Andy's Jumpin' Birthday Party

This kid just turned seven:

In case you don't recognize him--you know, because he's in disguise and all--here he is front and center, posing with his friends in front of the bounce house we rented for his party:
Andy typically gets a much simpler party than Jonah just because it falls around the holidays. This year we were determined to give him a great party, because he's such a great kid. We surprised him with a bounce house in the front yard.

It was a big hit. Everyone was fighting to get in:

Just how long will kids jump before they get bored, you might ask? We may never know. After six hours of jump time, we shut the party down while they were still springing along... in the dark... and the rain.

Other opportunities for fun included the ever-popular piñata, which we had to hang from our neighbor's tree because we don't have anything but palms in ours:
Ben thoroughly enjoyed whacking it with the same bat we always tell him not to hit with:
Here we are walking back to our house after the kids filled up their goody bags with candy:

And here's Ben after being busted for stealing some other kid's bag:

Good thing he wasn't still carrying the bat.

Then there were presents:

And cake:
And, of course, face painting:
Which also drew a crowd:
Andy said he had a great time. When I asked him what his favorite part was, he said he loved the bounce house, and the cake and presents were great, but he mostly liked hanging out with his friends.

Happy birthday, big boy!

Halloween

I promised a couple grandmas that I would send Halloween pictures, so I'm going to play a little game of catch up before moving on to more current events. Allow me to take you back to mid October and pumpkin carving:

Jonah was the only one willing to touch the stuff until the other kids saw that it was safe. After they warmed up to it, it ended up all over the back porch and yard. I had to scrub it off the screen door and, at last count, I had thirty-two pumpkin vines sprouting up in the back lawn.
Here they are with the finished products:
Jonah chose this pattern... and I carved it.
Andy chose this pattern... and I carved it:
It didn't matter which pattern Ben chose because his pumpkin was so hard I couldn't carve it. Instead, I had to nail holes in it just to be able to squeeze some Mr. Potato Head pieces into it:
When did Halloween become so much work for Mom? Oh well, Ben was thrilled with his new toy, and that made it worth the effort:
Later in the month the kids dressed up and we headed over to the Hendersons' for some trick-or-treating:
Jonah was a spy:
Andy was a storm trooper:
and Ben was a magician. He made candy disappear:
I painted a jack-o-lantern on Maria's belly, much like the one Benay painted on me when I was pregnant with Andy--only smaller:
Here's baby Kevin's first Halloween costume:
Ben especially liked it:
John and I never got around to putting together costumes for ourselves, but Maria had some from last year that fit us perfectly:
This may be the first year I've ever been trick-or-treating with a fully-costumed group of this size. It was a lot of fun:
As we headed out, Ben insisted on staying with baby Kevin:
It was a beautiful evening, and the kids came back with pumpkins filled to the brim. What more could a kid want?

Jonah's 10th

We are officially parents of a double digiter. Jonah was thrilled to have his tenth birthday party at a beach park with these great kiddos:

I was glad I didn't plan a lot of games because they kept themselves pretty busy. Their first activity was to climb up this concrete water fountain to swing on low hanging palm fronds. The moms all stood nearby commenting on how dangerous it looked as we snapped photos of our daring children:
Then the kids' favorite celebrity, their homeschool athletics coach, showed up for a cameo appearance. He brought Jonah a baseball autographed by a famous player and even gave the brothers a little something:
He broke out his bow and arrow and gave each kid a shot at a bag of charcoal. Who needs a piñata?
Then it was cake time. Jonah requested chocolate this year for the first time ever. For those of you who know him, you know lemon has always been his favorite. I believe my influence is finally taking hold.
He got a lot of cool boy gifts from his friends, including things that shoot, things that go, and things that make a mess:
Then we headed over to the beach for the main attraction:
Uh oh!
It was very windy but felt great:
No sea lice in here:
And the wind made for perfect waves:
Woo hoo! what a party!

The Lizard Whisperer

Jonah has become something of a reptile specialist lately. Not only has he been catching with his bare hands some very aggressive lizards in our neighborhood, but he has also been taming them. Here is one of his recent catches--a reformed thrasher and biter:

All the boys take great delight in trapping the lizards' food so Jonah can feed it to them by hand:
They don't hesitate to take advantage of the fact that Jonah can put these little critters on their backs for several minutes at a time. Here they have Fred sunning himself on the beach with an ice cold Coke in his hand.
While his girlfriend Wilma enjoys the quiet solitude her own hot tub affords:

Live animals are a real crowd pleaser when it comes to play time. But don't worry, Jonah is extremely gentle with them and doesn't let anyone handle them who isn't just as careful. Here they are on the set of a recent photo shoot where the kids put together the following story:

Frank was carpooling on his way to work when, suddenly, he felt a little sick:

Mabel took her spot behind the wheel, only to realize she would have to drive to the hospital instead of the office. Frank's condition was getting worse:

It's a good thing Mabel works out because, by the time they reached the parking lot, Frank was so weak, she had to carry him into the building:

It's also a good thing Mabel is a doctor because she had to perform emergency surgery on Frank:

Now Frank is back at home in the comfort of his own athletic sock bed and recovering nicely:

We hope you have enjoyed our little diversion from reality. You may just see more of Jonah's gift with animals combined with his clever imagination very soon.

Grandma's Visit

We're blessed enough to have two Grandmas - one from Texas and one from Colorado. We used to call the former Naked Grandma because she liked to strip us down when we were babies and let us run around naked. Now we call her Texas Grandma because Mom says the other doesn't seem like a fitting name for a six and a nine year old to use.

She just spent a week with us and we had a great time. She even helped us with our chores. For example, she cleaned the glass doors while we... well, we did other stuff.

Then we rewarded her by taking her to the beach and by just being our wonderful-grandson selves.

Thanks for visiting, Grandma. We miss you already.

This Chicken's a Little Dry

I'm just going to warn you that if you have a weak stomach this may not be for you. It's about a recent homeschool project that, while helpful and memorable, was by far the most disgusting activity we've ever done. The boys and I spent the last three months mummifying a chicken after we read about the ancient Egyptians doing the same to their deceased. We started with a store-bought, whole chicken. Then we cleaned it and packed it in salt in a large Ziploc. I'll spare you the nastiness of raw chicken photos but let me just say it was nauseating to take that thing out of the bag every few days to repack it with fresh salt. When I told the boys that people used to have to do this with their loved ones' bodies, Andy exclaimed, "You mean they put them in bags!"

After the chicken was essentially dehydrated and half its original size, we removed it from the bag and shook off all the salt. The boys chose spices to mix with olive oil, which we used to massage into the bird so it wouldn't smell so offensive. It actually worked.

Here they are with the chicken on the driveway trying to decide who's going to touch it first:

Jonah drew the short straw and Andy almost threw up just watching him pick it up:

See, I told you the fragrant oil worked. Don't they look like they're having fun and breathing freely?

Then came the best part - wrapping the delightful specimen in glue-soaked cloth:

They finally both really got into it and wrapped the bird up tight. Jonah kept insisting he needed more "toilet paper" but eventually learned the word "gauze".

Then, because it hasn't rained much at all for weeks, we set it on the driveway to dry and forgot about it. Then it rained and rained and rained. Oops. Again, I'll spare you those photos. Suffice it to say that you should be happy my boys aren't planning on becoming undertakers.