I’m getting so bad at blogging! Alan’s birthday came and went without even a simple blog post. Sigh. He had a nice day though. Well, it ended nicely. Started with some work headaches, but he went into the office and got everything working again. ‘Cause he’s good like that! Then picked up some Indian food (his favorite) and played video games all afternoon. I took the kids to karate and swimming with a friend while he was at work. We ended the day with a very silly movie. It was a birthday celebration just the way he likes it, quiet. We have all been enjoying the birthday cookies I made for him on Friday.
One more year in the 30’s! We joked that he was celebrating the 10th anniversary of his 29th birthday. :) Happy Birthday Alan! Thanks for spending all these years with us.
For starters — Happy Birthday Lex!! Nine years old and awesome!!
I’ve been feeling a little low about Lex’s birthday this week. It snuck right up on me and certainty didn’t get the front-of-mind attention it has in the past. Driving home from school Thursday afternoon, I started thinking about getting a head start on his cake for today, but then suddenly remembered that he needed cupcakes for school Friday! I hadn’t even talked to the teacher about it, but I sent her a quick email and started pulling out ingredients. Unfortunately we discovered, in the nick of time, that we had no good cupcake papers. Soo… Lex suggested peanut butter chip brownies, a recipe I had made awhile ago and everyone like. To fancy them up a bit I added chocolate chips as well, and marshmallows on top. They smelled delicious and looked great out of the oven. Unfortunately, when I tried to cut them at 9pm they were a gooey mess! Completely uncutable! I was going to make another batch of regular brownies, but we didn’t have enough ingredients. I was crying, seriously, over my complete lack of birthday preparedness. Alan put the brownies in the freezer and put me to bed.
The next morning I pulled the brownies out of the freezer and was able to cut them, but they were still pretty messy. I still hadn’t heard back from his teacher on sending treats in either. I gave Lex the option of messy brownies on Friday or really awesome cupcakes on Tuesday. He chose the brownies so we packaged them up in individual bags with cute labels and lots of napkins, and sent them to school. Hoping for the best and completely forgetting to take any pictures. Sigh. When he got to me Friday afternoon the first thing he said was, “The brownies were AWESOME!” Whew!
Saturday we spent making and decorating cake, filling goody bags, praying for sunshine, and prepping for a party. Oh yeah, and Eve learned to ride her bike again. Yay!
This morning came, bright and early, and my baby turned NINE! Nine whole years old and handsome as always. He had a few little presents waiting for him on the table.
Morning presents for my nine year old!
Nine years old!
I got him an awesome Lego movie t-shirt that has Emmitt on it and says “The Special Has Arrived.” I thought he would love it, but instead he laughed briefly and then discarded it. He refused to wear it today. You never can tell with that boy!
He loved these magnet toys!
Loved them so much he wanted a picture with them. :)
The forecast all week called for varying amounts of rain, but this morning it said clear skies and sunshine all day. Whoo hoo! We did our morning thing, then packed up a party and headed to the skate park for Lex’s birthday party.
This place is awesome. They have a skate park (seen here), a playground, and a big pavilion for parties.
A brave friend on the half pipe.
The birthday boy is one cool dude!
Alan joined in the fun.
Brave boys on bikes
We had a few girls there too. This one forgot her bike, but luckily I packed an extra bike and two scooters. Everyone had a blast!
Lex on his new bike.
Hey party people!
Cake time!
The cake was an evolving process. It started with a couple of round cakes and we went from there. Lex had input, I had input, the lack of supplies had input, and we ended up here. It is supposed to look like bike wheels. What do you think?
Making wishes and blow out candles.
Cake for everyone.
I like this group of kids. I miss being in their school every day and seeing them all.
Lex got some awesome presents!
Despite my last minute planning the party got rave reviews. One kid said it was the best he’s been to in a long long time, and another kiddo said it was an epic, EPIC party. Can’t beat that. Most important though is that Lex had a blast! Everything went well.
After the party we packed up and headed home. Everyone crashed for a bit. My parents were here and Mandy and Rachel as well. We ordered pizza for dinner, per Lex’s request (though he doesn’t eat the pizza, just the cheesy garlic bread), and enjoyed dinner in the front yard on a beautiful evening.
Happy birthday to my nine year old. My baby who is no longer a baby but a big, strong, handsome, growing boy. I love you with all my heart!
Birthday season is upon us again and suddenly baby Eve is a big seven year old!
While most kids are chomping at the bit to be older, Eve carefully reminded us throughout her birthday weekend that she was not seven yet. Even this morning when we were having a little 6:00am celebration, she said, “Well, really I’m not seven yet!” Last night she tried to convince me that you don’t turn the new age until the very end of the day, overnight while you’re asleep the night after your birthday, I think maybe she liked being six. :)
We had a very fun, very busy weekend. On Saturday she had a bunch of friends over for a penguin party. The weather cooperated and we were able to get outside and play after cake. A good time was had by all.
We had a lovely spread. Penguin cake in the middle, veggies on one side, Goldfish and candy on the other, and blue Jello “water” in the middle. I bet you can guess where the kiddos spent most of their snacking time!
This year, on a whim, I ordered a cake from an awesome lady. I’ve known her since high school and she now does cakes professionally. It turned out beautiful (and delicious)!
The kids started the party by making penguin picture frames. Then I took pictures of each of them with Eve, printed them, and put them in the frames.
Lex’s picture frame
The boys finished the rolled-up-newspaper-igloo project that I started with the kids a few days ago and ran out of time to finish.
Aren’t they cute?
Here’s the completed igloo. We were going to put welcome signs on them (this one and the table one on the other side of the room) but we ran out of time for that too.
Eve made a sign directing the children to the “igools” downstairs. :)
My friend wanted to take a picture of me and Alan. She thought Eve shouldn’t be the only one celebrating today. :) (It’s not a very flattering angle, but I’ll post it anyway.)
Since all the kids were playing in the basement we brought the presents down to open there. I don’t have any great pics though, so you’ll just have to use your imagination. :)
Everyone was VERY excited for cake!
This is me cracking up because Eve blew out the candles before we even finished the first word of the Happy Birthday song. I relit them quickly while we finished singing. :)
We were all pretty silly by this point.
Just for fun (and to terrify a room full of small children), Alan jumped in with the sawzall running on high when it was time to cut the cake. Grandpa Tom got a video of it that I’ll try to post. It was hysterical and a little scary.
One final picture of the awesome igloo cake before we dug in!
It didn’t last long!
After cake I sent them all outside!
Eve was really happy that the snow stuck around for her birthday this year. She really wanted to play penguins with her friends.
Penguins love to slide on their bellies!
Happy little birthday penguins!
After we said goodbye to all our friends the kids took to their corners for a wee bit of downtime. An hour later we packed up and headed to Grandpa’s for a pizza dinner and round two of cake!
Do they make non-reflective glasses? I might invest in those next time around!
Mema made a dinner birthday cake. It’s not often you get two cakes in one day!
Eve got a stable and lots of animals to play with.
We got home late and went right to bed. Everyone was beat! Sunday was spent relaxing with family and trying to restore some sense of order to the house. I also spent Sunday baking and decorating cupcakes (more cake!) for school on Monday.
For her actual birthday I left two small presents that were beautifully surrounded by flowers from others. She is a lucky little girl.
Lex woke first and eagerly waited for the grand opening.
I think she likes her card. :)
I got her a Lego book. Basically a comic version of the Lego Movie. Everyone loves it.
I also got her some sparkly red shoes because how could I not?!
Pancakes for breakfasts. Let’s keep the sugar-fest rolling!
One more round of cake. These cuties went to school today. They should each have a penguin on top, but I quickly discovered that the toothpicks don’t fit in the cupcake carrier, so I put a few in for pictures, then took them out and put them all into a baggie. Eve put the penguins on top at school before serving them. We also made a few mini cupcakes and brought them to karate this afternoon.
This afternoon we went to karate and then out to dinner at Panera Bread. Eve’s choice. No surprise there! :) I think she had a pretty awesome 7th birthday weekend. Now let the post-party lull and sugar detox begin!
Happy birthday to the big man today! We had to do some math to figure out his age this morning. He says he keeps track because he knows if it’s an even year he turns an even number. It’s good to have a system. We eliminated 36 and 40, and settled on 38. I get to call him old man for the next 10 months, then I’m right there with him. Eeek! He celebrated by taking the day off from work, exercising really hard (yes, this is how he celebrates), getting a massage, eating massive quantities of Indian food and watching five hours of TV. Then we came home with cookies and cuddles.
Birthday hugs!
Happy Birthday Alan! We’re lucky to have such an amazing hubby and daddy!
Today was a busy day, just like all the other days. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was up and showered and dressed and checking Facebook before I remembered it was my birthday. That’s just how old I am! Good thing FB reminded people to wish me a happy birthday, otherwise I might have forgotten completely! Kidding, of course, Alan and the kids had sweet birthday wishes for me when they got up.
I spent the day at UVEI, running errands on lunch break and afterwards, picking up the kids from daycare along the way. I got a little carrot cake from the grocery store, so we had a little birthday dessert. Alan was at a meeting late tonight, so no birthday dinner out. Instead he brought me home wine and delicious take out! So I had cake first, and dinner is ready as soon as Lex is in bed. :)
I got home to wonderful birthday cards and a present from a mother who can read my mind! She asked last week what I wanted and I said nothing (I’m never any help!). Today at UVEI I was admiring other people’s oversized bags and thinking that I really should put something like that on my Chirstmas list. I’m always lugging around books and notebooks and the ipad and lunch and and and… Guess what one of my presents was?! A beautiful, over-sized Vera Bradley tote!! Thanks Mom! I was admiring it aloud and Lex added sweetly, “Yes, it’s every woman’s dream.” His words and his tone and the comment in general made me laugh so hard.
Happy Birthday to Me! (photo by Lex)
Eve made me several beautiful cards today, but she got my age wrong on every one. She wrote 30 on her card this morning and I told her I was 37 now. She made two more cards, one at school and one at daycare, and put 38 on both of them! I think I’ll take the 30 back! :)
On Sunday we had a little family party for Lex’s birthday. Family parties feel little these days with all of my siblings away and Grandma no longer with us. It was nice, but we were definitely missing some of the big personalities! :)
We had a quiet morning with just the four of us, then Mema and Grandpa Tom came over at lunch time. When the kids were getting too bouncy and Lex was barely able to contain the excitement of another day of presents, my mom had the great idea to take them out to fly kites. The sky was dark and the wind was whipping, but we had fun for awhile. Mema brought them each a new kite and they are very pretty. Lex managed to get his up in the air, but then he couldn’t get it down again! How’s that for an unusual kite problem. :)
Eve and her owl kite
Lex flying his space shuttle kite high in the sky!
It’s time for this space shuttle to come in for a landing!
“Mom, I can’t get my kite down!!”
Eve was SUPER proud that she had a great idea and was able to help get the kite down. She’s a smartie!
Back at the house Amanda and Rachel arrived, then Grandpa and Katie, and THEN the moment he was waiting for… presents! (yep, he’s reached that age!)
They both crack me up in this picture. Eve looks like she’s ready to dive in, and Lex looks a little disgusted at the books he just opened. As if he’s not going to have them read by morning! :)
Laser pegs! Always a good time!
It’s hard to let Lex choose his birthday dinner since his diet is sooo limited. We settled on pizza, garlic bread (which he loves), and salad for dinner.
Yummy dinner.
Then, of course, cake!!! This was a chocolate peanut butter cake. Not as fancy as the basketball cake from Saturday, but sooo much tastier!
Time for cake!
Did you notice the birthday banner on the wall behind him? Eve made it just for for Lex. She also bought him two presents with her own money. They are so sweet to each other.
One happy eight year old!
We ended the evening with a multi-generational game of Monopoly. Lex got a new version with gold pieces. Oh-la-la! It was fun!!
Lex was very excited for his big day, of course. He brought cupcakes to school yesterday and was eager for his friend party today.
Cupcakes for school on Friday. They were a big hit!
He woke bright and early, as usual, and got the rest of us up as well for an early morning birthday celebration.
I was surprised and pleased that Lex mentioned the birthday morning table last night. He said he couldn’t wait to fall asleep so he could wake up and see the beautiful presents on the table at his place in the morning. I love to hear that my traditions are taking hold in their minds. :)
It’s 6:04am, time to open presents!
Me and Eve, when Alan has the camera. :)
I got him Twister for a present and we had a GREAT time playing!!
It’s fun when big and little people play together.
We took turns being the spinner and photographer.
Eve is in there somewhere!
Lex got creative with the photography.
When we were all done and laughing on the floor, Lex suggested a family picture on the Twister mat. What a great idea!!
Then Mema and Grandpa Tom came over with bagels and coffee. After awhile we packed up and headed to the Competition Complex for Lex’s friend party. He had five friends, plus he and Eve, and we had a great time!!
First things first, climb that rock wall… all the way to the top!
They have a mechanical bull that the kids all love. I think it’s a little weird looking, especially here with no horns (the kids kept pulling them off). Eve enjoyed her turn.
Happy Birthday Lex!! Not only did he endure the birthday song this year, I think he may have even enjoyed it a bit. :)
Blowing out the candles! (the candles are huge and the cake is small. funny.)
Party people
Cake smile! :)
It’s hard to take good “opening presents” pictures, but I love this one because of Eve in the background.
They played many rounds of mini-golf. This place has tons to do!
This is a blurry picture, but I loved the scene of the boys playing mini-golf while Mema and Grandpa Tom sat on the bench, waiting their turn.
We got home a little after 4pm and crashed! Lex immediately went to work on his new Lego sets. Eve and Alan settled onto the couch for some TV time. Mema invited us out to dinner but we ended up having dinner in the living room, watching Bill Nye the Science Guy instead. Bath, stories, bed. The usual.
I had the good fortune to be cuddling with Lex at exactly 7:41pm, so we chatted about his actual day of birth for a bit. He said, “I can’t believe I waited eight years and right now I’m finally eight!!” He’s so funny.
I can’t believe he is suddenly eight. I am so fortunate to have been blessed with such a smart, funny, friendly, caring, rambunctious, sometimes obnoxious, always amazing little boy! Not a day goes by that he doesn’t make me smile. I am in awe of the person he has become and so proud to call him my son.
I completely forgot to hang up Eve’s birthday collages this year! Oops! I was just cleaning off the mountain of junk piled on my desk and came across them. Sigh. I guess I’ll add “make 6yr collage” to my to-do list and try to remember to hang them next year!
Today Eve is 6 years and 6 days and we are officially done celebrating this birthday!
We had a fun and exhausting day today. I was talked into entering a cardboard box boat competition at the aquatic center. It was part of their annual Spring Fling to celebrate their 4th anniversary. It sounded like fun and I hoped the kids would enjoy it. We got to the aquatic center at 9am and were given a plastic garbage bag, a box cutter, scissors, packing tape, and a long list of rules. Oh, and plenty of cardboard boxes! Off and on over the next few hours we built a cardboard boat! We took breaks for snacks and for rubber duck racing.
The whole project wasn’t quite as exciting for the kids as I was hoping. They did a lot of waiting around while engineer daddy did his engineering.
Trying the boat on for size.
They didn’t provide us with any measuring devices (and we weren’t allowed to bring anything of our own!) so we did the best we could. Fortunately Eve just had her well child visit and we knew just how many inches tall she is!
As usual I didn’t know the schedule of events, so the kids had about one minute to decorate their ducks before the big race!
There were lots of ducks racing so they did them in groups. Lex and Eve’s ducks were in the final group. We had no winners in our family.
The boat is coming along nicely.
First cake of the day. They had three different cakes, so Alan and both kids got a piece and we all shared.
We decided to give our boat higher sides. Alan did some calculations about displacing water and such and the short sides were a little too short for comfort.
Now, for the moment she’s been waiting for, time to decorate!
Look how closely they are paying to Alan’s attempt at giving them rowing instructions. It was loud and busy in there. We were all tired by this point!
Smiley kids.
After we got the boat done we had about 45 minutes left until race time, so Alan and the kids changed into bathing suits and went swimming. I stayed dry. I don’t enjoy swimming when it’s so crowded.
Suited up and ready for a dry run.
Listening for final instructions.
I really need to test the video settings before making movies. I don’t know why they keep changing and I never think to check them before starting the video, right at the moment I want to capture! Sorry for the blue tint and extremely low quality. If the aquatic center posts any better videos I’ll link to them later. What you can’t see well in this video is Eve completely panicking when the boat rocks and disolving into tears. She didn’t crying stop until about 10 minutes after she got out of the water.
This is the final picture before they went under. If you zoom in you’ll see Lex looking a little nervous and Eve completely in tears.
Alan jumped in and rescued the boat.
Two happy boys, one wet boat.
So, a few lessons learned here. First, the kids are not very good rowers. Second, they were so excited about winning that the idea of NOT winning didn’t even occur to them. You can see right from the beginning that they got off to a slow start and were immediately distracted by the other teams. Third, Eve apparently didn’t think our boat was sinkable and when it started taking on water she panicked and it was all over from there. Maybe we should have spent some time discussing what to do if/when water gets into the boat.
With their young age, lack of rowing abilities, and complete lack of focus they didn’t stand a chance! Oh well. Lex had fun (though he also cried a bit because he was sad the boat sank) and I suspect if you ask Eve next week she’ll tell you it was fun too. Give her time to recover. :)
After that excitement we rushed home, inhaled bagels for lunch, grabbed the castle cake and party supplies and rushed out the door again. We were barely home for 15 minutes before leaving for her birthday party.
Gymnastic was fun. We had seven of her pre-K classmates, plus Lex and Eve. They bounced around like crazy people for awhile, then went down on the floor and did the routine for an hour, then back up for cake and presents. It was over before we knew it!
My lovely princess castle cake! I won’t go into details on my thoughts on this cake as I know I’ve mentioned it before and everyone tells me it was wonderful so I’m going to be ok with that.
Side view.
It’s impossible to take a good photo in this place!
Happy Birthday dear Eve!!
Alan entertained the crowd with jokes. They were all amused. :)
Presents!
The gymnastics place is fun, but it’s not my ideal location for a party because there is very little time or space for the kids to just play together. It’s also a very rushed party. You get one hour of gymnastics and half hour for cake and presents. They had parties back to back today too, so as we were arriving the party before us was leaving, and we were rushing out the door at the end to allow room for the next party. Most of the kids didn’t have time to finish their cake and Eve rushed right through the presents. That said, she has been asking for a gymnastics party for a few years now and I was happy to not have to clean for and plan another birthday party! An hour and a half, in and out, and we’re done celebrating Eve’s birthday!! I’m done party planning and cake baking… until next month!
Tomorrow morning we have brunch plans with another family, and then we can rest. Monday it’s back to school!
