Secret Agent Laney

Dear Laney,

Holy moly. How could this have been six whole years ago?

You love for me to tell you the story of how you were born - how you didn't want to come out, so the doctors had to go in after you, and even then, you tucked your head and hung on because you knew a good thing when you had it. And the doctor had to tug and tug and was overheard to say, "Work with me here, kid." And then they pulled you free and you cried and they put you on the scale and discovered you weighed over eleven pounds, and the labor and delivery nurse said, "Well, this one's ready for kindergarten."

You love every part of that story. 

In the six years since we brought you home, you've never stopped being amazing. 

Now that you're a big kid, you're into stuff like reading your own books and writing stories and helping to make dinner and watching TV shows and movies where characters solve a mystery - "Inspector Gadget" and "Scooby Doo," especially. I pitched you the idea of having a Secret Agent / Mystery party, and it's a good thing you went for it because your first inclination was to have another princess party and I simply could not. 

First came the invitations:

Then we started planning the activities.

After multiple tries and much cussing, I determined that baking soda and water would make a decent invisible ink that could be revealed with grape juice concentrate. 

Then we hung a black "spy" T-shirt/smock (thanks, dollar store) for each kid, along with a agent badge with each kid's photo. I knew that even to a spy party, 5 and 6 year-old girls can be counted on to wear big fluffy party dresses, and I didn't want to have to explain to any angry mamas that grape juice concentrate does not come out of anything, ever. 

We decorated our tree house as Dr. Evil's lair.

There was an "Aqua Target Range" where you and your friends had to score 20 points by throwing water balloons at a target and doing the math. If I had this party to do over, I would have skipped every other thing you've read about on this blog post and just filled up a thousand water balloons and called it a day. Kids are gaga for water balloons. 

Decoding the secret message

There was a fake "popcorn stand" that one clue led you to, but the popcorn bags were really filled with DUH DUH DUH...SECRET DISGUISES SO YOU COULD SNEAK UP ON DR. EVIL!

Your dad made a "Laser Maze" out of red yarn and leftover garden supplies. 

I don't remember all the clues, but I know they ended with you finding the hidden cake on top of the freezer in the garage - basically, where all villains keep their best stash. 

The adults had a pretty good time, too. Your Grandpops was visiting, and he held down the fort in the Agent Lounge:

...And your dad and I were our normal, embarrassing selves. 

At the end of the party, there was an impromptu game of Tug-Of-War, featuring your dad vs...everyone else at the party. Your dad won. 

It was an exhausting-but-fabulous day. 

I can't believe I'm admitting this online, but here was my best idea of the whole shebang: 

I had you write one thank you note template in sharpie, then I ran off 15 copies of it on my printer, so when it came time to write thank-you notes, you just had to fill in the name of the gift-giver and the name of the gift and slap a sticker on it! Brilliant! Evil! Thoughtful! Lazy as hell! All in one!

The party took a lot of time and planning, but you are absolutely worth it. Six years later, you're still the best thing going.

Love,
Mom

P.S. Your actual birthday was on a Monday, so I told you I'd take you out to birthday lunch anywhere you wanted. You picked Cracker Barrel. I put this picture on Instagram:

...And Cracker Barrel corporate wished you a happy birthday:

So that's...something. 

Kim and Jamie's Wedding

Hey y'all, 

Last month, I had the chance to go down to Nashville and meet up with Peg Peg and Tex for the weekend to attend my friend Kim's wedding. Our moms (Peg n' Pat) have been best friends for years. 

Kim let me help her with her programs, so for a while our kitchen was a craft headquarters that you children were not allowed to enter. I hand-painted all 70 of those suckers, and it was totally worth it because they turned out great. (Not to toot my own horn, but toot toot.) 

On our first night in Nashville, your grandparents and I decided we would split up for a few hours so I could meet up with an old friend from my Nashville Star days. As my friend Liz and I were enjoying a drink on a restaurant patio, I looked up and discovered my parents were sitting on a bench across the street, just waiting on me to be done. I call this photo "The Life Of An Only Child:"

Just kidding. That is actually a picture of my mother checking her phone because I just sent her a text that read: "I can see y'all. You might as well come over here so I can buy you a drink." So they joined us, and my mother ordered a pomegranate margarita. This was a dicey proposition, because as the comedian Ron White says, southern women have a tendency to get a few drinks in 'em and say things like, "Here's another thing you don't know about YOU..."

...But the only fallout from that margarita was we went to a schmancy new "farm to table" restaurant (my idea) and ordered a bizarre $30 veggie plate.

Or, as this story will go down in family history: "Remember that time Peg Peg drank a margarita and accidentally ordered 4 kinds of cornbread and it cost us $120?" Seriously, she somehow forgot that hominy cakes and hard water cornbread and corn fritters and grits are all basically the same thing. But I think she remembered on her way out of the restaurant, because I heard her moan, "I never want to look at corn again."

Kim and her wedding were absolutely beautiful. (I wasn't her photographer, but really enjoyed taking some extra pictures of the day).

Kim even looked radiant and serene when I told her that if I saw anyone putting one of my programs in the trash, I was going to punch them in the nose.

I'm so glad I got the chance to be there for the start of Kim and Jamie's new life together, and the end of the romance for Peg Peg and corn. 

Love,

Mom

A Handful of Holidays

Hey, y'all -

Here's how we've celebrated some holidays this year:

On St Patrick's Day, we did that thing I do every year where I put together a party for Hagen's school and then immediately swear I'm never going to do it again. At least with THAT promise, it takes me about a year to break it, vs. "I'm never drinking again, " which tends to wear off in 7-10 business days.

Laney's friend Amya, the grumpy leprechaun

Laney-chosen nail color

For Easter, we had a bunch of friends over for an egg hunt in our yard. Since there were kids of all ages coming, each age group was assigned a color to collect. Hagen and his friends were yellow, Laney and her friends were pink, and then for the big kids, I did a scavenger egg hunt; each egg was filled with candy and a clue for where to find the next egg, like:

You’re doing great!

This hunt is a breeze

When you find Number 3

Try not to freeze.

(They had to take all the drinks out of the ice-filled cooler to find the egg at the bottom)

OR:

You found Number 6;

You’re an egg-hider’s dream.

Time to relax

and unwind in the steam.

(They had to open the hot tub and find the floating eggs)

For that last one, Thor had to step in and gently suggest to me that filling a plastic egg with chocolate and then closing it in a 104-degree hot tub might not be the best idea. Every time I think I'm the brains of this operation, it turns out I am not. 

On Mother's Day, your dad was away with the Navy, so I woke up in a bed full of young'uns. I put this picture on Instagram with the caption, "All I want for Mother's Day is some personal space," and some random person commented, "That's rude! You're the one who chose to have the children in the first place!" I looked up the profile of the commenter, because I was going to address her comment, and discovered she was probably 16. I considered writing, "If you think your mother has never hidden from you in the bathroom, you're wrong. Go check. She's probably in there now." But decided to let it go. The internet is a crazy enough place.

Hagen answered a questionnaire about me at school:

Thanks for leaving out that second digit of my age, buddy. For the record, I do not like to eat stew, I'm not all that jazzed about broccoli, and I hate to drink milk. So it's like he doesn't know me at all. But he makes up for it with the snuggling thing, 'cause that's totally true. 

Laney took this picture of me later on Mother's Day, which is what parenting feels like some of the time:

For Father's Day, we had a cookout with friends at our house. Peg Peg always asks me why I don't have pretty pictures of the kids at Easter. Here's why: all of the kids get to our house and immediately take off their clothes and jump in the hot tub. Then the girls put on dress-up clothes and do each other's hair and make-up. Then they beg to do their moms' make-up.

I don't have pretty pictures of anyone from our parties, because everyone looks like a hot mess the whole time they're here.

And I love it.

Love,

Mom