And the Baby Turns Five

Ben's party was this morning, which wrapped up birthday week around here. Since he went with Lightning McQueen for the second year in a row, many of his pictures look the same as last year, just the kids are a year older. It's amazing though how much difference one year makes. This year some of the kids are in kindergarten and the others are in pre-K. They were so much better at playing party games, taking turns, etc. One of the boys said "I love games - let's play some more!"

Birthday boy. Playing a little "Pin the Hook on Mater."
The ever popular "Lizard/snake in the boot."
Pinata! Loot! Coloring while waiting for pizza and cake. Cake! Ben wanted Lightning's eyes.
The party went really well and I think all of the boys had a lot of fun.

Scooby Dooby Doo

Here are some pictures from a certain boy's seven-year-old birthday party last night. The cake Mom and I made.
It's sure handy to have a mom that went to bakery school. :)

When we went to open presents, we found that a villain had stolen them (oh no!!) and the kids had to follow clues to find the presents before the villain took off with them. You can see that this involved a lot of kids running around - very quickly. Now where is that clue???




All the meddling kids.
Then onto pizza and cake.




The pinata.
And then settling onto the couch to watch some "Aloha Scooby Doo."

All in all, a success!

Vintage Scooter Project

Yesterday, Andrew, the boys and Cedar went to hang out with Lloyd while I made a covert trip to Toys R Us for some doorbusters. Lloyd always has treasures for the boys and he certainly did not disappoint yesterday. They came home with a scooter that was either Barbara's or Lloyd's sister's (he couldn't remember whose) when she was a kid. So Andrew and the boys have been hard at work restoring the scooter. This has involved trips to the auto parts store and Home Depot, some power equipment, breathing masks...pure fun for the boys and Andrew. Here are the boys sanding away.


They currently have the scooter sanded down to the metal and are getting ready to prime it today. I'll make sure to post some pics of the finished product.

More "Smooky" Fun

Saturday, we carved jack-o-lanterns.


I also bought some of those fake flickering LED lights and I LOVE them! They looked great in the jack-o-lanterns and little Halloween candle holders!

Sunday afternoon, we met up with some of the boys' buddies downtown to check out the hay maze and do a little trick-or-treating at the local vendors. It's impossible to get a picture with this many kids and have them all looking the same direction. :)

The boys were very wary of this guy. They finally determined that he was fake and cautiously took a treat.

The Cat in the Hat was very popular.
Then we headed home to trick-or-treat the neighborhood.
Funny, I never thought of this as a particularly dangerous activity, but this year I think we were more aware of the massive amount of alternative "safe" trick-or-treat activities. I think it's a little ridiculous. We just stuck with class parties and neighborhood trick-or-treating. We like to live on the edge that way.

So, Halloween: check. Next up: birthday parties. The soon-to-be seven-year-old picked a Scooby Doo theme, and, unbeknownst to him, a villain will steal all of the birthday presents! The meddling kids will have to do a scavenger hunt to recover the gifts. And the soon-to-be five-year-old is going with Lightning McQueen again. Mom and I will be making a Mystery Machine cake and another Lightning McQueen cake. And both boys passionately requested pinatas, so we'll have those as well. Looking forward to it!

Here Comes Halloween

The boys and I got into the Halloween spirit a little last week by making some delicious pumpkin chocolate chip cookies...mmm...

This morning we had both Halloween class parties. The parade o' costumes.

Cutie killer whale.

The first graders.
I made punch with Sierra Mist and sherbet and threw in some ice shaped like hands for the kiddos. As you can see, the gloves had a bit of a leak issue, but it turned out OK. The kids thought it was pretty delicious and fun!

Then off to the preschool party. Crafting. Playing a little game. Showing off Ben's costume. He says he's a very "smooky" ghost (spooky and smoky???), but I think he's a pretty cute little ghost. Fishing for goodies. Ben surprised the mom behind the cardboard by actually casting his line, with some enthusiasm I might add, instead of just plopping it over the board.

Thumbs-up on the caramel apple. Notice the whole plate o' sugar? The teachers got a good laugh out of sugaring the kids up and then sending them home. At least the weather's really nice, so they can go outside and run it off.

Happy haunting this weekend!

Gotta Love Him

Knowing that for the last couple of days I've felt less than 100%, Andrew got home yesterday, held out his hand and said, "Tag. Now go lay on the couch. I've got this."

Mama, look!

I love that my kids actually notice nature and its beauty. They always stop and appreciate a beautiful sunset, and it makes my heart smile. One of their favorite things to do when we go to Mexico is to watch the sun sink into the ocean. So here was a recent Colorado sunset we all paused to admire...ahhh...Even with our suburban rooftops in the foreground, it's still beautiful. (And the weird double-sun thing is because I took the picture through a double-paned window.)

On tap for us this evening...watching a couple of movies [How to Train Your Dragon and Date Night (after the kids go to bed)] with pizza on TV trays. The boys got to watch Iron Man 2 (their first PG-13 movie) last weekend with pizza on a TV tray, and it was BIG TIME to them. Getting to eat on the couch with a TV tray was about as exciting as the movie. :) We were a little unsure if they'd make it through the movie because it has some superhero fights and stuff, but they made it and as soon as it was over, they were total motor-mouths about how "awesome!!!" the movie was. I'm determined not to get the cold that Ben is trying to give me, so laying on the couch watching movies sounds about my speed this evening.

Weekend Athletes

Both boys wrapped up their soccer seasons last weekend. Ben with his trophy. His favorite part is that the soccer ball spins.

Andrew and I ran our first 5k in the Fans on the Field race. It took us from Mile High through the Pepsi Center and back. Running down the ramp into the Pepsi Center. The finish line! Oh sweet, blessed finish line.The long-sleeved t-shirt was a last minute grab because it was really chilly that morning. It's kind of huge and was sort of cape-like by the end. Definitely need to get some long-sleeve t's that aren't gigantic! I'm pretty sure the drag from the shirt was the only thing keeping me from finishing in under 20 minutes. ;)

Charging hard for the finish line.He did it! He totally showed that finish line who's boss. Both of us ran the whole thing and finished within our goal times. I wanted to finish in 30 minutes or less and Andrew wanted to finish in 40 minutes or less. We both had a lot of fun and look forward to more 5k's in the future. We've even had some talk about the Bolder Boulder, a 10k, yikes! I used to think the only good reason to run was if I was being chased, but here we are, both running regularly now. Thank you Couch to 5k!