Twelve Fun-Filled Hours

12 hours.
5 kids.
1 van.
1 zoo.
30 kinds of animals.
3 parks.
4 carousels.
6 happy meals.
2 sheet pizzas.
16 balloons.
196 photographs.
1 happy 4 year old.

That’s how we spent our day. It was lovely. Happy birthday, Anna!

The Perseids and More Fun With Friends

We didn’t have good luck with the Perseid meteor shower last night, what about you? We did go out at bedtime (from about 9:00 until 10:30) and saw maybe half a dozen. The sky was so bright with the moon, it was hard to see much. We planned to go out again, but when I woke up at 2 am it was overcast… and again at 4 am, and again at 6 am. We were sad that we didn’t get to see the peak of the shower, but we might try again tonight.

The Perseids are particularly sentimental for me. Ten years ago this week, PisecoDad and I were staying with my parents, getting ready to move away and get married. As the household started winding down for bed one night, I started talking about the meteor shower and peeking out the windows and getting excited that the night was crystal clear. So excited that I wound up talking my mom into star gazing, and she, PisecoDad and I drove out to a little lake about ten miles away to sit on the shore and ooh and ahh. When our wedding rolled around not quite two weeks later, my mom included that night’s adventures in her portion of the ceremony, using it as an example of how her children were always inspiring and teaching her. The words meant so much to me then, and even more to me now that she’s not here to say them again.

After I spent the whole night last night peeking out the windows in the hopes of a good show, I was pretty tired this morning! We did a little light reading, math play (JediBoy wanted to read and discuss Anno’s Math Games again, something he really enjoyed last week) and some history reading. Then, since we’re reading about “biblical times” for history this week (and I have to rephrase a bit of the writing there to make sure I treat the Christian god in the same way - with no more or less reverence - than I treated the Egyptian gods) and we’d just read the story of Joseph, we snuggled in bed to watch one of my all-time favorite musicals: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was a wonderful way to spend the morning, especially since the musical was one of my mom’s very favorites too.

After lunch we went over to Leigh’s house for the first time in nearly three weeks - she’d been taking care of two extra boys whose babysitter was on vacation for the past two weeks. JediBoy and Nate found themselves having to renegotiate their relationship (who got to make the rules!) at first, but soon settled into happy play. This was the scene for a chunk of the afternoon: the boys watching Mario, and BabyGirl eying their food!

This evening we passed the time laughing at the FAIL blog, watching Bones while the kids played in the nursery, and then working on our super-duper project.

We did a little wiring tonight, as you can see. I’ll show you in the morning what it looks like from the inside…

Nothing Like

There’s nothing like a day spent with friends. We haven’t spent nearly as much time this summer with Heather and her kids as we usually do - we’ve traveled at different times, and our kids have been sick at different times, and things just haven’t worked out. Finally today the sun shone down and we got to spend a happy day at Heather’s.

I only took pictures while the kids were outside, and they were doing so many different things (and in so many shades of nekkid) that really only this one candid group shot seemed postable.

It’s the five kids - doing their own things. Jamie’s hanging out on the slide, JediBoy is playing but unwilling to get in the water, Ethan has been swimming and is now sunbathing, BabyGirl is exploring the toys, and Ben is jumping into the pool.

I also snapped this picture of BabyGirl holding her first toad.

Yes, she tried to squish it, and yes, I was able to stop her.

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In other news, we are not making the world’s largest pinhole camera, but we did bring our project inside and add a curtain.

Happy Birthdays!

In between everything else that’s going on this week, we have gone to two very fun birthday parties. When JediBoy was born, I started going to La Leche League meetings here in town, and I met a group of moms who remain very dear friends. All of our first babies were born in that summer or fall. JediBoy was the oldest on June 19, and Ethan was the youngest on October 2. All the others came in between, including B. on July 24 and A. on July 31. Here they are the summer they turned one.

Now they’re all turning six! If you want to see how big they are, I have lots of pictures after the cut.

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Taking Time

We’ve had a very nice weekend, in spite of the heat and humidity. We were able to take the time to be with several of our good friends and family this weekend, and that time was cherished.

Yesterday morning started with soccer… here is 40% of Team USA!  We’re lucky to have three of JediBoy’s friends on his soccer team.

JediBoy was thrilled to have his Grandma & Grandpa come down to watch him play. After the game, we went with them to lunch out and then for a hot but yummy trip to the pick-your-own farm for fresh raspberries. The kids liked seeing the animals and eating berries right off the bush.

When Grandma & Grandpa had to leave (which put JediBoy in a bit of a snit), we drove home and relaxed for a couple of hours.

In the evening, we went over to Aunt R & Uncle J’s house, where my camera battery died, but even without pictures we’ll remember the fun we had playing with the kids (Aunt T and Uncle M were there too with Cousin C, and Uncle Jer, and Uncle J’s friend K) and eating pizza and playing games.

Fireworks-Watching Pillows

Today - Dave, are you listening? - the craft I took over to Leigh’s house was NOT MESSY AT ALL! They should be so grateful. No paint, no glue, no toilet paper. Just fleece.

We made Fireworks-Watching Pillows. I picked up 16″x16″ pillow forms at the fabric store at half-price. Then JediBoy and I picked out some fleece, two holiday prints plus red and blue - we needed about a yard of the 60″ wide fleece for each pillow.

At home, I cut out squares - leaving 4″ on each side for the fringe, so I cut two 24″ squares for each pillow. I chalked a line four inches in and cut fringe about 1″ wide and 4″ deep along each edge, cutting the corner squares off (so it looked like a fat + sign).

The kids (with lots of help from the grown-ups) tied the front square to the back by making two simple knots in each pair of fringe pieces. (This is a very easy and popular technique for making blankets from fleece.) Once three sides were done, we slipped in the pillow form and tied off the fourth side.

Now each of the kids has a very special pillow to take to the fireworks on Friday!

A Real Summer Day

Today finally feels like a real summer day to me. Not because of the heat (we’ve had lots of that) or the sun (we’ve had our fair share of that too) but from some indescribable quality. Maybe it’s because this is the first full week the public schools are out and so all the places - the library, the parks, the stores and restaurants - have switched into it’s-summer-cater-to-the-kids mode. Or because we spent the late morning with friends who we don’t see often enough during the year but try to catch up with in the summer. Whatever the reason, it feels like full-blown summer today.

Before we got into the van, we noticed that one small area (two square feet?) of dirt and plants near our steps was teeming with these neat little red bugs. I haven’t looked them up yet - do you know what they are? (You can click on the picture to see a slightly larger version.)

We went to the library, a park and out to eat with our friends. After trying to contain the buoyant energy of three boys while we were at the library, we let them loose at the park. Annick stayed with the kids while I ran three errands - smushing what normally would have taken an hour and a half with the kids into half an hour on my own. Then we all went out to eat at Wendy’s, because JediBoy had his birthday “free kids’ meal” coupon.

Here are JediBoy and A. swinging…

And BabyGirl swinging with C.

A. even volunteered to push JediBoy. Last year I kept telling JediBoy, “This is the year you’ll learn to pump.” But this year I really, really mean it!

Here are the three boys at Wendy’s. First, no, we did not dress them alike on purpose. Second, no, they are not triplets (the cashier wondered). Third, yes, I do realize what a goofy expression JediBoy has, but all the pictures from lunch looked like this because he would NOT stop talking!

Here is BabyGirl (with Annick) at Wendy’s, doing what she loves best. Eating!

After lunch, Annick and the kids went home but we had one more stop to make. JediBoy had a $3 gift card for Toys R Us (from their Birthday Club) and $4 of his brand-new allowance (more on that in another post) burning a hole in his pocket. We shopped, and shopped, and shopped (and BabyGirl saw the restrooms and asked to go potty, and did pee, a first out in public!). We looked at Legos (too expensive) and Star Wars guys (we had them all) and Turtles (the big ones were too expensive) and Pokemon (just not enticing today) and Kung Fu Panda (the selection was small) and finally he settled on a little rubber band launch rocket. When he paid the cashier with $3 in cash and his gift card, she gave him a balloon and a paper crown for his birthday, and told him the crown meant he was in charge for the rest of the day.

Obviously, she didn’t know who she was talking to! He has been lording the power of the crown over us for the entire afternoon, and here we sit watching Shrek for the three-millionth time. Sigh.

Super Six!

Today’s the day… JediBoy is finally SIX!

We had a fantastic day from start to finish. JediBoy woke up to a living room decorated with streamers and the birthday banners we’ve bought over the years, personalized with his name. He opened a few birthday cards and a pair of Real Binoculars from PisecoSis. We gave him a few fake-out Pokemon presents (just a few cards and figures) before scratching our heads and asking, “Wasn’t there another present here somewhere?” He peeked behind a chair and found the Lego Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer that he’s been drooling over at lego.com for months! He was so excited. (He didn’t like it when I said… “Wait, wait! We have to take it back to the store. It says on the box ages 9 and up. Can you just wait 3 years?”)

JediBoy worked on those Legos for three hours straight this morning! That’s devotion. He has decided he wants to do this one all by himself, with us standing by to answer questions or unpop a piece that got put in wrong. He’s made it to step 24 so far… which is about a quarter of the way through.

He fielded four great birthday phone calls this morning, including one from South Africa that really delighted him (he couldn’t stop talking about that one).

After he couldn’t sit any longer working on Legos, we went to Chuck E Cheese for lunch with Leigh & Paula & kids. He had a blast there, playing games, eating pizza and playing up in the tunnels. When it was time to go, Leigh asked him if he wanted to cash in his tickets or save them for something bigger, and in a very off-handed way, he said, “Oh, I’ll just save them.” It’s the first time he hasn’t wanted at least a lollipop from the prize counter.

We came home for about an hour and a half so BabyGirl could nap, and JediBoy put in some more time on the Star Destroyer. Then it was off to t-ball - the last game of the season - and out to dinner with Aunt R, Aunt T, Uncle M and Cousin C. He got some presents at dinner too - knight- and Kung Fu Panda-themed.

Riding home from dinner, he couldn’t stop talking about what a wonderful, perfect, fantastic, terrific birthday he had!

Homemade Chalk Paint

Today’s make-a-mess-at-someone-else’s-house project was Homemade Chalk Paint. JediBoy and I made this once or twice last summer, and I’ve seen it popping up on several blogs this month.

The recipe is simple: Put 1/4 cup water into a plastic cup. Add 1/4 cup cornstarch and several drops of food coloring - the neon colors and recipes on the back of the box add extra choices. Stir - then paint! The paint works well on sidewalks and driveways and will wash away after a few rains.

The five kids loved the paint and made some great creations, mostly on the garage floor to stay safely out of the way of cars and a steep driveway.

We gave BabyGirl a cup to paint with too, but didn’t add any food coloring so that she wouldn’t get too stained. She tasted it, dipped her hands in it, painted the railing and splattered the floor. What a great time!

Here’s the weird phenomenon we noticed: when BabyGirl dipped a piece of regular sidewalk chalk into her cup of cornstarch-and-water, Leigh pulled it out immediately and saw that the chalk had a hard coating. We experimented with more pieces of chalk, sometimes dipping it into several colors of chalk paint and creating several layers of coating on the sidewalk chalk.

Does anyone know why this happens?

(FYI, Leigh has suggested that I add a new category to my blog, and so I have.)

Game Night: Star Wars Birthday Party!

Our most-weeks-ly game night evolved into something extra special this week. When we started talking about it a few days ago, we thought it would be small and very low-key, as Aunt R was supposed to be out of town and Aunt T & Uncle M have company. But when Aunt R emailed me on Friday night to say she was in town after all, I tried to think up a theme. It didn’t take me long to realize that since JediBoy is having a birthday this week, we could do all Star Wars games.

Over a series of emails, that snowballed into Star Wars games, special food, a birthday cake and presents! We decided to make Star Wars food - which includes, of course,

Here are the kids (before J & S arrived with kids B & T), dressed for the occasion:

Several Star Wars games were played, including Epic Duels, Star Wars Death Star Assault, Star Wars Life and a little Star Munchkin. We also started a game of Settlers in the screen room. Here are N and JediBoy playing Death Star Assault:

There was lots of time to play and talk and enjoy the company of friends - we had 10 adults and 7 kids there. BabyGirl, as usual spent the whole night eating until she squeezed the life out of a cannoli into her hair, her ears, the carpet… and earned a bubble bath.

Finally, JediBoy read the cake (May the Force be with you!) and realized this was more than just a cool Star Wars night. He opened two presents - a new Cranium game from E, N and A and a bag from Aunt R and Uncle J (hmm, what are we going to do about having 3 Uncle J’s?). Inside the bag he found Pokemon Pearl - which he’d been asking for since at least April. But strangely enough, he never once asked for his own Nintendo DS - maybe because I stress the value of mine and make sure anyone who uses it takes special care with it. Maybe he thought it was out of his league? In any case, Aunt R had to point out to him - But wouldn’t you have to play this on a DS? and then pulled out his brand-new shiny red DS.

The three-octave screams could be heard throughout the county, I’m sure!

We enjoyed some more time playing together and then sang “Happy Birthday” (both the traditional and SCA versions) to JediBoy before he blew out the sparkler candles on his cake.

My heart was so full after an evening of lovingly prepared food, goofy games, conversation and companionship. Thanks to everyone who was there for making it a great night for all of us.