What's the baby gonna bee??

This weekend we hosted a Baby To Bee shower for Uncle Miller and Aunt Sarah at La Madeleine's in Baton Rouge. Miller's childhood friend's wife, Nikki, co-hosted with me (follow that?). Everything was decorated in yellow, black and white and it was PRECIOUS!! The Mommy and Daddy to bee raked in lots of fabulous presents and the guests had fun playing a baby word scramble and baby animal matching game. Guests wrote baby advice and the funniest was "A child may be too young to drink but is never too young to mix drinks". Ha ha!! Nikki stole the show by feeding Miller and Sarah jars of baby food and having them guess the flavor. There was plenty of gagging going on :) Jack was such a well behaved boy at the shower and helped pass out the presents to Aunt Sarah. He wrote out advice and chose to be part of Team Blue. He proudly said it was his first baby shower to attend and that he acted like an adult! Theo stayed home with Dada, and although we missed them, it was for the best!

Guests guessed the gender of the baby by picking a pink or blue rocking horse to wear. Miller and Sarah hid the correct color in a piece of king cake and then passed out slices to the guests. Aunt Dianne had the "winning" piece and got to announce the gender to everyone! It was no surprise to several family members that another Hadskey boy will be arriving in August :) Jack and Theo are thrilled!! It was really neat finding out all together like this.

I made the diaper cake, cupcake toppers, corsage, flower arrangements and poster. A local friend just happened to tell me about local moms that make cookies so I ordered bee cookies as the party favors (turned out sooooooo cute). I was so pleased with how everything turned out. I didn't make the cupcakes either but made them more personalized by inserting the topper to tie in with the theme. Dave made the invitation on Photoshop (he is such a wizard) and I just loved how it turned out.

Sarah's mom, brother and his girlfriend traveled in from out of state for the weekend. Dave and I hadn't seen them (minus the girlfriend who we had just met for the first time) since our wedding! Bitsy and Glynn had everyone over after the shower for gumbo, wine and cheese and the laughter and story telling lasted until the wee hours. What a fun weekend!!!!

First swim meet

Jack participated in his first swim meet bright and early this morning (he has two more before the season ends). We left the house at 6:40 and scored a nice spot in the shade to sit. I had never been to a swim meet before so wasn't sure what to expect. They gathered up all of the swimmers and organized them by age so I really only had to keep Theo entertained in between Jack's heats. This included eating all sorts of forbidden treats in the wee early hours of the morning. He had powdered donuts, an Airhead candy and a snoball all before 8 am. Craziness! He usually plays in the baby pool but they had it all roped off. I'll be more prepared next time!

Jack got 3rd place for freestyle (55 seconds) and 2nd place for the backstroke (57 seconds). Not sure I could do any better! Go Jack!

The pits

It's berry season and we got a big ole' bag of cherries today at the store! Makes me think of my mom and her love of cherries. Jack gobbled them up and happily spit out the pits. Theo was leery about the pit and didn't want to even try the cherries. We worked out a deal that suited all though. Jack bit into the cherry and removed the pit and gave the other half to Theo. Perfection!

Why I feel like Tiger Mom

I picked up "Confessions of a Tiger Mom" back when we went to Dallas for my cousin's graduation. It's all about the differences between "Chinese" mothering and "Western" parenting. While I found the book to be very extreme in several instances, I did identify with some of the "Chinese" ways of parenting. I can't help but chuckle when I make the boys do phonics, educational computer games, silent reading, and worksheets each day. There is a great website called School Expressthat has thousands of free, printable worksheets. I've been printing a lot of these out for Theo and he's doing very well with them. All you moms out there with 3-6 year olds will be excited to know that there is a special section just for this age group! Jack is plugging along with his Bridge 1-2 book (his school is really a grade level ahead, curriculum-wise). He had to color long and short vowel sounds today. The smencils weren't really a great motivator today so I had to step it up a notch and offer gum as an incentive :) Go Jack and Theo!!

Going, going, gone.....

I treated the boys to sushi for dinner since they worked so hard today. They have apparently missed eating it because they gobbled it up!! I ordered 4 rolls to start out (each roll has 8 pieces). I figured I would get about a roll for myself. WRONG. I had to order one more roll for Theo! A total of 5 rolls plus edamame, folks. That's nuts! The restaurant gave them cheater chopsticks and they did really well. Theo shoves one piece at a time in his mouth and Jack prefers to take two bites per piece. So funny :)

Trip to Destin!!

My best friend and I took a little weekend trip to Destin while our husbands took care of the kids :) A big thanks to Dave and Brian for making it possible! We did TONS of shopping (hey, kid free shopping is the best kind!), a little bit of laying out/swimming, ate out and hit happy hour, got our nails done (complete other post- crazy!!), and just talked and laughed. Priceless!

Racers

This is where you can find us every morning this month! Jack is really loving "swim team", which is really just hour long swim lessons/practice 5 times a week. I can tell his endurance is building, which is great! Theo can play in the baby pool while Jack swims. I'm looking in to him starting swim lessons while we're there.