Joey's Birthday Part One: Friends

Joey chose to have a football birthday party for his friends! Nine kids from his Sacred Heart class came, along with 4 other friends, and he and Maddox- so we had a total of 15 kids! Joey got to choose a smaller number of kids and he would get to keep his presents OR a larger number of kids and he could donate his gifts to Blank Children's Hospital - he chose to donate, which was fine by me! Knowing that we would need help, Joe invited his friend, Kevin, and his cousins, Zach and Alex, to come run drills and play football with all the kids.  And, we surprised Joey by inviting Amara Darboh - Amara went to Dowling and graduated with Zach and is going to play football at the University of Michigan - he's kind of a big deal to Joey and Maddox! They have met him before but playing football with him would be like a dream come true! When Amara walked in to the party, Joey just looked at him and said, "Hi Amara!" like they were best buds!  We set up all the seating in the garage so that I wouldn't have 15 kids in my house and we painted lines and a big 'M' in our backyard for the football field!

The guys ran passing drills with the kids and then served as all-time quarterbacks on both teams.  The kids were in heaven!

It was a hot day so I had plenty of water for all the kids, but Joey had to take a break because he didn't feel the best.  And, Amara went and sat by him and gave him some one-on-one attention which was really nice of him.  Every kid got his photo taken with Amara and I emailed those photos to the parents.  Maddox really thought he was big stuff playing football with all the kids. The best part about Joey's friends is that they are SO excited to see Maddox and they always high-five him and invite him to play. Sure hope that never changes!

 We ended by eating hot dogs, watermelon chips and drinking gatorades! These kids ate a ton! I really couldn't believe how much they ate! It was nice because Joe's cousins and Amara stayed for lunch, too!  We had printed out photos of Amara in his Dowling uniform and Amara signed a photo for each kid to take home! The kids were so excited to show their parents!

It was a fun day - Joe and I were exhausted! Thankfully, my mom and dad kept Saylor at my sister's house so I could focus on the party! And, Cary and Ali took the kids for an overnight that night so we could go out and get a break from all the chaos!

Thus far, Joey has a great group of friends - they were all very polite, they had fun, there wasn't one problem! In fact, every kid asked if he could stay longer or play more football! And, the high school guys really made it a party to remember - seeing how those little boys looked up to them was pretty cute! And, we just might have made Michigan fans out of a few of them afterall!