Daddy Daughter Time

Brooklyn and I continued our Valentine's tradition of attending the daddy daughter dance. We went out to eat beforehand with one of her friends and her father and then headed to the rec center to dance the night away. This is the fourth year in a row that we have been and it is a great way to spend some time together. Although the older they get the less time they want to spend with dad. The first couple of dances I got lots of floor time but the last couple have been a whole different story. The girls spend most of the time dancing with each other while the dads are left to talk with each other. I will take whatever I can get. We then headed out for some ice cream at our local spot afterwards as a night cap to finish things off.


Here are all the girls (Kenzie, Brynnley, Addysen, Brooklyn and Kirsten).


The whole gang, fathers included.


Brooklyn and her good friend Kirsten doing the tango.

Then a couple nights later I took Brooklyn to watch the CAV's play the heat and boo Lebron James. Despite the game not going our way we had a good time just hanging out the two of us.


Brooklyn with her favorite player "The Wild Thing." He was out with a Brooklyn wrist but that didn't stop Brooklyn from rocking his jersey.


Brooklyn was selected to be a ballgirl at the beginning of the game and got to go out to center court at the beginning of the game and receive a ball from one of the CAV's starters. The prior two times she has been selected to do this she received the ball from her favorite player. This time she got a ball from Alonzo Gee. Look at those skinny legs.


Here she is up by our seats for the game. We actually got decent seats considering that is a hard ticket to get and the good seats are usually pretty expensive.

Then last week I took the three older kids to watch the CAV's play the New Orleans Hornets. I figured it would be a good game to take the 3 of them to and get good seats for a good deal. We ended up sitting two rows behind the Hornets bench for the game. While I loved the seats I wouldn't recommend them for kids. With the players standing up all the time I think they missed a good portion of the game not being able to see over them.


We did get lucky as all three kids were selected to be ball kids. I have mastered the art of getting the kids selected and probably have 10 or 12 different balls from different CAV's players over the last 3 years. A few of them are signed with the hopes of eventually getting them all signed. Nolan got a ball from Antwan Jamison, Brooklyn from Ryan Hollins and Maddux from Alonzo Gee. The kids love participating in these activities and it lets me sit courtside during warm-ups.


Here are the three of them waiting at halfcourt for the players to come out.


Antwan Jamison giving Nolan his ball. This was the first time that Nolan has got to be a ballboy.


The kids afterwards with their balls and shirts.


You can't attend a CAV's game without getting your hair spray-painted and getting some facepaint and tattoos on your face. This is probably what the kids enjoy most while at the game; well maybe outside of the cotton candy.

If anyone wants tips on how to get hooked up at a CAV's game just let me know. My methods work every time.

January in Review - Maddux's Birthday & Baptism

I have done a terrible job at keeping this up to date and apologize for the absent postings. With Maddux in travel baseball and basketball, Nolan in karate and Brooklyn in travel softball and basketball there is not a lot of free time and our blog has suffered. Anyways here is a recap from January and the activities that took place.


It started with Maddux turning 8, on the 8th, and him having his birthday party at the CAV's game. He is a huge CAV's fan so I took him and 4 of his friends to watch the CAV's take on the Chicago Bulls. Despite the Bulls winning by 40 the kids had a fun time and got to do lots of stuff. Maddux also got his name put up on one of the scoreboards.


The boys were also selected be Courtside Kids and got to go and sit on the baseline during warm-ups and take pictures of the players getting ready. They give them a shirt and disposable camera and let them sit there for an hour before the game actually starts.


Here they are waiting to go on the court and take pictures with their spray painted hair.


As part of being a Courtside Kid they also get to go on the floor and shoot freethrows while the team is waiting to come out.


Maddux hitting his freethrow - nothing but net.


This was the boys favorite part of the whole night. Well at least everyone but Maddux. While his friends were waving and taking pictures of all the CAV's girls, Maddux wanted nothing to do with them. I had to force him to take this picture. He wouldn't talk let alone look at the girls and actually tried to run away from them. This is all the other boys talked about all night. This is also the picture that we used to send thank you notes to the kids for coming.


Then after the game I had a real surprise for them. I know the head of security for the CAV's (through the bank) and he agreed to take all the boys down to the locker room area after the game so the kids could meet and get autographs from the players. Maddux got to do this once last year and had a lot of fun.


Here is Daniel "Boobie" Gibson signing autographs for the kids. You have to love the hat.


"The Wild Thing" Anderson Varejao signing Maddux's sign. This is Brooklyn's favorite player.


It was nice that most of the Bulls players also stopped to sign autographs for the kids. Here is Carlos Boozer, one time CAV, signing Maddux's sign. Outside of Lebron James, he is probably the most hated CAV for the way he left the team.

With Maddux turning 8 this year he also was baptized on his birthday. He was very excited and had a lot of his friends show up to support his decision.


Thanks to Jennie and her lack of enthusiasm for pictures this is the lone picture that we have from his baptism.


A giant plate of cookies served as Maddux's birthday cake and made distributing a lot easier.

We had a lot of hoops for the month of January between the kids playing basketball and a couple of CAV's basketball games.


Maddux and I went to opening night where he was selected to be a ballkid. He gets to stand at halfcourt and the starting 5 come out and hand them basketballs which they can keep. I think Maddux and Brooklyn have each been selected to do this 3 times over the last couple of years.


Here he is on the jumbotron waiting for the players to come out.


I don't have very many pictures of Maddux playing as I help coach his team and Jennie tends to take more pictures of the other kids then her own. Here he is playing some lock-down defense on his guy. He has gotten very good at taking the ball away from the other team and racing to the other end for a layup.


Over the last couple of games Brooklyn has let her offensive side loose. She has scored in her last three games and had a career high 6 points in last weeks game. She has gotten a little more aggressive and is not afraid to mix it up a little bit. I hope to have some video ready for my February update.

Well now you are caught up through January and I promise to blog more than once in February.