Happy Birthday Mommy!

Well it is official, I am a 30 year old. It's actually a nice feeling. I still feel like the same little girl living at my parent's house, except that I have a little girl and boy of my own. I think I am at peace with this because I am exactly where I wanted to be at 30. I am married, have a successful career and 2 amazing kids, one on the way and one looking down on me from Heaven. This year has been rotten, but I am over all very blessed.

For my birthday, Paul wanted to do have a super fun party. His parents graciously let us take over their backyard and he threw a big ho-down. Everyone dressed in their best cowboy/girl attire and bounced in a Horse bouncy house, played games and had a delicious barbeque. Paul even wore a blowup cowboy/horse suite to deliver me my birthday brownies. My parents, Paul's folks, the Merandi's, the Tannen's, John, Adrienne and their clan, Mike and Becky, Buny and Doug, and Donna were all there to celebrate my big day. We had a fabulous time and I can't think of a better way than to have celebrated... ME!

Soccer Anyone?

We signed Allison up for daddy and me soccer this summer and Andrew for big boy Tot Soccer. Needless to say, Allison loved it and Andrew hated it. I think Andrew expected Paul to participate with him like he had done the previous summer, so when reality hit that Andrew had to fly solo, he wanted nothing to do with it. The first lesson went great until he slipped on the ball and went flying, and got super embarrassed. After that it was all down hill. We tried every approach: tough love, yelling, supportive, bribery, TLC, Paul even got out there with the other little kids and Andrew still refused to participate. We tried practicing at home, talking about it on a daily basis, building up his confidence, but nothing worked... the boy did not want to play.

Allison on the other hand loved it! She was by far the youngest one out there, and the cutest of course. She ran around and kicked the ball everywhere laughing the whole time. It was great to see her have some bonding time with daddy. I think I see a soccer girl in the future.

Movie Night in the backyard

I have been wanting to do this all summer and we finally made it happen. My perfect night was going to be warm, quiet, full of cuddles and a great movie blown up huge on the big white wall in the backyard. It turned out warm, restless, Liberty crawling all over the place, the sun not setting until well after bed time and a movie that we had to start too early because it was getting late. But all in all we had a great time. We set up our "half tent" and ate a picnic dinner on the grass, and around 8pm started the movie that we could barely see because the sun was still up. We watched The Land Before Time, and both of the kids loved it and had a ball. It got surprisingly cold considering it was a hot August day. We will defiantly be doing this again.