Damien Turns 29!

This time of year is CRAZY BUSY for Damien, and when his birthday rolls around, he is right smack dab in the middle of basketball season. The past two years, he's had practice or a game on his birthday, and we lived in Shelley, so I would take cake to practice and make him end early so the team could celebrate, or visit him during lunch hour, although it's not very long so it's usually hard to do that. This year he had practice and then had the team over to our house for the annual Turkey Dinner and introduction of his team's motto for the year. This year I made turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, rolls, pretzel salad, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie (Damien's favorite, so it doubled as a birthday cake too!) 


 

Here is Coach Smith giving one heck of a motivation speech!  You'll notice our four kids in the mix too-they love being with the basketball players and its been good to have the team in our home, getting to know them better.  Damien is good about including his family in everything that is basketball, and it's made us closer as a family.  I love that when we go to the games, I hear my children cheer for each individual player, because they have had a chance to get to know them.

 

The girls played some hilarious games of Catch Phase after they had eaten their fill of yummy food!

Earlier in the day, one of the players texted me and wanted to see if there was anything they could do to help with dinner or anything.  She wanted to know if it was okay to bring cupcakes for Coach, too.  I thought it was very nice of the team to think of it!

The team stayed over night in the basement.  Our boys were excited to have a sleep over upstairs in the girls room.  The team was really quite and everyone was asleep before 11.  I was very impressed with this group of girls as I watched them interact with my family and with each other.  All of them were very thankful for dinner, offered to help, and were kind to the kids.  After they had settled down for the night and the kids and Damien were up in bed, I came down to check on the team before I went to bed and noticed several of them reading their scriptures.  All was quiet until our kids woke up bright and early the next morning!  I'm sure the team was happy about that!  Haha!  I made breakfast including chocolate chip pancakes, coconut syrup, eggs and sausage, hash browns, chocolate milk, and juice.  The following video is what we (yeah, I totally think I'm the assistant coach...haha) used as this year's motto and the team used "212" on warm ups, t shirts, etc. 

Later in the week, we had Mike, Tammie, and their boys come over to celebrate.  My camera didn't have enough battery to us singing the whole song, but it's funny to hear Eden and the other kids belt it out!