Matt is 5!!!

Matt is 5!  I'm excited and sad all at the same time.  He's definitely not a baby anymore.  But I'm so proud of the little man he has become.  Sure we still have some work ahead of us, but so far so good.  Doug and I try our best but we also have to give lots of credit to his awesome school and teachers. 

Since Matt had so much fun at the hitting camp this summer he wanted to have his bday party at Baseball USA.  Uncle Jay led the party for us and the kids had so much fun!  Even a few of the girls came and had fun too.  It's so neat to watch them listen and learn.  And they all did great!  Here's my family with our Maziur 5 shirts!  I figure we can wear these to his games too and embarrass him!

You can see the kids were focused as Coach Jay taught them the correct batting stance...

The girls enjoyed it too and had fun posing for this pic!  They are much more photogenic than the boys!

After the camp it was time to eat and have cupcakes!  With Melissa's ideas and my Mom's help we made baseball cupcakes.  They started off not so good, but by the last one I think I had it down! I also got the idea to make my own cupcake stand from my friend Audrey.  Why be creative when someone else already has?

We were lucky that Coach Gerald Young (former Astros player) also helped with the hitting camp.  He is such a good sport and hilarious too!  He gave out baseball cards and I didn't expect that that kids would mob him for autographs but they did and it was too cute! 

I tried to get the kids all in a pic.  It was like trying to bathe a cat.  I'm sure the kids were not excited about this but it had to be done!  Here's the best I got! Pretty funny really.

I tried to get a pic with Matt and the girls but instead they all tried to hug him and tackled him to the ground which was even cuter.  Here are Iva, Hannah, Alena and Matt!  He loved it (obviously) but it looks like he almost took off Alena's arm!!  We love all 3 of these girls.  They are so sweet.  Hannah and Alena are in Matt's class this year and Iva is in Caden and Evan's class. 

We were also very happy (especially Marlie) that Mr. Scott and his son Trevor came to the party.  You might remember my blog about Mr. Scott a few blogs ago.  The kids love him!  Poor Mr. Scott and Trevor were with Marlie most of the evening.  At one point Marlie asked Trevor for the big, yellow ball.  Trevor took her out to get the ball.  Then he went into a cage with her to play catch.  She threw it to him and he threw it back...only to get told that he didn't throw it right!  Then apparently Marlie was done so Trevor came and sat with her on the bench and she just gave him a big hug!  Then Trevor let Matt "pitch" to him and poor guy almost got hit about 20 times.  What a neat kid.  So patient and always smiling.  I could learn a thing or two from him! I told Matt on the way home that I hope he grows up to be just like Trevor!

And of course we have the usual suspects below.  I have to tell this funny story...the Wellmann's and Scott and T stayed and helped us after the party.  So we decided to head back into the cages.  The Dad's had fun hitting and Mrs. Melissa did too.  She was really good!  She was whacking the ball, one after another.  At some point we heard crying and realized she had hit Caden in the arm with the ball.  But as she realized it, there was another ball headed his way and got him right in the chest.  Caden was ok, but I couldn't help laughing because Melissa was so good and so focused that we missed that Caden was in the line of fire!

Afterwards we came home and Matt had fun opening his gifts.

Marlie claimed a small wooden bat Matt got and got right into position.  It's so funny.  She makes this same face every time.  I LOVE it! 

But I'm still hoping one day she decides to be a cheerleader like Mom was!

Thank you to Uncle Jay for hosting this party for us. Thank you to my family for helping and to all our friends for making this such a fun party!