Looking at a busy April...

Hands down, April is one of the busiest months of the year in the Matthews household...spring sports seasons are starting, all three of the girls' birthdays are celebrated, two weekends of Easter (Shane's fam then mine) along w/ all of the normal chaos of school, work & fun...I usually feel like I totally earn Mothers' Day when May roles around!

I just spent a good chunk of the last hour calling the girls AND boys (yes, we're co-ed this season) that will be on Hannah & Emily's U10 soccer team...no, I'm not the coach - Shane is :) there's no way I can coach in the spring w/ Kate playing softball and Nick playing Tball...my role in the spring is logistics coordinator/taxi driver/cheerleader/photographer - multi-tasking at its best! Shane's biggest challenge will not be winning games - I think we have a pretty strong team - it will be keeping our boy-crazy twins focused on the game and not the boys on the field! Coach Dad already struggles w/ his little girls growing up so this season should be fairly entertaining :)

As I mentioned, all 3 girls have April b-days...Kate's at the beginning & the twins at the end. We have cake & ice cream the night of their b-days and the birthday girl(s) pick what we have for dinner. This usually means two stops at local fast food restaurants for Hannah & Emily because, heaven help us, we can't agree on one meal - that would be crazy! They also pick their themes - last year we had a puppy party for Kate and High School Musical/Hannah Montana for the twins - teenage drama at its best. Each birthday kid also picks what flavor of cake, icing & ice cream they want...we've had some interesting combos over the years. Usually, we go every-other year on the party w/ friends - this is a party year so I suggested a combo party at the YMCA - throw the kids in the pool and let them get tired :) We're having a beach monkey theme and the girls are going to invite all of the girls from their classes plus some special guests so we're looking at 35+ kids being invited...I know they won't all come but still...the thought of 35 little girls is pretty scary!!

Shane & I had to face reality last week when Katie watched the "I'm becoming a woman" video at school...in the 4th grade. OMG - I thought I was going to have to pick Shane up off the floor when she brought the paper home for us to approve her watching the video. He had the most stricken look on his face that I had to laugh....no dad is ever prepared for his little girl to grow up and I think Shane might be worse than most! He won't even let me get Kate's ears pierced for her 10th birthday...I told him if she was old enough for "the video", she was old enough for earrings!!! I'm still working on him so we'll see. When we got home from school the day she watched it, she had her little bag of "samples" so she & I went in her room and had our "woman" talk...it was killing Han & Em that they couldn't hear what we were talking about! She had a little book for her plus one for me (thank you, I like instructions!), so we agreed to read them then get back together if there were any questions...her only comment was "This seems pretty gross Mom" - I would have to agree! Can I also point out that Shane totally lucked out when our families merged - he only has to have "the talk" w/ Nick but I get to have it w/ all three girls...doesn't seem quite fair does it?!

Its time for me to get the kiddos in bed...they seem pretty tired after a day at the Y's Spring Break camp - works for me!