Dancing Queen again...

Here are a few pictures of Madison before the big performance. The video is below...a little hard to see and follow her but it was the best I could do. She had a great time more pictures of this event to come, Grandma Debbie took some still shots that I wasn't able to get. For those of you who don't know Madison has been going to Dance/Tumbling class since the first of the year. Like all little girls do, cartwheels, roundoff's, back bends and other stuff I don't know what they call has become neverending. Everytime I turn around she is doing a cartwheel on the way to her room or jumping over something. Since Angie works every Monday night, I take Madison to class every week. I was sort of hesitant about this the first time...I thought it would be nothing but mom's and all fu fu crap I had to deal with. I came to realize that there are a few dad's that do the same thing I do and the husband of the woman that teaches along with him has a tie to Murphysboro. He went to SEMO, played basketball in college and was friends with a few a baseball players that I played with and knew well. Small world...Even smaller being in Festus and then him knowing someone from the Boro'? The other dad's and I exchange hunting and fishing stories every now and then. The mom's look at us like we are crazy and just laugh. Like I explained in an earlier post, this girl stuff is all out of my realm but I wouldn't change it for anything. This reminds me of the MasterCard commercial...Monthly class fee $45...Recital Fee...$45...Recital Costume $45...Flowers for Madison after recital $12...Seeing your baby perform and love what she is doing...PRICELESS!

Dancing Queen

Nicknames and number five on the way...

Let me preface this up front...Congrats to Matt and Jess with their little one on the way, which is a boy. This will make number five in the family with me being the only one with two girls and zero boys. As Madison said, "Another boy in the family, Wow! Thats number five!" Don't get me wrong I wouldn't change any of it, I enjoy the dance and tumbling classes thats something new... I never knew what went on at those places. Girl scouts is not too bad...you get cookies and punch every time you go and coaching girls softball is something I really enjoy with just being around the game. With that said, all my nephews are fun to play with, I like Thomas the Train, Spiderman, big trucks, just throwing random balls at each other and objects in the house is something I have always excelled at. Watching Owen and Cade reminds me of when Matt and I used to play basketball or play catch or just do anything...we always were competitve with each other. As most of you know that know me well,I do like to give everyone a nickname. Why you ask? I really don't know, I think I did it just to aggrevate everyone and have a little fun. At the age of 35 I still continue to do this today...just ask Angie, Madison and Danielle. Starting from the top we have "Cash-Money" which will come in handy on the basketball court for him. Next we have "Cam-a-lam-a-ding-dong" (Joe Buck sort of helped me out with that one). Then we have "O-Diggity Dog", sometimes we shorten it to just "O-Diggity" . Owen often refers to himself as "O-Diggity" when I talk to him on the phone...so he likes it and Sarah has expierienced Owen telling someone he has just met that his name is "O-Diggity!" Finally we have "Cader-Potater" this one was easy and Cade seems to like it too. Now Matt and Jess have to come up with a name so I can get to work on the next name. Maybe someday I will reveal the nicknames of my sister, Matt and Beth...I'm sure they haven't forgotten!

As a father of two girls and nothing but boys so far from Sarah, Beth and Matt I will close with a famous quote from a father who had only daughters.

"Have a little boy and all you have to worry about is that little boy...Have a little girl and you have worry about all the little boys!"

Take me out to the softball game...

Yes it is that time of the year again, Twin City Girls Softball and that is tcgsoftball.com if you would like to check it out. I'm coaching again for the second year in a row, yes our team name is the Cardinals! Everyone in St. Louis hates the Cubs so much we don't even have a team named after them in our league. They made that a by-law in the first board meeting this year. Madison loves to play and really loves to hit, she does take after her father and can hit the snot out of the ball. We have had two games this year and it's fun to watch the other girls faces when she hits it. She usually hits out of the infield into the grass about 30 feet on a fly. The best thing is that we don't use a tee, our league is coach pitch (which dad delivers it right where she wants it). I did use a tee when I was her age and over my two years in tee-ball I think I complied a home run record of about 300 homers. This if of course was steroid free and all legit. These are a few pictures of last year but I will have more soon of this year.

Festus High School Grad 2009

On May 21, 2009 my oldest and not so young anymore graduated from high school. She actually graduated in December due to the fact that she had enough credits to do so. Danielle graduated with honors and finished with a 3.7 GPA. We couldn't be more proud of her and glad she didn't take my path through high school. I describe that as "Not always taking the straight path, but I eventually made it to where I needed to be." She graduated with the A+ program, this is a program that provides the students two years of college paid in full if they meet certain requirements. The requirements are completing 50 hours of tutoring elementary students and must be present 96% of her entire high school career. That is a feat in itself! Congrats Danielle and we love you!

Mixed feelings on the blog...

I'm not to sure about this whole blog thing, it doesn't seem too manly to me. On the other hand it does show my fabulous creative side. To be honest it was my sister who suggested (well really dared me) to do this. I don't have as much time to invest as she does but I think I can regularly add new posts and make it look good. Stay tuned for the next post, it may have pictures...still learning how to do this.