Family Reunion- Lake Style

We were at my family reunion at the Lake of the Ozarks from Thursday night (18th) until Wednesday (25th). Well, me and William were- Lawrence only got to join us for a brief time from late Saturday night to Monday afternoon.

We had a blast. My aunt Jackie and late Uncle Walt have two houses down there. The reunion has grown and shrunk in size over the years as kids grow up and families get busy. The reunion is my mom's side of the family. She has two brothers and her sister is my Aunt Jackie. Then there are lots of cousins and second cousins (I don't think I'm at third cousins yet- maybe one) When I was a kid my Uncle and Aunt from Ohio would come down with their kids, but I don't think any of them have come in almost 15 years. Now instead of me and my brothers and cousins being the "young ones," my older cousins all have teenage kids now and my brothers and me all have little kids. My cousin Mitch (Jackie's son) is even a grandpa already.

It's all chaos and craziness and silly fun. A lot of people got there on Thursday and then most everyone else (except Lawrence) came down on Friday. Over the weekend there were 30 people running around. Then most people left on Sunday or Monday so I got a couple quiet days where there were only about 11 or 12 of us. We usually do a lot of boating, tubing, riding the jet skis, swimming, laughing, playing cards, drinking, singing, and dancing.

This year was no exception. There were some hilarious moments over the weekend. Like when my little brother and cousin Andy got the teenage boys to swim over to the island at 3am to try to move this ugly old dock along the shore and out of our line of sight. Me and Lori and Erin sat on our dock listening to them. It was pitch black and nobody could see much, but their voices echoed off the water. I made beer come out of Erin's nose because we were laughing so hard. Another night I got a wild hair and went up to the gas station and bought some Captain Morgan's. Now I don't drink much anymore. I have a couple drinks maybe once a week (like 2 or 3 on a "crazy" night) with my friends. Anyway, this night I convinced (it didn't take much) my sister Lori to drink Captain and Coke with me. Needless to say the two of us split the entire bottle by ourselves. We had a great time. I ended up playing some drinking game with my almost legal cousins and everyone was singing and laughing. It was quite the good time. I went to bed around 2:30 and then got up and puked 20 minutes later (I told you I don't drink!). Of course, that morning the little man decided to get up at 6am. NICE! I guess that is karma.

William had a blast. Not only was Alex there, but Aaron and Lori brought Lori's nephew Michael who is also 8 years old. So there were three boys near the same age. They did lots of swimming and tubing and begged for lots of rides on the jet skis. I bought William a fishing pole and he caught a couple fish while we were down there. Of course the boys also bickered some. At one point Alex and William were at each other and I kept asking them to stop because I was trying to fix the jet ski and they were standing next to me going back and forth at each other. Finally my mom and dad came down and my dad was helping me. I stood up and Alex and William were still at it, so I picked them up one at a time and tossed them in the lake. Alex didn't say much, but boy was William mad at me. You would have thought I tossed him in a pit of snakes or something. He had on his swimsuit and life jacket, so it's not like he wasn't prepared to get in the water. Oh well, it taught them a lesson- Don't argue around water or you might get tossed in! =)

I have a couple pictures right now and then some more on the home computer that I'll add later.

Baseball

William is playing baseball for the BOSTON RED SOX.

OK, he's playing for the YMCA Red Sox, but it's about as exciting as if he were playing major league ball. He's so handsome in his baseball outfit. And the kid has some potential.

So I got a little weirded out at his first baseball practice. I was standing there with all the parents watching them practice and I just had this out of body experience. I was like- how did I get here? How did I become a parent to an 8 (now 9) year old. I was having flashbacks to my dad coaching my little league. It seems like yesterday that I was only 8 years old...

Anyway...back to William. He's pretty good. He's got an arm and he can catch and he's not afraid of getting in front of the ball. We do need to go to the batting cages because even though he's hitting in practice, he has struck out in both the games they have played so far. His biggest problem though is paying attention and keeping focused. It's as if his little body just won't let him. He tries so hard to stand still and watch what's going on. He does this funny little move where he jumps and bends his legs back and touches his shoes with his hands. He seems to do it when he gets excited. It's cute. But sometimes I worry he's going to get beamed with a ball while doing his little jump move.

I volunteered to help coach, but there are a lot of others who did also. The last game they asked me to be the bench coach. Meaning that when our team was up to bat I kept the kids in order on the bench and told them when to get into the on deck circle. It was fun. The whole thing is just fun. It is the first time he has played organized sports. I love being able to get him involved in activities that he has never gotten to experience.

Before each game the teams come on the field and say the YMCA sportsman's pledge:

And this is the little man's first at bat in the big leagues (gotta get that elbow up):

Camp Invention

William had one week off between school and summer school. I feel sort of sad for him. I remember looking forward to summer so much. Long days of doing nothing but playing outside. Running around with friends.

And poor William has to go to school and he lives in an urban neighborhood where he is only allowed to "play" in a half block radius around our house. His bus comes a half hour earlier than during the school year so when he goes to bed he hears kids outside. It makes me appreciate my stay-at-home mom growing up. And it makes me feel guilty that William has two dads that work and he has to go to summer school and then an after school program. It's just a different life than what I had. I know that he loves his after school program and summer school is mostly field trips and fun stuff and is more about learning appropriate social interactions than about academics, but when I have to wake up the little man at 6:30am and he whines about how I woke him from the best dream ever, I feel a little guilty.

So, his one week off from school. He spent it at Camp Invention. And he had a great week. We couldn't get alot out of him about what he did, but he seemed to have a great time. From what we did get, they learned about recycling and they took apart things to see how they worked (we sent him to camp with the phone from our kitchen because we couldn't find any other electronic that we didn't want. We still haven't replaced it, so if you call the house and I don't answer it's because I'm down stairs and there is no phone!)

He didn't get in any trouble at camp and I think mostly what they did was play around. On the last day I went and he gave me the "tour" of the different classrooms and teachers. William is such a social little creature. He knew all the counselors names and wanted me to meet them all and they all told me how adorable he was. Part of that is that he is just a social butterfly and some of it is that he uses his cuteness to get what he wants. He is really smart and manipulative. He told me the other night "I'm so cute I can get people to do whatever I want." He is very aware of his "powers." It's kind of scary sometimes. Being his parent you learn to cut through the BS. The cuteness worked at first but now that we have his number he's trying to figure out new ways to manipulate the situation in his favor. He has survived so far in life through manipulation of his environment. I get it...it's just not always easy.

On a lighter note, our lillies are blooming. Next to Iris, lillies are my favorite flower in our garden. We planted a bunch a few years ago and each year when they come back there are more and more. There is one that is a deep red that started as a single stalk with a couple flowers. This year Lawrence tried counting all the flower buds and I think he stopped at 130. They are really gorgeous. We have red, yellow, orange, a very light orange and a very deep red. Lawrence planted more this year and we'll have to wait a year to see the colors. For now, enjoy the pics.

Welcome to the Family Party

Our friends Gary and Jamie threw us a Shower to welcome William to the family. It was a combined "Big-guy shower" and birthday party. It was awesome. The two of them did such an amazing job and everything was just perfect. The three of us had so much fun and William did so well. I thought he might have a melt down from being overstimulated and receiving too many presents, but he did awesome. Until right before bedtime he was a rock star. He was cute and sincere and sweet and very appreciative. I was sooo proud of him.

And we had a blast. It was a crazy mixture of our families and our different groups of friends. I think everyone had fun, but I'm positive that my family did. Of course there isn't a party that my family wouldn't enjoy. My sister, Abby, made him a SpongeBob cake. It was so cute. I'll post pictures once I get them from Jamie (I kept losing my camera throughout the night. Of course the beer I was drinking could have had something to do with that).

The highlight of the party was when William opened his presents. He was so grateful and was opening one at a time and commenting on them (in a good way) before moving on. And then...he opened "The Box!" Our friends Gary, Jamie, Charisse, John, Jelena, and Ian had all gone in together and bought him a Wii.

My little brother was sitting there and he said that he got choked up at William's reaction. He opened it, squealed a little, and then these big alligator tears just started rolling down his face. He was so happy and so excited that he cried. It was honestly one of the most heartfelt responses I have ever witnessed.

And since the party, we all have LOVED having the Wii. It really does rock. Lawrence and I have stayed up until 1 am a couple of weeknights playing the dumb game. It is really fun!!!

Good Times!!

William's B-Day - Results

William had such a good birthday. After the pancakes, I picked him up at school and we went swimming (one of his favorite past times). Then we came home and Lawrence and I watched him open his presents. The first few got very sweet, very excited reactions. But it was the Heelys that he had been asking for for three months that made his day. His reaction was hilarious and was caught on film. I have named these pictures 1) Surprise, 2) Speechless, 3) Praise Jesus, 4) OMG, and 5) This is for real!

After the presents we went to Incredible Pizza (which is like Chucky Cheese but WAY better) and ate and played games and rode bumper cars and got sick on ice cream and cake. It was beautiful!

William's Birthday!

Today is William's 9th birthday! I woke him up by singing to him. And just so you know...I can't sing. Lawrence won't let me sing to him. And my own mother once leaned over to me in church when I was little and said: "Why don't you just hum along?!" (She's hates when I tell that story.)

So our little man is nine...

He asked for pancakes for his birthday breakfast, so I got up early and mixed up some batter and threw in a little yellow food coloring and created...

SPONGEBOB!

He was so excited. It was too cute. He didn't seem to mind that SpongeBob seemed to have one leg in a cast or was suffering from some disease that causes major inflammation of the extremities. I also decorated the kitchen with Happy Birthday banners. It was very fun.

We let him open one of his presents...which was (of course) "SpongeBob: The Movie." He loved it and it is fun because he is so easy to please. He has to wait until this evening to open the rest. We got him another SpongeBob DVD, a 10 family games in one box thing (it includes Chinese checkers, Chess, checkers, etc.), and we got him Heelys (those shoes with wheels). He has been asking for them since he moved in so I think he'll squeak like a little mouse when he opens them. For now he was just happy to have SpongeBob pancakes...talk about appreciating the little things!

My boys...

I was recently harassed by my sister Kristi for not having a picture of my husband on my blog. =) In order to remedy that I made the two of them pose for me last night. They were actually in the middle of arguing about going to bed, so the little man had to be persuaded to smile through some gentle tickling!
And for calling me out =) my sister gets her picture posted on the blog along with my other siblings (from left to right- Kristi, Jeff, Me, and Aaron).
Back to my boys. We had a good weekend, although I had tonsilitis and was not feeling great (I'm horrible when I'm sick. I really just want to be left alone, but with an 8 year old in the house that isn't possible. So I got a little snippy with him a couple times.) Lawrence occupied him quite a bit and played games with us. William loves board games. We played both Sorry and Yahtzee as a family. Me and Lawrence both beat the little man at Sorry, but he kicked our butts by over a hundred points at Yahtzee. The lucky duck got two Yahtzee's. He got Yahtzee this weekend as a present from one of my high school friends. Of course he opened everything so fast that I'm not sure if it was from Holly and Jason or from Allison's parents. But we'll throw a shout out to both! Yahtzee is our new obsession. He also got this SpongeBob Lego spaceship from Allison and Andy. We built it when we got home on Saturday night.

Interestingly I was just telling my friend Gary the other day that I was concerned because William doesn't do "imagination play." It makes me sad because I was lost in my imagination as a child. I created all sorts of worlds with my Legos, Transformers, and Star Wars figures. Sometimes the hot wheels even came to visit! But William doesn't do that. He doesn't like to be in his room by himself and he doesn't use his imagination. Gary says that is normal in kids who have been traumatized. But then on Saturday night after we finished building the Lego I was cleaning up and he started talking as the voices of the little SpongeBob lego figures and was wheeling around the little underwater car. I almost started crying. I quietly left him to his imagination. And then on Sunday morning he woke up early (of course) and was downstairs watching cartoons and playing with his Legos. I loved it and I think it is a really good sign.

Speaking of games. If you look closely at the picture of Lawrence and William above you'll notice a chess board on William's bed. I taught him to play chess over Memorial Day weekend and now he can't get enough. He knows all the rules and how the pieces move and we play it once or twice a day. He's getting much better. He hasn't beat me yet, but he played me to a draw the other night and he's getting more strategic at taking pieces. He's so smart with these kind of games.

I'm going to try to post more often. The problem of course is that I usually post while at work and work has been crazy. Sometimes I post from home, but it is usually so hectic that I don't get a chance. There is usually about an hour and a half after William goes to bed until my bedtime, but that is filled with chores and taking 20 minutes to just chill. Anyway, I'm gonna try to be better. Especially because tonight is William's first baseball practice. He's playing on a YMCA team. We went and bought him cleats and pants (and a jock strap and cup- boy that was fun to explain in the middle of the store and then have him be obnoxious with it). But he is sooo excited. We have been practicing the last two weeks and the kid actually has a hell of an arm for as little as he is. I'll be sure to embarrass him by taking pictures tonight. He is a little upset that his team's name is the Red Sox. He REALLY wanted to be the Cardinals.