Ryan's Birthday Update

Grandma and Grandpa came over Saturday night to watch the kids while we went to Sam's work holiday party, and they brought Ryan's birthday present. I'm not sure what he got him more excited - the kickstand or the "hornet" theme. Oh, he refuses to take the bow off, too. 

Ryan's school doesn't allow treats to be brought in for birthdays, but they do offer a Birthday Book Celebration - I send in a check and Ryan gets to pick a new book to be added to the library collection with his photo in the front. He picked this one, which is adorable (it has only two words in the whole book - "moo" and "baa").

All the December birthday kids got to spend the last half hour of the day in the library. They each received a cloth drawstring bag with a pencil, slap bracelet, bookmark, sticky hand, and a few hard candies. The kids all set to work decorating the bags and bracelets with Sharpies.

I know everyone is just SHOCKED that Ryan would draw a turtle, but he did spend a little more time on the coral and other marine environment details.

Seriously, is there anything more adorable than 6 year olds wearing gold paper crowns?

Happy 6th Birthday, Ryan!

Today is Ryan's 6th birthday! I know I say it every year, but I can't believe it's already been six years, and that's it's ONLY been six years. 

As usual, the birthday celebration started with opening presents sent by Grandma Janet. Ryan was quite excited by the MouseTrap game and immediately set to assembling the pieces. 

Jack and I had to hustle off to school and work, but Sam was volunteering as the WatchDog Dad at the school so he took Ryan - but not until after he had opened one more present, a Lego Mixel (yes, he's wearing two shirts - he said it was his birthday so he could).

As a WatchDog Dad, Sam served various roles around the school, including reading a story to Ryan's class. He also got to eat lunch with Ryan (and David). 

Ryan's school doesn't allow treats to be brought in but they still make a big deal out of birthdays. Here's Ryan's class singing (and signing) "Happy Birthday" to him.

For his birthday celebration I decided to host a small gathering at a local bowling alley. We invited four boys from Ryan's class plus our friends the Zwyers and the Jensens.

I kept the snacks easy - a few juice boxes, strawberry/grape/cheese skewers, and Annie's cracker and pretzel mix. We ordered a couple of pizzas, plus a couple pitchers of beers for the parents.

From L:R - Brayden, Gavin, Sam, David, A.J, Ryan, Jack

Of course Honu got in on the bowling action.

Not all of the boys were interested in bowling, so the arcade was a welcome distraction.

Turner was a Skeeball maniac, earning piles of prize tickets in a matter of minutes.

Gavin also raked in the prizes.

Ryan said he had a a great time and I liked how easy it was. I made pumpkin cupcakes from pumpkins we grew in our garden (no photos, unfortunately) and the children enjoyed them.

Now on to Turner and David's birthday parties this weekend!

Rocky Mountain Toy Train Show 2014

It's an annual tradition, more anticipated than Thanksgiving, to go the Rocky Mountain Train Show every year. I think this was our fifth year, and the boys have been talking about it for days.

I can never tell who is more excited for it, Sam or the children...

Ryan and Jack had a hard time in the trade show area as there were many expensive train cars that they couldn't touch (and some VERY SERIOUS adult train enthusiasts who seemed to think children had no place at the show...) but they enjoyed checking out all the elaborate train layouts. 

Sam found an engine and three train cars that he couldn't live without and I bought a Tonka cement mixer for the boys for $10 (but the guy selling it was adamant that it should go on a shelf and not be played with - yeah, right). 

They (and I) were particularly intrigued by the Lego train layout - this building was "on fire" with real smoke pouring from the roof. 

The kids loved watching the big garden railway, but eventually it was time to bid farewell to the train show for another year.

How We Spent Black Friday

I do love living in Colorado, particularly when the weather looks like this the day after Thanksgiving:

There's really only one thing to do in that case, and that's hit the trails! We met the Zwyers at Mt. Falcon, a lovely easy hike near Red Rocks Ampitheatre. 

I had downloaded the geocaches in the area but my app showed the first one was 0.4 miles up the trail - so I was really confused when David headed off on a spur trail 400 feet from the parking lot, saying "This looks like a good spot for a geocache!"  I was even more confused when he reached into an evergreen tree and pulled out a geocache container. Obviously my app was not properly calibrated...

 We signed the log and the boys grabbed some treasures and then it was time to start hiking.

We had to stop and rest a few times, but it helps that David and Andrew have boundless energy and Ryan and Jack wanted to keep up with them as the leaders.

We spotted some deer near the trail - there is a large buck right in the middle of this picture (in the gap between the trees).

There he is!

We eventually made it to the next geocache where we stopped for a snack and the boys did their best mountain goat impressions.

Finally Andrew and Jack began to slow down so we decided to turn around while we still had energy to get back to the parking lot. Jack got a ride from Sam most of the way down.

We headed to Red Rocks Grill in Morrison for green chili cheese fries, burgers, Mexican platters and beer, which tasted so good after our adventure. Poor Jack was so tired, he was nodding off into his quesadilla, but I think everyone had a great time. 

Gettin' Our Advent On

Alright, Christmas, BRING IT ON. I'm resolved to let the season just wash over me and to not fight it so hard this year. If the Salvation Army bell-ringers are already outside the grocery stores, I can start working on some Christmas decor.

It helps that this year has been EVERYTHING LEGO at our house, which I was pleased to discover includes advent calendars. Of course, I'm too cheap to drop $30 on the current set - plus the cardboard box display just seems so uninspired. So when I spotted this wreath at Target, an idea was born.

"$24.99?!" I scoffed. "I can make something like that for so much less!"

I headed home and immediately set to googling. "DIY Advent Calendar" produces a boatload of Pinterest boards, but "DIY Lego Advent Calendar" reduces the search results immensely. This one from Makoodle caught my eye as being unique and something I could actually do in a reasonable amount of time without spending a fortune. 

Of course, I had to fill the tins with something, so I searched eBay for Lego advent calendars and scored a 2011 set for $14.99 (oh, and $10.55 shipping). Save This Christmas! is a popular book around here, so I was thrilled to find that the advent calendar reflected the story (though I'm not quite sure how cops and robbers really fits the holiday theme, but oh well).

I kept Jack home on Friday because he was not feeling well, but I had a haircut appointment I absolutely could not miss so I bundled him up and we headed out. After the appointment we drove to Michael's in search of the wedding favor tins featured in this calendar.

With a mobile coupon I only paid $10 for 30 tins (always good to have a few extras!). I also bought a pack of Christmas-themed scrapbook paper - I intended to use the printables on Makoodle but our printer refuses to print in color and I forgot to print them before I left work on Thursday... I also picked up 24 magnets to stick the tins to the fridge. Total: ~$20.00.

I don't have any fancy circle punches (and didn't think this was the time to buy any) so I traced the lids onto the paper and started cutting. My circles are not perfect, but the lip of the lid will hide any crooked edges. Jack helped fit them into the lids then lined the tins up in patterns.

And then he practiced counting them (he didn't want me to take his picture so I had to fudge the truth a bit... hey, I WASN'T taking his picture; you can also hear the world's loudest dishwasher kicking it into overdrive in the background).

The favor tins came with little round stickers I was going to print numbers on to, but I couldn't get the template to work, so I decided to just go old school and write the numbers with colored Sharpies. 

The instructions from Makoodle also required using Mod Podge to stick the circles to the lids, and while I like a good Mod Podging like the next suburban housewife, I thought it might be nice to swap out the circles next year. With my imperfect circles, it was easy to wedge them snugly into the lids. 

Ryan and Jack decided to help me stick the magnets to the tins - I had a lightbulb moment when I remembered some adhesive squares I had tucked away, and the boys did a great job helping.

Unfortunately, once I had finished numbering all the circles and stuck the tins to the fridge, the adhesive made the magnet stick too far off the back of the tin, which affected how the tins lined up - and then I accidentally bumped them, causing about 10 to fall off. The magnets popped off and I had to find another means to attach the magnets.

Well, what's more Pinterest-worthy than Mod Podge? A hot glue gun, of course!

It certainly isn't pretty, but they stuck. I even tested them with a handful of Legos and the magnets held, so I think it will work out pretty well! 

The Lego set arrived yesterday so I'm ready to load up the tins - though I'll have to seal them with a little Christmas sticker to discourage peeking... 

Oh, and remember the six extra tins? Ryan politely asked if he could use them, and the next thing I know he's got a Lego countdown of his own going on. Foam stickers for the win!

PS - Total cost for this adventure was about $40, so definitely not cheaper than buying the wreath or the Lego set, but I'll be able to reuse the tins next year - so it's an investment, yeah, that's it. 

Berry Patch Farms

One of the benefits of my job is that I have a very flexible schedule, so I was able to help chaperone Ryan's first school field trip today. The children visited Berry Patch Farms and got to ride in a hay wagon, make their way through a hay bale maze, pick out a pumpkin, and put together a necklace using beads and tiny gourds. 

It was a beautiful day and Ryan had a lot of fun (he also got to ride in a school bus for the first time, which he thought was very exciting).

I've started using ThisLife photo app from Shutterfly which makes a slideshow I can embed in my blog posts. Let's see if this helps me blog closer to real time...

You can also click here to view these pictures larger and read the captions. 

The big FOUR!

As is usual with birthdays around here, Jack's 4th birthday celebration was a week-long affair.  First off, Aunt Sarah took Jack to the Lego store last Saturday to pick out the Lego Juniors Race Rally set and to go ride his balance bike at the park, just the two of them. 

The excitement of that gift had just started to wane when a box arrived from Grandma Janet and Grandpa Gary. It contained two big books and a fun oversized Thomas puzzle. Ryan and Jack worked together nicely to assemble it. 

The next day was Jack's actual birthday. I thought I'd be cute and put a candle in his breakfast oatmeal, but he totally lost his mind and ran screaming from the room. When he returned he insisted that his birthday was not until his party on Saturday and HOW DARE WE try to celebrate before that.

I gave him a gift of Tegu blocks, which may have convinced him that birthday celebrations weren't THAT bad, and he and Sam left for school.  

I have grad school on Wednesday nights this term, so Bill and Nancy offered to take Sam and the boys out for dinner that evening. Since I wasn't there, there are no pictures...

Jack is a big fan of Disney's Planes and we went to see Planes: Fire and Rescue this summer, so when I spotted Blade Ranger in a bag of toy vehicles at the thrift store, I knew he would be totally jazzed, so that was Dad's gift to him. 

When we were at the Lego build earlier this month Jack played with the Lego Juniors Police Station while Ryan built his airplane. He did not want to leave without the set, but I suggested that perhaps Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Bill would get it for him for his birthday. 

Indeed, that it what he received that night at dinner and he was over the moon. Of course, Ryan was just as interested in playing with the set and was having a really hard time with the idea that his brother was getting attention and gifts and he wasn't.  Oh, it's so hard to be almost six years old...

Finally Saturday arrived, and Jack let me put candles in his oatmeal (but refused to smile for the camera). 

A few hours later we had a full house of friends and family enjoying the beautiful weather and our extensive toy collection. I planned a loose party theme around Duplos, bringing up our train table from the basement and spreading out the building blocks. I knew there would be some older kids and adults, so I picked up some Lego sets, too.

I did not go as theme-crazy as last year's Thomas party - I even went so far as to order pizza instead of cooking, which made life so much easier!

While the building sets were popular, a lot of the kids naturally gravitated to the playset and the garden - proof that kids really can entertain themselves with very little when given the opportunity. 

When Jack asked Sam to run the electric trains, suddenly every little friend was crowded into our former guest bedroom.

Finally, it was time for cake. Until he can plead his case otherwise, Jack will always get a chocolate zucchini cake - as his birthday falls at the same time the zucchini are taking over the garden.

It was about nap time for many of our small friends, so everyone packed up and headed out except for two families. We were having such a great time finishing off the snacks and drinking beer with the Zwyers and the Jensens - finally the boys are old enough to go off and entertain themselves for the most part and we were able to have adult conversations!

I can hardly believe Jack is already four (and that he's only four) and I'm excited to see what the year ahead brings us all.