New experiences

This weekend was full of new experiences! Saturday was the day I have been waiting for since Donovan turned three. It was his first trip to the movie theater!!! I am not 100% sure he was really ready, but I was so I kinda forced it on him. Plus I knew he would have a great time. We went and saw "Monsters University" as it has been out for over a month now and I thought it would be pretty dead in the theater in case we had loud kids or had to leave early. We went with Dono's bestie Ian and his mom as it was Ian's first time at the movies too. Here are the little tykes posing in front of a "Turbo" advertisement. There weren't and "Monsters" posters still up.  The boys were really excited! We went to a 10:00 show. Perfect for the 4 yr old crowd.

We made sure to get some refreshments to keep the boys happy. They got popcorn, M&Ms, fruit snacks and a slushie. Luckily 4 yr olds can't eat all that so I got to help too.  This was Dono waiting for the show to start. He refused to relax and sit back in his seat. For every preview he would ask, "Is this the movie mom?"

Pretty whited out but still a fun one of me and Dono in the dark, waiting for the main event. Can you tell how happy I was to be back in the theater seeing a movie?

The boys did really well and both made it though the movie! Ian would ask questions in his regular loud voice so that was funny. Dono spent about half the time on my lap and jumped pretty high at one point but didn't really get upset about anything. This was the boys afterwards.

We already have the next movie for the boys to go see all planned out for them.  I think they will agree to it as long as they get to hang out together.

Then on Sunday we got this awesome opportunity to go to the cardinals game and sit in a suite. One of Tom's friends from college was in town for his 35th birthday and his (apparently awesome) wife got him the suite as a present. So a bunch of us and kids were invited and Tom and I jumped at the chance to go as a family because, hey, free tickets! And plus we figured this would be the best way to ease Reese into the baseball atmosphere. It was her first cardinals game!

She was pumped! Walking around the stadium to get our tickets before the game she leaned up to my ear and said "I am a baseball girl!"  Dono requested the below picture by Dizzy Dean's statue, but then some people were there by the time we got back with my phone to take a pic so we settled on the Ozzie Smith one instead.

After we got our tickets it was straight to the build a bear store. I envisioned both kids making a Fredbird for YEARS now but they had other plans. Dono wanted a cardinal bird, which I was totally fine with, and Reese wanted a flipping Hello Kitty. Seriously. Couldn't even sway her with the clydesdale.  But alas I let her get it because above all I like my little girl to be happy and happy she was. Then it was up to the suite for more playing with Ian, free food and baseball.

Reese got to partake in some Cotton candy on behalf of Ian's daddy. She was in heaven.

About mid game (just as the Cardinals were about to score all their runs) the kids decided they wanted to go to the kids area and play. As we were almost there we ran into FREDBIRD!!!!!! Reese was so excited! She was a little hesitant at first but then stood there like a champ and then NEVER STOPPED TALKING ABOUT HIM THE REST OF THE GAME!  It went a little something like this:

Reese: "I saw Fredbird. I want to see Fredbird again. Where is Fredbird? Fredbird was missing me. I want to go see Fredbird again. Fredbird was missing me. I not want Fredbird to come in my crib. I not want Fredbird to come in my house. Fredbird was missing me. Where is Fredbird?"

I finally had to tell her that Fredbird was resting or taking a nap so that she gave me a break asking where he was and if she could go see him. Everytime we saw him in the crowd she would point and get all excited like she saw a celebrity. Who knew she could love that bird so much.

Here are the three amigo's on the way to the play place. A little blurry but still cute.

Overall the kids did really well, especially considering neither of them got a nap that day. We ended up staying for the end of the game (although we were walking out as they made the last out) and hitting the team store for some new cardinals shirts. And the cardinals even pulled off a win! It was a very fun and enjoyable game, as far as those go with a 2 and a 4 yo. Tom and I joke that next game when we have to go sit in the cheap seats and there are no new shirts or stuffed animals gotten, the kids will get a real taste of what baseball games are like and be pissed. Guess we should not have started with such a high bar.

65th wedding anniversary

Last weekend was completely awesome! The whole B family traveled in from far and wide to celebrate my grandparents 65th, yes 65th, wedding anniversary. We love our B family and truly treasure these rare opportunities when we all get together. It went by too fast but lots of fun was had in the three short days we had with everyone.

My cousin Anne and her family of 5 and my cousin Laura came down Thursday night and stayed with us until Sunday. The kids played together great and us adults love the hang out time so it was wonderful. Friday I took off work and we all (minus Tom, sad face) went to the Zoo.  We had a wonderful time and got to see the new baby elephant!  We extended the zoo trip with a picnic in forest park before we went home and crashed for naps.

Here are the kids (minus baby Gavin) in front of the chimpanzees. Dylan, Dono, Reese and Claire.

Playing at the children's zoo.

Dono getting his pants wet in the splash area so he would slide down the slide faster. It was good in theory but did not pan out how he expected.

Riding on the train. When one of the ladies took the kids tickets she said "thank you gentlemen" which had them cracking up. She said it again at the next stop to which the boys cracked up and said, "thank you gentle lady!" They really cracked themselves up.

Friday night we went to my parents and hung out with the family. I think we counted there was about 30 plus people there that night. The kids swam in a blow up pool for a long time, then played down stairs and us adults actually got to enjoy ourselves and talk to other adults for the most part. It was amazing!

Saturday morning was doughnuts and a little bit of a sleep in. Reese slept til 8:45!!!! Which is totally a record. Turns out she sleeps past 6 if you keep her up til 10:45 and run her completely ragged outside all day.

Baby Gavin. He is a full year younger than Reese and wears the same size diapers and is as heavy if not more than her. He loves food.

After breakfast we all packed up and went to where my cousin Katie boards her horse Blackjack. The kids really got a kick out of seeing and petting him.

Then she broke out the owner of the stable's pony, Dudley, and the kids helped her get him ready for pony rides. She figured a pony was more their speed and this nervous mother was more than appreciative of that.

Dono and Dylan managed to sneak in a totally unprovoked man hug.

Reese got to go first as we went from youngest to oldest and man was she pumped! She was not shy or hesitant at all. She was real concerned when her foot would not stay in one of the stirrups about 1/3 of the way through but she got over that after I got it back in. She just wanted to be riding the pony all right and stuff.

Then it was Dylan and then Dono's turn. Here sister is watching her brother.

He also was loving life.  Could not have been happier or prouder to be up there.

Notice both kids had to wear their cowboy/girl boots? I loved it!

Running to go see the horses in the pasture. 

Gavin even got in on the action but had to wear Reese's pink helmet. He still rocked it though.

I love this picture of Donovan sauntering back. Looks like a little cowboy.

After pony rides we headed back, got freshened up and headed to the main event, a luncheon for my grandparents. We all had a lovely meal and time visiting. Reese took a 45 min nap on my shoulder, woke up for a quick meal and then we were off again for my parents house. The kids swam and played on the slip n'slide for hours and hours and hours.  They started at about 3:30 and took a couple breaks in between but did not stop swimming until 8:30, and Donovan was the last one to stop! Had the other kids kept going he would have as well!  Again, another great day of visiting and playing and fun. We didn't get home until about 10 again that night and my kids were still wide awake the weirdos.  Luckily it was another 8:45 wake up call for Reese Sunday morning. We could definitely get used to that! This was the kids on Sunday morning before they had to leave.  Sad :(

We are already ready for our next big B get together. I guess someone has to get married!  Happy wedding anniversary Grandma and Grandpa! What a great example you have set for all of us! A high bar to reach for sure!

DAD POST: One of the Best Nights of My Life

This past Monday, our old neighbor Mr. Chai texted me and asked me if I wanted two free tickets to the Cardinals game on Wednesday. Well we have kind of a big weekend this weekend with Ellen's family and some of them are staying at our house, so I politely declined in favor of staying home and helping to clean up the house (because I'm pretty much the best husband there is). Mr. Chai then texted me a picture of the two tickets and told me I might want to reconsider. When I looked up the section I did indeed reconsider as they were in the 12th row directly behind home plate.

Now, who gets to be the lucky person that goes with me?

Ellen was all slated to go but then remembered she was on call that night, so she was out. She suggested I take Donovan, even though it would be a late night, because the seats were so good. I thought on it for a while (because we already had a full family day at the ballpark planned next weekend) and I decided that I agreed with her (shocker) and I should take Donovan to his first proper baseball game. At this point I was pretty amped up. This was going to be a boys night out and we were going to do it up right.

The next night (Tuesday) when we were all eating dinner we decided to tell Donovan about the big surprise. It went a little something like this:

Mommy: (holding tickets) Dono, do you know what these are?
Dono: Tickets? Cardinals?
Mommy: Yes, do you know what that means?
Dono: I'm going to the baseball game?
Mommy and Daddy: YEAH!! Are you excited?
Dono: Is Sugar Shane gonna be there?

Sugar Shane refers to Cardinals bench player Shane Robinson, Donovan's favorite player. I was super excited about all of this and work on Wednesday was absolute torture. I thought about it all day. I thought about what I could do to make it the most awesome game ever. I sent a tweet out to the Busch Stadium DJ and asked if he could play "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore for us at some point because that is Dono's favorite song. To my surprise he tweeted back and said sure, he'd get it on for us. Sweet! When I got home from work it was all I could do to not just leave Reese here by herself and take Dono downtown at 4pm. Alas, I was able to hold out until Ellen got home from work and Dono and I began our pilgrimage to Baseball Heaven.

All the way down there we talked about how cool it was going to be and everything we were going to do. Dono was particularly impressed by the Arch. He made several comments about how big it was and seemed genuinely surprised that he could see it from so many different parts of town as we drove around.

When we got down there we parked pretty close to the stadium so we didn't have to walk too far. We went over some ground rules about walking around in the crowds so we were sure to stick together. I told him if he didn't want to hold my hand (he did) he could grab onto my shorts or shirt because there were going to be a lot of people all around us. Dono's ground rule was that he wanted to hold his ticket, to which I happily obliged.

When we got up to the gate, Dono showed his ticket to the nice lady working and she scanned it for him. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the tunrstile, so I helped him out with that. Wanted to make sure his little head got counted in the attendance. We were in center field at this point so we walked straight in and I lifted him up on the rail so he could see the whole field. "Wow! That's really big! It's huge!", he commented.

Next up was our real Stop #1, the one we discussed much of the way down here: The Team Store! I was ready to drop a mint in here, anything that kid pointed out I would have bought. He found a shirt he liked so we grabbed that one and I held on to it while we continued to search. After a couple of minutes Donovan said, "Daddy, let's just get this one. I don't need another one." Who is this guy?! Doesn't he know that he has a free pass right now!? I said that was okay, but as we headed to the register I spied a Cardinals Hot Wheels car. I pointed it out and asked him if he wanted that. Of course he wanted that. What does a kid that owns 289 Hot Wheels need? Another Hot Wheel. We paid for our merchandise and headed out into the concourse. Donovan wanted to put his new shirt on right away so we found a little spot and swapped them out. Then it was on to the concession stand.

We also talked all about getting hot dogs on the way down. After all, that's what you eat at baseball games! we got a couple of hot dogs and now it was time to check out these seats! We entered through the tunnel and kept climbing down, down, down until we reached our row, #4. Then we slid on over into seats 5 and 6. WOW. These were some sweet seats. I was pretty impressed at where we were. Donovan's going to think every game I take him to now is going to be like this. Here he is with his new shirt and hot dog, concentrating on the pregame festivities:

Here's a view of what Dono was seeing (FREDBIRD!):

And our view from the seats:

There was a nice young girl behind us (she was probably 14 or 15), so I told Donovan to ask her to take our picture. He said no way, but when I prodded him some more he agreed. So right in the middle of her sentence he just blurts out, "CAN YOU TAKE MY PICTURE!?" She did not fully understand so she asked him to repeat it. This time he spoke it so only those with supersonic hearing could pick it up and she thought he was asking if she was taking his picture with the camera that was already in her hands. She looked at me, terrified, as if I thought she was a creep taking pictures of my adorable child. I cleared it all up and handed over my phone and we came away with this wonderful image that will forever be etched into my mind. Is this kid having a good time or what:

Donovan was not antsy in his seat at all, he was very focused on what was happening out on the field and asking a ton of questions. "Who are those kids?" "Who is that guy?" "Where is Fredbird going?" "When is the game gonna start?" Also, I bought myself a Stan Musial pin and he wanted to wear it for a while, as you'll notice in this picture:

In the middle of the first inning, I hear over the loud speaker "whatwhat, what, what" over and over. It's Thrift Shop! He's playing it just for us! I explained to Donovan what was happening and we rocked out to the song for a while. He played it for a pretty long time! At least a minute-and-a-half! Donovan gave his seal of approval:

After a couple of innings, it was getting a tad stale. Shelby was walking the world and there wasn't much to get excited about...yet. A quick text to Ellen and she let me know that the kids' area in center field was open to the public. I asked Donovan if he wanted to go check that out and he was on board. We also made a pit stop at the bathroom. Dono's pretty good with the urinal, but doesn't quite have it mastered. Probably want to keep your hands off of that in the future, buddy:

Oh man was there a lot to do out in the kids pavilion in center. They had a whole play area like the ones in the mall with stuff for the kids to climb on (and jump off of incessantly). Here's Dono on top of the pitcher's mound:

And again on top of the Cardinals hat/tunnel:

We played in that area for quite a while, but then he heard the thumping of a baseball into a tarp and he wanted to see what that was all about. The thud we were hearing was coming from the fast pitch area. You could throw baseballs and there was a radar gun set up to show you how fast you were tossing. Dono wanted me to do it, so I bought a ticket for four pitches and we waited our turn. When we got up there Dono took the balls and I said, "Step up there! Throw it!" And so he did.

15 miles an hour, baby! Heads up, Nolan Ryan. This guy's coming for that strikeout record. He received many high fives from a baseball team of teenage boys that was there. There was also a very "happy" (read: drunk) gentleman that was telling Donovan how awesome he was and offering more high fives. He was very appropriate so it was pretty funny. Dono was a star. He was feeling good.

Next up was hitting, Dono's favorite. They had cages with a ball hanging from a rope that you could swing at. I think he really liked the fact that he got to do this with a helmet on. He was feeling like a big leaguer.

After this, to my shock and utter delight, Donovan said the following sentence: "Daddy, I wanna go watch more baseball." Uh, okay. Twist my arm. And in hindsight that sentence is doubly awesome because this is where a good night turned amazing. We trekked back to the seats on the opposite side of the stadium and just as we sat down, guess who walked up to the plate for a pinch-hitting appearance in the bottom of the 5th? SUGAR SHANE! Yes! And not only that, he delivers with a single to right! Then Matt Carpenter walked and Matt Holliday delivered with a two-run single to right! Sugar Shane crosses the plate to tie the game at 3! Things are looking up! The 6th inning was pretty boring and in the top of the 7th the Astros scored to go ahead 4-3. "Oh well", I'm telling myself. This has already been an extremely wonderful evening so a loss can't spoil this. At this point it's almost 10 o'clock. Shelby's gigantic amount of walks early on in the game has really drug this thing out. Dono and I discussed that we would watch the Cardinals bat one more time and then head out. Best decision I ever made. EVER.

We spent almost all of the 5th, 6th and 7th innings like this:

Dono on my lap, watching the game and playing with his new car. He would ask questions about what was going on and I would do my best to try and explain. It was some very awesome bonding we were doing. I was so happy at that moment, I didn't think I could be any happier. I was wrong.

Tony Cruz led off the bottom of the 7th by getting hit by the pitch. Alright, sweet. Tying run is aboard. Then Yadi steps in to pinch hit for the pitcher. This is his first appearance of the evening and the stadium is going nuts. It was pretty cool. He promptly strikes out, which brings up Matt Carpenter.

Now before I continue, I need to let you know that Donovan has asked me about fireworks no less than ten times this evening. He keeps seeing them on the scoreboard in an ad and asking if there are going to be fireworks. I tell him that they only shoot them off when a Cardinals player hits a home run and I didn't know if anyone was going to do that tonight. He leans back on my chest and I'm just enjoying the moment while the Astros are bringing in a lefty to face Carpenter. I look up on the jumbotron. Huh, looks like they're showing people around the pa....HOLY COW!! It's Donovan and I up there!! Just the two of us! They're zoomed in on us! The camera isn't panning away! We're going nuts! This is awesome! After they finally do move away we're high fiving the people next to us and the mom is commenting on what a trooper Dono is. Man, this evening just got amazing-er.

After we come down from our high, it's back to baseball. The Cardinals might have something going here. Carpenter always puts together a good at-bat, but he's facing a lefty, and lefty-on-lefty matchups are always tough. I'm just hoping for a base hit or maybe a double, get some guys on base. 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!! There it goes! I knew it as soon as the ball hit the bat, that sucker was crushed. I lift Dono up so he can see it. He was easily following foul balls all night so I know he could see the ball and where it was going. I'm going crazy. I mean bonkers. I can't believe it. Yes, this put the Cardinals ahead 5-4, but more importantly, FIREWORKS! I'm holding him and pointing out to where the fireworks are going to shoot off. He's pointing. He's loving it. This night just went from amazing-er to unforgettable. In all my excitement I failed to realize that I'm crying real tears of joy. I can't believe how perfect this night has been. I mean, if you had asked me to script this thing before we went down there I would not have done as good of a job as what happened in real life. Truly one of the best nights of my life.

After all the excitement subsides, the Cardinals make two more quick outs to end the inning. Dono and I grab our stuff and head to the gate. When we go out a different gate than we came in, Dono asked where we were going. "To pay our respects to the greatest Cardinal that ever lived", I told him. I know he doesn't know what that means, but it was important to me. He's cool with it and gladly obliges with ol' dad to have a few pictures snapped.

I truly feel blessed to have shared this night with my son.

Yes I was fighting tears while I wrote a lot of this.