Protective Sister

This past weekend my brother came up for a softball tournament and brought my niece and nephew along with him. (I might have mentioned this a couple of times.) Anyway, while my dad and brother played ball all weekend my mom and I played and took care of the kids. They were a blast to be with. I love those two kids with all my heart and they make me so proud to be their aunt. They are two really well behaved sweet kids. I could also be a little biased. :)

I have a cute and sweet story to tell you about my niece Anna Grace. On Saturday mom and I wanted to take the kids to the park to play but it was just way too hot to get them outside for any length of time. So we decided to take them to Chick-fil-A to eat and play in their nice air-conditioned play area. As soon as we got there they ran into the play area while we ordered their lunch, grabbed a table and got everything ready. When they saw that their food was ready they came out and ate their lunch. After they finished eating I told them that they could go back and play for a while. At this point we were trying to keep them awake. They were headed back to AL later on that day and my brother asked us to keep them awake so they would sleep on the way home. That was really no easy task and by 7pm with no nap you have pretty cranky 4 and 2 year old kids.

Anyway, we probably let them play for about 30 mins when we thought maybe we should get everything together and head back to my parents house. I could see that all the kids in the play area were playing together and they were playing some type of game. They all came down the slide together when I saw this 8 year old boy wrap his arms around my nephew's stomach and just kind of throw him off to the side. Well, my niece saw this as well and with all her might she shoved this boy and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Get your hands off my brother!" Then she just told him off good. I had seen this boy throw Luke so I started to get up and get the kids but evidently they didn't need me. LOL! I was really proud of my niece for sticking up for her brother. I got the kids and brought them out to our table and Anna was still yelling at the kid through the window. I had to calm her down. Then I bent down and told her how proud I was of her for defending Luke like that and that she was a good big sister for taking care of Luke when an adult wasn't around. Then all of a sudden she burst into tears. She was sobbing so loudly that the entire restaurant was staring at me like I had just beat the child. I asked her what was wrong and she just kept saying, "That boy was so mean to my brother and he was trying to hurt him. I couldn't let him hurt my brother!" It was so sweet but Anna was bothered by the entire situation. I looked over at Luke to see if he was okay and he was sitting there laughing with my mom and chomping on a waffle fry so he obviously was just fine.

Now the sweetest part was when we were driving back to the house Anna was still a little upset by the whole thing but she was calming down. She was still talking to me and mom about this boy and why did he want to be mean to Luke. She then looks over at Luke and says, "I'm sorry that boy was mean to you today, Luke." He looks at her and says with the sweetest smile, "It's okay, Sissy." My heart nearly broke. I teared up over the love and closeness these two kids have for each other. My brother and sister in law are doing a fantastic job raising these two kids.

I've also realized through this whole thing that if you mess with Luke you have to deal with the wrath of Anna Grace. :)