Valentine's Day

We spent the entire day at my sister, Kiki's. We brought melt in your mouth Ribs, homemade Mac and Cheese, and The Best Baked Beans Ever to go with some wonderful Green Beans, Venison Burgers, and homemade Cookies. So the eaten was good. We were all stuffed when Kiki announced it was time to play.

Maybe I should back up a bit. For those of you that haven't read the entire blog or know us in person, we DeBruces play some mean Kickball. I'm sure you are sitting there thinking, we must be great. That's not what I meant. We are mean when we play or so a couple of my kids say. Patches and Ella may or may not be the 2. Actually, most of us love it and the other 2 or 3 need a few minutes of crying to warm up and then it's all grins from there.

We all got our full bellies on the field and we let Uncle Todd and my DH pick the teams. Being the thoughtless wieners they are, they made Ella and Ava last and then argued over which one they were going to force on the other. Honestly, they meant it to be funny but the 2 girls were horrified. (After a little private chat, Kiki and I will always be the last ones picked from here forward to avoid hurt feelings.) Once the sides were picked, my team was up first. Shoving Ella into the line she was terrified when she had to kick. I ran up to her and took her by the arms and drug her into the ball and off to the first base. A few kids came up and went so I ran with her to the bases one at a time, screaming words of encouragement every step of the damn way. When her and I finally got to home base (Really, I thought we should have been granted 2 points since I had to run, jump, and scream around every base), I had to do the same things with Patches. By the time it was my turn, I was breathing hard. We played for what seemed hours and the 2 kids ended up grinning from ear to ear most of the game. Patches even asked to pitch and did a fantastic job at it.

I think we ended at 30 something to 4. We had to stop and let the other kids kick a few times so they wouldn't have hurt feelings. Who won and lost was only important to the men. The rest of us just had a blast.

We managed slip in some 4 wheeler fun and roasted marshmallows on the bonfire. Not sure we could have handled any more fun but are willing to try in April when we do it all over again.

Kiera had a really good time playing with her sister and Mom. They spent most of the time inside because her sister couldn't wrap her tiny head around kickball. She is being raised as an only child and has 2 semi retired grandparents that play with her. In other words, every one in her life's world revolves around her. Not a bad thing but it made it hard for her to understand why all of us were not giving it to her constantly. She kicked the ball and then screamed because they caught it and didn't roll it to her again. It was too funny. We tried so hard to explain but in the end, they each got a baby and a stroller to push around. They bother went home with their clothes trashed. When they weren't busy with their babies, they were chasing chickens.