Go ahead and play the song. You'll figure out why when you get to the goofy pic of me and Em below...
Today Tim and I took Ben and Will to their friend's birthday party at GattiTown. As you can see from the photos, a fun time was had by all. It was a Ben 10 party (do I a detect a trend here?) and half of the kids had on their matching T-shirts. 
Will's Muscles
After eating too much pizza, too much cake, and opening gifts, the kids ran around the game area with their parents chasing after them. The first thing that the 5 and 6 year olds wanted to do was ride the bumper cars. I envisioned all 7 of them piled in the corner, stuck for the entire time, but they all did pretty good. No one got stuck at all. It was Ben's first time, and every time someone hit him he would laugh like a loon. Very entertaining for the parents to watch.
Ben's First Bumper Car Experience
Will watched for about a minute before deciding that the bumper cars were not for him. He was more interested in the carousel. We rode it twice. The first time he wanted to sit on the bench and hold my hand - so sweet. The second time Ben went with us, and I suggested that we ride the horses. Will was scared, so once I put him on the horse, he had a death grip on my neck the whole ride. He liked it though, and had a smile on his face the whole time. Come to think of it, he has always liked being scared. When he was a baby we would sometimes come around the corner and surprise him. I can remember him screaming with terror and then laughing hysterically. Then he'd motion for us to do it again. He was easy to entertain back then.
Death Grip on the Carousel
I can see the value of the whole GattiTown party thing. The kids have a ball, and the parents don't have to do clean-up. I know when we have a party at the house, the grandparents and I spend the whole afternoon cleaning up. (Tim somehow always escapes to a mission trip or something work related...hmmm.) Still, I hope it is a few more years before the kids start requesting these. What can I say, I am cheap! We shall see.
After the party we went over to the mall to run an errand. I am totally out of the girly-girl loop, so I was a bit surprised to see a series of kiosks in the mall called, "Backstage Divas" (I think). There was a whole group of girls there, and they appeared to be together. At the first station the girls were choosing solid colored t-shirts, shorts, bags, etc. At station 2 they were choosing decorations to go on the clothing - hearts, skull & crossbones (?), flowers, whatever - and the staff would sew it onto the clothes. Then at station 3 they got their hair and make-up done. Finally, there was a runway walk to model their self-designed clothing. There was music, and the parents were standing there and clapping for their little divas.
My first reaction was - Remind me not to use this entrance when Kate is home! I do not want to spend an afternoon doing THIS!!! It all seemed so, well, GIRLY, and quite frankly, I have never understood the whole modeling thing. Yes, I am sure that you are right and I have spent too much time living with boys. Still! I grew up doing Gatti birthdays, so that doesn't seem weird to me at all, but modeling parties???
Anyway, after I thought about it, I commented to Tim that I can remember doing this type of thing at slumber parties. We would do each other's hair (I don't remember make-up until junior high) and go through old clothes to come up with "wild" outfits. We would put them on and model them for each other. Occasionally we made a game out of it. I can remember once at Nikki's house we had to create crazy outfits for each other to see who looked the silliest. (I looked everywhere for the picture and couldn't find it.) And of course, Emily and Jacob and I used to take this to a whole 'nother level. We would act out skits or songs dressed in our outlandish outfits. Sometimes we filmed them, especially if Matt, Josh, or Rankin was involved. I found this picture of me and Emily in an old album today. We were acting out the song "Little Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (1966). Our parents were really into 60's music, and we were too. We thought this song was a hoot. She was Little Red, I was the Big Bad Wolf. We were 12. And I found the song too, for your listening pleasure:) I would kill to find the old video of us performing. I am sure it was hilarious!
Anyway, back to the divas...
I guess I liked to dress up and show off when I was a kid. And I have to give the "Backstage Diva" people props in terms of their posters they had up. The posters were of very normal little girls. They were not "ultra" beautiful, or done up with tons of make-up. They didn't look like those awful Glamour Shots that were popular when I was a kid. They were regular girls. I appreciated that.
BUT, if I ever tell you that I am taking Kate to the mall to spend way too much money to play dress-up, JUST SHOOT ME!
