Thanksgiving 2013 and Happy Birthday (5.1) Ryan!

Ryan, Jack and I headed to Missouri to visit my family for Thanksgiving (Sam had used all his vacation time on our trip to Hawaii in September).  The boys are old pros at navigating the airport and they were excited to be responsible for their own suitcases.

Reviewing the flight safety cards

 We stayed with my dad and stepmom in Harrisburg.  I was happy to have a few more readers on hand to feed my kids' insatiable appetites for books!

 
My brother and his family live next door (which, as they live out in the country, is not as close as it sounds!) so my nephew Bradley came over every afternoon after school to build Lego creations and just generally hang out with his cousins.

The weather was pretty chilly so we spent most of our time hanging out in front of the fire.  The turtles really enjoyed warming their backsides, too.

On Tuesday we went over to my mom and stepdad's house in Centralia.  The boys enjoyed visiting the chickens and the goat, who happily accepted dry leaves from Ryan and Jack.

 
They were also excited to discover Grandpa Gary's karaoke machine - they weren't interested in singing but just wanted to hear their voices through the microphones.

Finally it was time for the birthday party! Ryan's birthday is next Thursday, so I suggested that my mom host a party for Ryan so my family could celebrate with him for once. We also invited my childhood pal Megan and her two daughters Olivia and Ava.

First up, party games!  The classic "drop the clothespin in the jar" was a throwback to my early birthday parties, and it was as fun (and challenging to these older eyes) as I remembered.  The birthday boy decided not to participate, but contributed a lot of commentary from the sideline!

We moved on to Pin the Tail on the Donkey, which my kids had never played before.  I was surprised that Jack let Grandma put a blindfold on him, but he was game. He even got really close to the target spot, but that wasn't good enough for Ryan who swooped in and corrected him.

Ava and Olivia made valiant attempts, but without the cheater-pants birthday boy to help guide them, they fell short of the goal.

Mom also created a treasure hunt for the kids, which led them from room to room hunting the next clue until they discovered the big box of Happy Meal toys (the boys enjoyed opening all of them and seeing the different characters, but then we forgot to take any with us!). 

Eventually all the members of my immediate family arrived - Grandpa Gary, my sister Amy and her husband Tony and daughter Jessie, my brother Andy and his wife Cindy plus sons Bradley and Kevin, my dad and stepmom, and my stepsister Chelsea and her boyfriend Lance (who accompanied us to Kauai). 

Mom and I had spent the day prepping food for the party - a deli meat and cheese platter, olives and dill pickles (I don't think any of the adults got any of those as the kids zoomed right to them), hummus with pita and veggies, and a big bowl of guacamole we accidentally left in the fridge.  Mom made a carrot cake from scratch which everyone declared the best they'd ever had.

We realized too late we didn't have any candles for the birthday cake, so we improvised. Ryan didn't mind and it meant we had no melted wax on the frosting!

Because we flew out to Missouri and had limited room in our luggage, my mom suggested the party guests bring money in lieu of gifts, and she rolled and tied the bills to this little Christmas tree. Ryan doesn't have a lot of experience with paper money so I don't think it really sunk it what it was, but he and Jack enjoyed taking them off the tree and untying the ribbons. 

 

They had a lot of fun pretending they were anteaters with the party blowers as their long tongues, and "eating" the money rolls (so really they were pretending to be money-eaters).

Aunt Chelsea got creative and made Ryan some dollar bill origami for his birthday card (the top one on the right is a turtle, of course!).

The next morning my dad gave Ryan his present, which was a treasure hunt of a different kind - Ryan unwrapped box after box before he discovered the handmade wooden treasure box full of gold doubloons (aka, $1 coins).  I couldn't tell which he enjoyed more - the present or the unwrapping!

As we had been driving around central Missouri the past two days, Ryan noticed folks burning brush piles in their yard (something you very rarely see in wildfire-prone Colorado!).  My dad mentioned that he had a pile he needed to burn, so we got dressed and headed outside to set stuff on fire. Bradley came over and he and Ryan helped Papa rake leaves, gather stray branches, and otherwise tidy up the woods.

It was a very good lesson for Ryan to see how fast the leaves and dry twigs turned into a big fire very quickly and how the shifting winds made the fire change direction.

Jack was complaining of being cold and tired and I needed to run into "town" (my hometown of Columbia) to get a few groceries, so we left the bigger boys to their task and hit the highway. Jack was asleep immediately and got a good nap in on the drive, but perked up enough to help me navigate the Wal-mart grocery aisles (not so smart, going the day before Thanksgiving!).

I had looked up geocaches in the area before we set out, so we stopped for a quick "park and grab" just a few miles from my dad's house.  The old stump was a clever hiding spot!

 

We arrived just in time to toast marshmallows over the last bit of brush burning in the firepit near the house - who says making s'mores is just a summertime activity?

Earlier in the week Ryan had watched various car shows with my dad, so when we went to my grandmother's house to celebrate Thanksgiving, he was beyond happy to find a Little Tykes car, a set of sawhorses, a workbench and a variety of sprinkler parts in the basement. He quickly set up shop and went to work restoring this classic car.

After lunch I piled them in the car (my dad loaned me his Ford Escape) and we set out through even rural-er rural Missouri for a mobile nap. I didn't expect Ryan to fall asleep, but apparently all that car restoration will wear a guy out.

We returned to clean up the "workshop" and say goodbye to various family members before heading back to my dad's house. It was time to start corralling all the books and toys Daddy and Charma had provided and to do a big load of laundry in order to get ready to pack up and head home.

Our flight out of Kansas City was at 4:30 pm, so my dad suggested we visit the Steamboat Arabia museum in KC. I had never heard of it and we weren't sure they boys would like it, but the minute they spotted the working paddle wheel, they were hooked.

It's actually a really fascinating historical event (both the sinking of the ship and the rediscovery 132 years later), outlined on their website. Ryan and Jack did so well sitting through a fairly long intro tour and a 14 minute video, and then oohed and aahed over all the displays. Ryan had brought along the iPod so he could use it as a camera, and he took a lot of pictures before the battery died.

I had told my dad there would probably be one or two things they would fixate on and take away mentally, and I was right - Jack noticed a handsaw that was mostly rusted away and both boys were taken aback at the sight of the mule skeleton (the only casualty of the shipwreck, it was still tied to the deck railing when the boat was excavated).

We grabbed lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant and then headed for the airport. Once again the boys did great going through security and we had plenty of time to relax in the airport until our flight. They were well behaved on the plane, though once again I didn't pack enough snacks (even with a stop at the Starbucks AND the snack bar in the airport!).  We were all very glad to see Sam waiting for us at the airport and to head home to sleep in our own beds again.

Halloween 2013

... AKA the one night of the year we try to remember the names of neighbors we met last Halloween...

My first attempt at carving a jack o' lantern in a very long time. The boys were happy with it, and that's what counts.

Finally it was Halloween and Jack in particular was really excited.  Both boys had demanded to be firemen this year, so Jack wore Ryan's costume from last year and I found a new costume for Ryan at the thrift store for $3.

Jack was quite thrilled to be able to accessorize; neighbors Ali (aka Daphne) and Sawyer (aka Scooby) were not terribly impressed (oh, and guess who got to hold his trick-or-treat bag?!).

 

 Wait, they're giving out CANDY?  I'm gonna hustle - and make Mom carry my fire truck!

Notice how there was only one fireman in the above picture (and only one Fleming child)? At the last moment Ryan declared that he was not going to wear a costume. We explained that trick-or-treating doesn't happen without a costume, which resulted in a epic meltdown. Finally he declared he didn't want to be a fireman, he want to be a cowboy. Uh, what?  The neighbors were standing outside waiting for us, so I grabbed a plaid button-down shirt and clean Levi's and told Ryan to get a move on.

By the time they caught up to us (only 3 houses down the cul-de-sac), this is what Ryan's costume consisted of:

 Oh, right - we don't have cowboy boots in Ryan's size, so he insisted on wearing Sam's.

We had to help him up and down the stairs so he didn't land on his face, but he got into the begging for candy holiday spirit quickly.

After a quick lap down the street, we returned home to pass out treats (glow bracelets, Halloween pencils and granola bars) to other kids. Yes, that is the shirt Ryan deemed most "cowboy".

Because I'm not a total Halloween grinch (even though I'd like to be), the boys and I attempted to make Tarantula Cookies (yes, I realize they are seriously deficient in the number of legs). I thought it would be awesome to mix chocolate-hazelnut butter into the chocolate chip glaze, but it meant the chocolate never set up - so these were some crazy messy cookies. Oh well...

Grandma and Grandpa came over for the neighborhood roaming and we all enjoyed big bowls of Vegetable Beef Noodle Soup, which Ryan declared "a good warm Halloween dinner!"