Lace 'em up boys

A six quart crockpot filled with chili

Three dozen steamed hotdogs

Many chicken wings

Two giant thermoses filled with hot chocolate (peppermint schnapps, optional)

30 bottles of water

Many cans of beer

Two dozen brownies, a dozen chocolate chip squares and a dozen cupcakes

Chips & salsa, jax and popcorn

+

Eightish inches of ice and forty (!!!!) people

=

Sunday afternoon at my house.


In the latest great debate entitled "Should we invite the whole team?" we did, in fact, invite the whole team. Plus a few families from teams past. There were alot of idon'tknows and we'll sees in the locker room on Sunday morning. But post game, when the goalie shouted "Hey, whose going skating at *boy's name* house?!?!" Well, that appears to have tipped the scales. Many parents caved to the begging and we had a full house. Or full pond.

My heart skipped a bit when they started pulling in, especially because about 15 of the people were all firmly among the "thanks, but I doubt it" camp. Obviously, pleading children and 35 degree weather won out.

Beer Sled

Saturday we had the entire pond to ourselves. The boy had two friends over to skate and they could literally skate the entire thing, shore to shore. A rare occurance in these parts and to these boys? Very, very cool. A pesky one inch of snow fell on Saturday night so the husband and son took to the ice at seven a.m. clearing a rink for a game and a smaller rink for twirly girls (figure skaters) and littler kids with big paths connecting them to form a loop. Dedicated guys, those two.

Not really Lost...But Found Anyway...

courtesy of google and too much diet coke after 9 p.m. :

an ex-long distance high school romance fella with a poetry blogspot blog.

and

this:


another long ago boyfriend. Now, a professional snowboarder.

Both guys doing what they dreamed of.

Impressive.

On the whole crazy playdate thing: While I could have taken the confrontational route...I did not. I could not. 1.) I was kind of taken aback; 2.) It was a bratz doll, not a joint; 3.) I didn't find out the details of the day until we were on our way home and 4.) There's no need to have the girlie blacklisted by the gestapo mom brigade in town. We can quietly decline future playdate invites or just keep them to a minimum - same result, less drama.

Take Note. I'm Posting Every Day This Month. I swear. Now, put the gun down.

A mom of one of the girlie's classmates invited her over for a few hours the week before last. She offered to pick her up after school and I'd pick her up at their house a few hours later. Not a problem. I know of the family, the kids are nice, etc. - while we aren't really past the 'mom stays too' playdate when it comes to new friends, we know enough people in this small town that now, with child #2, I'm running into the families that have kids my son's age.

Anyway.

When I get there to pick up the girlie, my daughter says that they haven't even had a chance to play. I'm thinking it's just an excuse because she doesn't want to leave yet. Turns out, they weren't home. At all. They went out to lunch, then did an errand or two, then went to Target. Where, after my girlie said that I won't buy her Bratz dolls because they wear too much makeup, the mom buys her a Bratz doll.

Is that normal? To not tell me that she had a few things to do and was going to take them to lunch? And then buy her a toy that even she says isn't something her mom would allow. The mom said she bought her a toy because it was her (my girl's) birthday and her own daughter wanted one. And so, there was no playing on their playdate.

Why can't this whole dealing with other parents thing be easy? I won't be saying anything to the mom and will probably end up inviting the daughter to our house but really...am I way off base here?

And okay, so maybe I'm crazy but I'm not a fan of Bratz dolls - it's the name, slutty attire AND makeup. Not just the makeup. That being said, she's right - I won't buy her one but if she got one as a gift I'd wouldn't go all commando and not let her use it. But I am sort of enjoying the fact that it's sitting under her bed, forgotton.

Two Outta Three Ain't Bad

well, we're 66.6% done with the birthday celebrations.

1. Birthday Trip to Build a Bear - check. Last year, it might have even been the night of her 5th birthday, she said that she wanted to go back to build another bear - just her and I. She's loved Nellie more than I would've ever even prayed a girl could love a much too expensive stuffed dog and she's waited so patiently for her return trip - and now we have Butterscotch.
And yes, perfectly safe to take pictures while your driving. Didn't you learn that in your Driver's Ed class?

Family + a bonus best friend party - check. And there were babies...two babies...which gave the rest of us plenty of reason to oooh and ahhhh. The favorite present was a my little pony notebook set that - because it is the favorite - has been used non-stop for the past 36 hours. Thanks SP! Plus I scalded everyone's mouth with my soup...oops.

And now we're moving on to the High School Musical Birthday Party. We're converting her room to the dressing room, complete with full length mirror and a big gold star on the door, a karaoke machine with Troy & Gabriella singing their little high school hearts out, T-Shirt decorating, and some sort of basketball game (Go Wildcats!). I think I'm up to eight girls - which is like, six to many (hah!) - and the husband is working so he misses the whole thing. And him missing it totally bums me out - we're totally a party team...he's a better hostess to the moms than I ever could be. He's the drink server and let me get you a chair type of guy. I'm more of a "oh, you're thirsty AGAIN?!?! the drinks are in the cooler..." type of girl.

Today the girlie is off to her first kindergarten friend playdate (ACK - I hate that word!). And I don't have any plans from 9:00 a.m. until 2:40 p.m. - the mind reels.

She needs two hands to show how old she is

Six years ago yesterday.














A kiss from an older brother.

Arriving home.
















so absolutely kissable at four weeks old.












again, with the smoochable.













three hours ago.

six years have gone by in what feels like minutes.

Happy Birthday Girlie.

Okay, I'm not what you would call organized. I don't wear a watch. My calendar starts off promisingly in January and then I forget about it until hockey starts again in September...you get the idea.

But I just made an AGENDA for tonight's daisy girl scout meeting.

Go aheah...put the L on your forehead...I know it already...Looosaaaah.

Mostly because I'm scared of looking like an bumbling idiot in front of the other moms and the other leader mom was all..."I don't know, um, we should be fine, I'll bring some construction paper." That type of thing throws me headfirst into panic mode.

I volunteered to help with the troop and when I met the other volunteer mom...I didn't really like her. She was okay, I guess, but there was no good vibe feeling. Which kind of stinks. Plus her emails are ALWAYS in different style fonts and colors and sizes. And yes - This is an issue. Green italics garamond, blue bold size 24 jester, teeny purple times new roman. Oy. She's pleasant enough and all, just was hoping we'd click a little better since she plans on holding meetings until June.

Well, I'm off to cook dinner, make copies, get the snack together, wrap some books, go to the post office, meet the son at the bus stop, take a shower, watch last week's Survivor, set up the VCR to tape tonight's Survivor, head to Daisy's and then to work. Chow.

Last Saturday

not this past Saturday...but a week and a half ago...we were the recipients (or rather, the boy's league was) of some free Bruins tickets. Generally these are upper balcony, obstructed view type of tickets but this time, because it was still pre-season, they so weren't. Some of us got luxury box tickets and some of us got seats right in front of the boxes. We opted to sit with friends in front of the boxes because this is how my nine year old watches the game:
And he doesn't think you'd get a good enough view from inside the room. He's probably right.