Finally, a collage of some of his art:

Happy [Belated] Birthday, Lil' P

Don't worry. The celebration wasn't belated... just the reporting of it...

I don't know where to begin.

First of all, I've been feeling very nostalgic about my baby's birthday this year. She is 4 now. She will start Pre-K in the fall (er, late summer). I will no longer have her all to myself three days a week. She will likely learn to read very soon. She is grasping pre-reading concepts very well. She will become even more independent. But she will always be my baby.

Saturday, the day before her birthday, we went to the Georgia Aquarium as a family. This seems to be somewhat of a birthday tradition for us. Starting with when we took Evan to the Aquarium for the very first time on his first birthday. His sister was 4 weeks old, so we left her home with GranNan and Poppy and had some special bonding with our birthday boy. So, this year, it seemed fitting to celebrate there with P.

The kids both thoroughly enjoyed it.

Lil' P even got a special birthday cupcake when we took a break for lunch.

It was a good outing. Until.... When it was time to leave, we headed out through the gift shop and noticed that the rains had started coming down. These rains had been predicted. I don't know why we weren't better prepared. But we weren't. We had no umbrella.

So, I stayed in the gift shop with the kids while their sweet, sweet Daddy, who would do anything for them (all of us, really) paddled out into the rain to get the car. He called me when he was close, and we headed out to meet him. If you've been to the Aquarium, you know that no door is anywhere close to any street. So we had to run for it. Corin left the car, grabbed an umbrella and came to meet us.

But it was too late. Pressley had gotten wet.

For most children, certainly for our first-born child, this would be NO BIG DEAL. But for our Sweet P, it was the END OF THE WORLD. She cried like her heart was broken. "I'm wet! I have to change clothes when we get home!! There is water in my HAIR!!! And on my skirt!!"

Bless her heart. She finally calmed down a little, but I just hope the incident didn't ruin the whole experience for her.

On Sunday, we celebrated her birthday all day. She got to pick where we would eat lunch after church. Moe's, of course. Then we went home for quick naps before turning back around to head to Monkey Joe's for the party.

You may recall that Monkey Joe's is not historically one of her favorite places. But here's the deal: She wanted to have her party at Candler Park again this year - just like last year. Which I thought was great, because here is the thing about a birthday party at Candler Park: It is FREE. But what should have stood out to me was that we had great weather last year, and what are the chances of that happening two years in a row. Slim to none, right?

Right!

So, the forecast was 40-50% chance of showers for Sunday. After not sleeping the prior Sunday night and Monday night, I knew we had to do something. We talked about it Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday, we made the decision to move the party indoors. By then, the two other jumping places (without giant scary purple monkeys) were booked up. So, I had given Pressley an option: A) We could have the party on her birthday at Monkey Joe's and do our best to keep Monkey Joe away from her; or B) We could wait 10 more bedtimes (that is how she judges a day) and move the party to the next weekend. Since 10 more bedtimes is a lifetime in the eyes of an almost-four-year-old-anticipating-her-birthday, she chose Monkey Joe's.

The party was a big success - even though the weather turned out to be gorgeous. (I was consoled by the memory of the giant mud puddle that totally stressed me out last year and was surely present this year as well on account of the torrential downpours from Saturday.)

And even though Monkey Joe was an ever present source of contention throughout the party.


After Monkey Joe's, all the local family came over to the house to eat pizza and watch P open her gifts. She got lots of fun stuff and was excited by pretty much all of it. But, when my sister's family had to leave (on account of my nephew taking the CRCT the next day), we all ventured out onto the front porch to tell them goodbye.


The ulterior motive of all venturing out to the front porch to tell them goodbye, was the opportunity to show her the new bike that was sitting out there waiting for her. The problem with the way we did it was that she was very confused. She couldn't figure out why someone would leave a perfectly lovely princess bike just laying around like that. Bless her heart. As we finally explained enough that she started to figure it out, she said very slowly, "So, you mean this is my bike?" And then came the grin. The all-over-the-face-kind-of-grin that makes a mommy and daddy SO happy to have made their baby happy.

Happy Birthday, precious Pressley. Mommy and Daddy love you very much!

(Many, many more pictures at the April '10 tab above. Including a close-up of my first-ever two-tiered birthday cake, featuring Jasmine - the princess du jour.)

Annie and other inanities

The Easter Bunny brought the movie "Annie" to Pressley in her Easter basket. I have been looking forward to watching the movie with the kids, even after Corin pointed out that the Easter Bunny got the 1991 version of the movie with Kathy Bates and not the original version with Carol Burnett. Corin was out tonight, so the kids and I had movie night with "Annie".

So, now I shall share my thoughts on the re-make of one of my favorite childhood movies. (I was always real mad that I didn't have red hair as a child because I thought that was all that was standing between me and my dream of playing Annie on Broadway. Little did I realize that my inability to carry a tune in a bucket at that age was likely a much bigger obstacle.)

Pros: 1) I appreciated the fact that Ms. Hannigan was not slogging away on a fifth of whiskey through most of the movie as Carol Burnett's version of the character was prone to do. That might be a little hard to explain to the kids. 2) I really appreciated the fact that this movie did not contain any scenes where the fake parents actually absconded with Annie for some period of time and chased her through a construction site, or up a ladder or across a train trestle. I really don't remember the specifics, but I remember it was high and precarious and dark and scary and always made me very uptight. And Pressley is easily made uptight about those sorts of things, so it was nice to not have her clutching me through the last 20 minutes of the movie like she did during "Up."

Cons: 1) It was not the original. 2) They omitted the "Dumb Dog" song. Helllooo.... Why would they do that? Sing it with me now... "Dumb dog. Why are you followin' me? I ain't got a crumb, dog. So how about letting me be? I ain't gonna feed you. Don't have a snack for you. HHmmm, hmmm. Dum, dum, dum, dum, for you..." OK. So, I forgot some of the words, but how will I ever re-learn them now, when the only version of the movie in my house fails to include such an important element? 3) There is no scene in the pool with young Annie sporting a bathing cap. Crying shame, really.

I could go on with the cons, but really, the re-make was pretty decent. I mean, it did still feature "Hard Knock Life" and "Never Fully Dressed without a Smile." (Have I shared too much?)

Seriously, I can't believe I just wrote a whole post on the movie "Annie." This is what insomnia the night before throwing a party for 26 four-year-olds will drive a grown woman to. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to bed and stare at the ceiling and worry about how exactly I'm supposed to cut the tiered cake that I just made to serve the maximum number of party guests. Or maybe I'll worry about how much Monkey Joe's will charge me for the 2 extra guests I might have. Or maybe I'll worry about how I've been blowing my diet all day today by eating sushi and untold nibbles of the pound cake I cut off to try to prevent the cake from being lopsided. (Totally lopsided anyway. I should have left those shavings on there and saved myself the calories.) Or how I intend to continue blowing my diet tomorrow by having a piece of pizza and a piece of cake. Or maybe I'll worry that I've become one of those people who can't just enjoy her kid's birthday without obsessing over the number of calories it may cause her to ingest.

Oh, so much to worry about and so few hours before morning....

Hey, on a positive note, now I don't have to say I wrote a whole post about "Annie." Now I can title the post, "Annie and other inanities."

See what happens when I come to the computer after my bedtime?

Goodnight.

Inside her brain

I'm trying to get ready for Pressley's birthday party this weekend. Part of the prep is getting the frosting transfer ready for her cake. She wants Jasmine on her cake this year, so a couple of days ago, I found a couple of coloring book pages that I thought I could use. I decided to let her choose which one she wanted on the cake. So I showed her the following two pictures:

(I know the quality is poor. And, I tried and tried to get them to show up next to each other, but as we all know, I'm technologically challenged and that was apparently beyond my skill level.)

I asked her which one she would like on her cake. She laid them side by side and thought for a moment.

"Welllll," she said. "When she's doing this [pointing to the top picture above], she looks like a kid. But when she's sitting at her mira, she looks like a princess. And she needs to look like a princess. So, I guess this one [pointing at the bottom picture above]."

Alrighty then. Decision made. And good to know that lying on one's tummy with ankles raised and crossed makes one look like a kid. I think I may start trying that as I approach my forties. See if it makes me look more youthful.

Stay tuned for pictures of the cake. (But if you think I'm doing that vanity, you've got another think coming. There will be Jasmine and there will be something for her to perch on. That is it. I hope she still looks like a princess when the "mira" is out of the equation.)

** Just one more little note. My spell check just informed me that I don't even know how to spell technologically-challenged on my own. So sad when a once-bright mind goes dim...

Siblings

I have been wanting to write this post for a long time, but for some reason, I've just been having such a hard time getting to the computer. (Incidentally, if you are wishing I would post more often, feel free to contribute to my laptop fund!!)

I digress. I have been so enjoying this stage in the kids' relationship as brother and sister. Evan and Pressley are so sweet together (most of the time) these days. They are very playful and loving. And he is very protective - well, unless he is tormenting her. Which brings me to the first story I wanted to share

While we were on Spring Break a couple of weeks ago, the kids enjoyed playing on the beach and in the pool together. Last summer, both were strong swimmers, but Pressley seems to have forgotten that she can swim. In fact, she said one day in amazement of another little girl her age in the pool, "Look, Mommy...that little girl can swim!" Ummm, I answered... "So can YOU!"

But she was having none of it. The pool was a "lagoon" pool and was centered around two small "islands". Evan enjoyed swimming back and forth to the islands, but Pressley wouldn't leave the security of the steps. (Even though toward the end of the trip, she was swimming on the surface of the water. It just happened to be the surface above the steps.) Anyway, Evan decided Pressley shouldn't have to miss the islands and the waterfall, so he decided he would carry her there across the shallow end. Then he decided he would play a good old fashoined game of UPsy Daisy with her. It went something like this....Step, Step, Step, Dunk (as he said UPsy daisy); Step, Step, Dunk; Step, Dunk; Dunk; Dunk; Dunk. The closer together the dunks (and the UPsy daisies) got, the more she sputtered. Mom and dad and I - through our laughter - were yelling, "Evan! No! Stop sweetie! She can't breathe!" When he finally stopped and deposited her safely on the steps, she looked at us, bewildered, and said (not really so mad as she was confused), "Why did Evan keep ducking me under the water and saying upsy daisy? He just kept doing it and saying upsy daisy! Just ducking me under and saying upsy daisy...."

Ahhh, siblings.

Then, we were at church last Wednesday night. After our activities were done, I was letting the kids run around and play in the courtyard outside while I chatted with my mom. (I like to wear them out before I bring them home whenever possible, and this night I knew Corin was working late and I'd have the bedtime shift by myself...) So they were playing and Pressley tripped over a seam in the sidewalk (she is her mama's child) and splatted on the pavement. I tried - I really did - not to react. But I knew it hurt. After I stifled a gasp, I tried the whole, "You're OK. Hop up and brush it off" thing, but it was too late. She'd heard the stifled gasp and she knew her knees and elbow were scraped. She ran to me and climbed up in my lap, howling.

Sweet little Evan (of recent dunking fame) came running over with concern in his eyes and gently placed a hand on each of her knees to keep the air from getting to her scrapes. They both stayed like that for a few seconds and then Pressley let go of me and leaned over to him and just hugged him and held him. It melted my heart. A precious moment indeed.

Ahhh, siblings.

When we go to the shoe store and the cashier gives her stickers, she asks if she can also have some for her brother who is at school. (And she doesn't ever keep them for herself.) He helps her get buckled in her carseat and sometimes even unbuckles her without being asked. She cheers for him at his basketball and soccer games. He tries to teach her to read.

Ironically, since I started this post, they have been fighting like cats and dogs. Despite the fact that Pressley has been at Berry with me this weekend and Evan has been home with his dad. You'd think they would have missed each other.

I have threatened to make them eat dinner alone in their rooms. Threatened to make them go to bed early. But the best thing I could have done is just what I did. Sit right here and finish this post and remind myself that I am really fortunate (and maybe we're even raising them right) that they love each other as much as they do.

I am optimistic that as they grow up, no matter how much they bicker, they will always love each other deeply, protect each other fiercly, enjoy each other's company, and yes, even torment each other from time to time. Because, after all...that's what siblings are for. Right?