Who we're missing right now . . .

My sweetest little nephew Alex (and his awesome parents) just left us after a great visit, and we miss him so much already! He is seriously just the cutest singing, sweeping, plant-watering, doggy-cuddling, hide-and-seeking twenty-something pound package of joy.



My front porch has never looked so clean:





And my plants have never been so well-watered:



Here is Alex with the two little mommies . . .



Swinging with Jacob:



Sliding:



Reviewing hide-and-seek strategy with Grandpa:



Expelliarmus!!



We also introduced him to the lightsaber. Sorry Diane & Sal!



That face!!


I seriously need to will myself not to overdo it with the cheek squeezing/smooching, lest I become that crazy aunt he runs away from at family gatherings.


Speaking of family gatherings, Alex is going to be a big brother, so we had a little celebration for Diane, Sal and Alex while they were here:





The cousins:



We loved every minute with our sweet Alex and are already counting the days until our next visit!

Goo plus open shade

The kids are enjoying camp this week at the local children's science center. Jacob is in the third and fourth grade group, and his subject is "Build It, Make It, Take It," where, you guessed it, he builds, makes, and takes things. Elizabeth is in the kindergarten/first grade group, and her topic is "Slippey, Slimey and Weird Science," a.k.a. Goo Camp.

Every day she comes home with at least two new kinds of goo. She's made a lava lamp, a cup full o' some foam-like substance, homemade play-doh, and some brownish substance that she molded and shaped for 45 minutes before announcing that "this is edible, you know!" You can see some of her green goo from day 1 in the picture above. I took this one when I was experimenting shooting in "open shade" after reading some articles on it. I'd say I pretty much had an epic open shade fail, and this one is probably the best of the lot (in terms of catchlights and skin tone, if not composition, expression of subject and avoiding green goo in photos).

Nine!

Jacob turned nine this weekend, and wanted to celebrate his big day with a Star Wars party(ies). I know, that's what I said last year! Jacob hasn't actually been obsessed with Star Wars the entire stretch between his eighth and ninth birthdays; he took a short break in there to be obsessed with other things -- I was deeply afraid for a couple of months in there that I was going to have to disappoint him by not having a Wipeout birthday party for him this year.


We started on Saturday night by hosting a few of his buddies for a sleepover party. I guess I haven't hosted a sleepover party for nine year old boys in a while forever, because I couldn't quite understand why people kept saying things like "Wow! You're brave!" and "I'm praying for you." Frankly, a sleepover for four fairly self-sufficient kids sounded WAY easier to me than filling up two hours entertaining twelve 4 year old girls with crafts.

The boys got their party favors at the start of the party:



Finally, Jacob's ultimate party dream came true, and he got to celebrate his birthday by dueling his nearest and dearest friends in an epic lightsaber battle. We actually discussed some variation of this idea last year, but negotiations broke down when Jacob did not want to limit the number of guests. And I did not want to have to go to City Hall to procure whatever permits and releases I would surely need to allow fifteen 8 year olds to beat each other with sticks on my property.

But four was a more manageable number (especially since Grammy and Granddaddy kindly took the sisters for a sleepover the same night, so David and I were able to concentrate fully on the boys).

We took the kids to Five Guys for dinner:



And then walked across the street for dessert #1:



We figured we had a lot of time to kill, so multiple dessert sessions would be acceptable.

When we got home, the boys did some more lightsaber fighting and then headed to the basement to watch the Star Wars prequel trilogy. There was some disagreement about whether to watch Episode 1 or Episode 3. (My personal choice, "none of the above," was not considered.) The movie watching went okay, as far as we could tell, although we could hear Jacob getting frustrated a couple of times because his guests were not watching the movies with the kind of silent reverence that he felt they deserved. You know, because you wouldn't want to miss any of that dialogue. As we listened to all this from upstairs, David and I started looking up movie times for Transformers II -- because hard as it might be to believe, taking 4 kids to a 10:00 p.m. showing of Transformers II was actually preferable to . . . something . . . and that something was listening to four kids bicker about the Star Wars prequel in my basement. Thankfully, their disagreements were short-lived and we didn't have to see Transformers II -- disaster averted!

After the first movie, the boys came upstairs for dessert #2 -- cupcakes:



Then went outside with some ultrasabers, which are glow-in-the-dark lightsabers (Jacob has one, and Ben brought over his three) and had a late-night saber battle. I'm sure the neighbors loved that! The boys then went back to the basement for another Star Wars movie, and eventually fell asleep watching the movie (welcome to my world, boys!). David stayed up to supervise, and I went to bed because I knew I'd be getting up early to make breakfast. But I had no idea how early -- the first friend was up at about 5:30 (and they all quickly followed). I'd say the kid who got the least amount of sleep slept from about 1 - 5:30. Needless to say, we kept the grand sleepless sleepover tradition alive!

Later on Sunday, we had another party for Jacob with the family that was in town this weekend.



We pretty much just recycled everything from last year. So certain party items, such as the stand-up Darth and Yoda, went from "utterly ridiculous" to just "ridiculous" because we got to use them two years in a row!



When we were visiting our friends in St. Louis, B loaned me an awesome vintage R2D2 cake pan, and I used it to make Jacob's cake:



Blowing out the candles:





Kisses abounded for Jacob on his big day. Here he is, not so sure about the birthday smooches he received from his sisters:



But is much happier about the one he got from his great-grandmother:



Caroline, in full party mode, playing with balloons:



Jacob had a great time opening his presents, of course!



My cute birthday boy:



I think Jacob had a great birthday. He was really happy at the end of the day, and therefore I was really happy at the end of the day. Happy birthday, Jacob!

Party time

Getting ready to celebrate my first born's 9th birthday today. Can you guess the theme by the balloon colors?

4th-fest 2011 continued

On our second full day in St. Louis, we decided to take it easy in the morning, let the kids play, and hit the pool when it opened in the late morning. B, dear friend that she is, knew how disappointed I've been that I didn't get to watch THE event of the new millenium as it happened live over two months ago. For six months we'd shared our grand plans to wake up in the middle of the night, get the kids out of bed, and revel in the pomp and ceremony, just as we did 30ish years ago. Storm-related cable outages put a crimp in those plans for me (although boy, I'm acutely aware of how lucky I am that this was the worst thing I had to deal with around here in late April) but B, bless her, DVRd THE WHOLE THING, including the crucial pre-and-post ceremony hype (such as the kiss countdown ticker and the post-game analysis of Pippa's dress), and saved every fabulous minute of it. So I blissfully hung out on the sofa in my jammies that morning with B, Will, Kate, that cute loud-noise averse Grace Van Cutsem, and the rest of the gang:


After the ceremony, but before the procession to Buckingham Palace, we went to the pool. And wow, this is some neighborhood pool -- it's really more like a water park complete with slides, a lazy river, etc. I'm a tad worried that our kids will now think that our town pool is lame, but even if they do, it was worth it.

T&B had planned for us to go down to the river to watch the fireworks over the arch that night (and watch Maroon 5!), and we were all super excited about it. Unfortunately, it started storming in the afternoon, and these did not seem to be the move-on-through kind of storms. They settled in, and longer it rained, the less interested B and I were in trekking out in wet mudlands to watch fireworks, so we hatched a plan B which involved the dads driving to a neighboring county to buy sparklers. We went to work on selling the kids on Plan B (sparklers, s'mores, sleeping bags, popcorn, and The Sound of Music) and as you can imagine it wasn't exactly a hard sell (heck, add in some Royal Wedding footage and you've pretty much just summarized my perfect evening right there).

David going over the fireworks safety rules:



The kids LOVED the sparklers:



There was not actually a fireball on Jacob's head





(I somehow missed getting a picture of cute P with a sparkler - boo!)

We had to head back home the next morning. Elizabeth cried (the ugly cry) when it was time to leave. None of the kids wanted to see a great time come to an end. When asked "why, why, WHY do we have to leave already?" I gently responded with my sister-in-law's wise made-up Chinese proverb:

Better to leave too soon and have them wish that you stayed
Than stay too long and have them wish that you left.

Elizabeth looked confused for a millisecond, but then quickly resumed wailing. We all said our sad goodbyes, until next visit. The ride home was on the long side (WHY won't my tired children sleep??) but we did stop in Metropolis, home of Superman, and snapped some pictures outside a convenience store -- summer kitsch at its best.





Thanks again for a great weekend, T, B, P, & R!!

4th of July road trip

We hit the road to visit our dear friends T and B, and their adorable kiddos, P and R, in St. Louis over 4th of July weekend. David and I went to law school with T & B; we were in each others' weddings, and we've stayed close during the nearly 14 years (gulp) since graduation. And between us, we've birthed a kid in almost every year in the mid-aughts: 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007. Several years ago, when Jacob was just 1 and P was a baby, we took our first road trip together (to the beach). Since that year, we've taken turns visiting each other just about every year. We LOVE going to St. Louis, because it is a super fun city with tons to do with young kids, and of course because T, B, P & R are awesome.

On our first full day there, we went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Now I love the little botanical gardens in our little town, but the Missouri Gardens are really a sight to behold. Not only are they lush and gorgeous, but they have an amazing "Children's Gardens" with incredible play areas -- swinging bridges, swinging vines, caves, puppet theaters, play markets, and splash fountains.

In the back of a conestoga wagon at the Children's Garden

Notice anything about the girls? Much to the delight of every female in our group (and the eye-rolling of the males) the girls were all wearing coordinating elephant dresses!! B is a rep for Hannah Kate, the company that makes these dresses, and she is the one who tipped me off to that elephant fabric in the first place. I ordered Caroline's dress, which I love so much I was moved to blog about it, from B, and B ordered one in a different style for R. I then found one for E when Hannah Kate had their sample sale a few weeks ago. So, that is how The Triplets were born, and the girls had tons of fun parading through the gardens in their finery.



The gang:



It was a HOT day. And I feel like we know hot, living in the deep South and all, but wow, it was hot. We did not pack swimsuits for fountain play, but we really didn't need them, because even though the kids all got soaked, their clothes dried in about 15 seconds once they left the fountain.







After the Gardens we had lunch at a really fabulous pizza place called Pi, then B and I went shopping while the boys hung out with the kids (a much treasured tradition during our annual visits - for B and me, anyway); and then T&B's babysitter, Mary Poppins, arrived (and wow -- does she live up to her nickname!) and it was time for the grownups to go out and play.

I need to wrap up now as I'm kind of sneaking in this little blogging session when I really should be doing other things (such is life in the summer), but I'm going to post more pictures from the visit later. T & B (and P&R), if you are out there, thank you so much for an incredible time!