9th Birthday Fun with Friends

Daniel had two friends, Manny and Cole, here last weekend to continue the 9th Birthday celebrating! The boys had a great time playing Legos, Hot Wheels, making roller coasters (with a new game Daniel got at the family party), and so on. Lunch was pizza (homemade due to a snafu with the pizza place- we were NOT pleased, but we were glad it didn't happen the weekend of the family party when we ordered 5 pizzas! at least it was just the two pizzas this time; still...) and dessert was chocolate chip cookies and ice cream! YUM! It was the perfect birthday "play date" celebration! (Minus the strep we may have inadvertently shared with the two friends, oops! Test came up positive for strep on Monday; one can hope the friends escaped). Anyway, Daniel really enjoyed having his two best friends here to play! And he was overjoyed to get more Ninjago lego sets!

We continued the fun that night by going to see the new Ninjago Lego movie at a local theater with super nice cushy seats. Daniel has been converted now- "Only take me to that theater from now on! I liked those seats!" He has expensive taste, but it was worth it this time! And this movie was SO fun! I loved it! What a fun day all around!

And now tomorrow is THE day- I will officially have a 9 year old in the house!

A 9th Birthday Family Gathering!

It's time to celebrate a certain growing boy's NINTH Birthday!! What?! 9. Next year we will celebrate a whole decade. Let's just not talk about that. Nine first. And a wonderful nine it is so far, though the official day of 9 is tomorrow! Seems like the celebrations just keep on coming this month!

A couple weekends ago we celebrated Daniel's birthday with a big family party and were delighted that everybody was able to make it! Garfield was here for the fun, too! We had a great afternoon of eating- indoors and out, kids playing, and of course watching Daniel open some fun presents!

The party was Lego themed, of course! I made a Happy Birthday banner with Lego-plate letters and Daniel and Annabel added Lego creations here and there throughout the party. The island was also covered with streamers dangling, thanks to Daniel and Annabel. I love that they still love to help decorate for parties! I found a tutorial for making a Lego candy dispenser, which was a big hit with the kids! That was so fun. The cake was a Lego brick and it turned out cute! All in all, it was a great party! And Daniel dove immediately into playing and building all his presents!

We are glad everyone could come! Thank you all for joining us!

Rockin' 40

Somebody had a birthday at the beginning of this month and turned 40! We first celebrated with a delightful gathering at my mom's house, with my fave sandwiches- Jersey Mike's- and some delicious treats from Nothing Bundt Cakes! I was allowed one small cake with my diet limitations (at that point, I still didn't know my latest CT scan results and have just been inching upward in my diet slowly...I still am inching upward actually, I really do feel it when I stretch my limits too much, not to mention I really like the weight I've lost!)- and that chocolate cake was pretty tasty. The kids all had fun playing, I had fun opening presents. My mom made me wear a tiara and button that said 40, which Annabel thought was fun. It was a good night.

The next day my little family celebrated my actual birthday with Annabel's soccer game at a decent hour, presents (such as books and a shirt I wanted, and Legos that totally captured the kids' attention!), and then we spent a delightful afternoon checking out the Cavalcade of Homes- just my kind of thing! I'm drooling over the XO chair (where can I buy that?!) and the porch with skylights (what a good idea and can we do that for our house, too?!). We all loved the first house we saw, which had 4 bedrooms and a really awesome bonus room between the two bedroom that the kids LOVED ("This would be the LEGO room!!" they exclaimed!), and this house had amazing window seats in the bonus room and the one bedroom. Still, I love my house best! And then I just really wanted something different than Mod pizza for dinner, so we headed to Red Robin where I ate a half of a fave sandwich there, good girl I am. Dessert was some homemade fudge made by Ben and Annabel (who put lots of love in it!), and more of the cake my mom sent home with me! Yum!

Turns out 40 isn't so bad! I'm here, I'm healthy, I'm rockin' some great new clothes with my weight loss, I have a wonderful supportive and loving family, AND I've learned something this month...I actually have rather wavy hair and I love it! I'm feelin' and lookin' good! Here's to another year of this amazing life I've been given!

Apple Picking Fun

A few weeks ago, Grandma Mary Kay and Grandpa Larry took Daniel and Annabel out for a great day of apple picking and fun! They were early enough this year to get Grandpa Larry's favorite kind, McIntosh apples. Hay rides, hay bale jumping, many "fruit" treats (apple donuts and such!), "driving" tractors, and all kinds of other fun was had. Garfield even joined the fun, too! They had nice weather for their outing!

Cute story: the kids were each allowed to eat one apple that they picked right then and there, but they asked Grandma, how do we eat the apple? Well, you just bite it! The thing is...we slice our apples at home, I kinda hate biting into an apple so we just never do, and now I guess that means my kids don't know how to eat an apple! They figured it out though and both ate almost a whole apple (which for my kids is a lot)!

Now we are all in the mood for Fall!