Daddy's work of art: Donatello the Ninja Turtle of the good old days :)
Lyric watching her ball rolling down the alley. She had a blast, but without bumpers had quite a time getting the ball to make it to the pins.
Here's the gang: having a blast at the local bowling alley :)
I just realized I never blogged about Obi's party. As I had mentioned earlier, we had it 4 days late due to the Nafziger Christmas party. So last Wednesday after school we had his first "friends" party ever. He was pretty excited. We told him he could invite three kids from his class. He had a VERY difficult time with this. I know, I know, I'm a mean Mom that won't let him invite ALL the boys in his class (that would be about 14 guests plus my own 3 kids), but we didn't want to take out a 2nd mortgage to pay for this party. In the spirit of 'toning things down' I wanted him to appreciate the kids he was able to invite and also not have to deal with dragging over a dozen gifts home with us after the party (that he would play with for a week and then throw in the back of the closet).
So, he decided on 2 boys and one girl from his class at school. Since Joel and I don't really know any of the kids in his class, we let him pick whoever he wanted. The six kids bowled while Joel and I tried to help them out. Then we had hot dogs and birthday cake. At least, Joel and I had birthday cake, the other kids wouldn't TOUCH it!! We couldn't believe it. Obi said "It's too green and purple". Poor Joel did all the decorating himself (including mixing the icing into those beautiful shades of green and purple) and NO ONE wanted to eat it. When we were finished bowling a group of teenagers from the group home with down syndrome came into the bowling alley and we asked one of the workers if they wanted to keep the cake. We certainly didn't want to take it home and eat it all ourselves! So when the worker dropped my cake-taker off a few days later she assured me that four people with mental disabilities REALLY enjoyed the cake. I was thrilled to know that it brought joy to someone :)
One of the little guys at the party (in the yellow) was quite the little stinker. He did everything Joel told him not to and pushed our buttons all evening. Obi came up to me at one point and said he was sorry he had invited the boy and wasn't going to invite him next year. Ah, he was a good kid, but he liked to fool around a lot (having an older brother he'd picked up a lot more 'boyisms' than Obi). In a way I want to protect him from hanging out with the kids that always get into trouble. Obi's a good kid and I don't want him goofing off at school and getting into trouble all the time like some of his friends. I'm just beginning to catch a glimpse of what it's like to not have any control over who my kids hang out with and what they are exposed to. I have to say I DON'T like it!!
I guess it's all about trusting God and trying to instill good values in the kids that will hopefully help them to stand up when they know something is wrong. I pray whenever I think of it that my kids will keep their faith in God and that they will be good moral kids who meet someone someday that will treat them well. I wish they weren't growing up quite so fast :(
Mel
4 comments:
mel, i'm glad you blogged about what obi's cake was. you already posted one picture of the party and i could see the cake in front of ob but couldn't figure out what in the world it was. i'm sorry to hear no one would eat it though. that's pretty funny all the same, i must admit! you'll definitely have to scrapbook about that one! you can tell joel he can make me a ninja turtle cake for my 30th this year. he makes a mean looking ninja turtle...i just wondering what it would taste like? would it taste too green or too purple??? i guess only you could tell me that!
Letting go is definitely not easy. I don't like not being able to choose my friends but have decided that I need to get to know their friends and keep communication open. Those things don't come easy for me. Prayer is essential too. I don't think we can prayer enough!
Leah, I'll let Joel know :) It tasted great, it was just Duncan Hines Vanilla frosting. If only the kids would have trusted us. They probably thought it was mint flavoured or something!
Mel :)
It's important to get to know the families of their friends and to be sure to keep the communication doors open. We have been blessed that all our kids made GREAT choices of friends. The cake did look good, Joel did a great job decorating.
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