September: prep, puppy, pinata, pokeballs, and a pretty girl

Most of the beginning of September was spent entertaining the children and preparing for Lance's 9th Birthday. His latest obsession is Pokemon, so I spent a couple weeks trying to put together a Pokemon-themed party with the help of Scott and Abbey. I always underestimate the amount of time needed for these things and ended up spending many late nights doing things like painting pokeballs and sewing satchels for the kids.

This peanut is my constant companion. I love it. She is happy most of the time and usually content to crawl around and entertain herself. She can't wait to be grown up and every day she amazes me by the things she's learned.

She's reached that stage already where she insists she can feed herself. She'll grab the spoon from your hand and shove it in her mouth and gets so upset if you take it away, even if it's just to feed her the next bite. She has spunk, this one!

We are falling more and more in love with our sweet puppy Bender. Yes, most days I get irritated at something or wonder if it was wise to add a puppy to our already crazy, loud and unorganized household, but his cuddles, kisses and happy prancing always leave me convinced we made the right choice. The kids adore him and fight over "who Bender loves best" (Lance is convinced it's him). Cole in particular seems to have a cute bond with him and I often see him snuggling with Bender, arms around his body, his head resting on Bender's belly.

When I start projects, I have a hard time relinquishing control and allowing others to help. I know it sounds silly; perhaps it stems from those long-ago days in school when we had group projects and I was often dissatisfied with the end result, thinking I could have done it better all by myself. Whatever the reason, I was proud when I held it all in and allowed Jude and Lance to help with the pinata without me hovering too much.

They did a good job! Even Jude worked hard at smoothing down the strips and covering the whole area.

Sweet boys.

One of the projects I did for Lance's party was painting pokeballs. The original idea was to have a hunt with all the balls and whomever found the most balls got a prize. We ended up doing a hunt with clues instead and while we did use some of the pokeballs, we did NOT use the 96 that I painted. Yeah. 96. 

I tried to come up with a way to paint all the balls without having to actually paint them by hand, since that would take way too long. I ended up drilling golf-ball sized holes in foam core, spray painting the golf balls black, then wedging them into the holes in the foam core.

I then spray painted one side of the boards white and the other red.

(I told Jude to make a happy face and this is what I got.)

The end result was this:

Not terribly pretty, but I was able to quickly touch them up and add a painted button to complete the look.

I love how they turned out and Lance thought they were cute, too. I'm bummed we didn't end up using them all. If any of you have any need of golf ball pokeballs, just see me.

Along with a simple fleece satchel for the kids to put their treasures from the party, I also made these cute pokeball keychains out of Perler beads. At Lance's request, I did some master balls as well. I think they turned out really cute!

If I have one complaint about where we live, it would be the mosquitoes. Our neighborhood is surrounded on three sides by a bent creek, perfect breeding ground for clouds of mosquitoes. It makes it difficult to play outside much during the summer, but we try to brave the biting things and venture out to play most days.

The previous owners had these cute barrel planters in the back yard, but years of rain and sun have deteriorated it past the point of repair. The kids had a great time breaking the wood pieces and playing in the dirt. I caught Lily and Cole playing in it one day. These two are cute together.

(You can see Lily making her "fishy face" as we call it--she went through a couple weeks where she would randomly make this hysterical face. Love it!)

Sweet girl.

And of course wherever the kids are, this baby has to be as well.

Lance started up baseball for the second season. He has the same coach as last season which is wonderful. I know his coach was instrumental in helping Lance enjoy and get enthusiastic about this sport. Baseball practice on Wednesdays are fun because we get to play with the Elmers while Lance practices since practice is held right behind their house. Then it's off to Scouts with Scott. We'll occasionally stop and get some dinner on the way there.

(We were parked, hence the lack of seatbelts.)

And while the weather is still warm, we've gone back to the creek a couple times. Lance really wants Bender to get used to the water and every time we go he is braver and braver.

It's so cute to see a little dog running in and out of the water with the boys.

On to Lance's Birthday!

A trip back in time: Sibling Reunion 2007

This past August was not our first Sibling weekend. It all started summer of 2007 with a trip to Europe. 

Europe, Busch Gardens that is. Mom actually WAS in Europe with her two sisters and mom, so the six of us decided we'd do the next best thing and hopped into our 12 passenger van to spend the day riding roller-coasters.

You can never have too much sun screen.

Aww. Look how little they were! Apparently NOT enjoying the three hour drive to the park.

It was my Christmas present to them all (albeit about 5 months early).

Can I tell you how much fun it was to be there with just us?

It was the first year the Griffin was running, but the wait was worth it. I think it became my new favorite ride.

Turkey legs!

Apollo's Chariot, my second favorite.

It was an AWESOME day! (making our tired faces, except apparently Laura)

 And the greatest souvenir of all time?

Priceless!

2014 Sibling Reunion--Part 2

So where were Mom and Glenn during our Sibling Reunion?

Mom and Glenn missed this weekend because they were out of town while Glenn taught resilience seminars. Don't feel too bad for them: they were enjoying six weeks of New Zealand and Australia's beautiful scenery...

 (Queenstown, New Zealand)

...enjoying the fine arts...

...seeing the sights...

...and hanging out with the coolest animals.

Yeah, I don't feel sorry for them at all.

Sunday morning on our Sibling reunion weekend dawned a bit too early. Mixing a late night, three noisy and overly-tired kids is the perfect recipe for little to no rest. 

Chad and Darnell headed out early to drive to DC to meet up with a cousin of Darnell's and a friend before driving to Laura's house that afternoon. The rest of us got ready, packed a few bags and drove to the Calderwood's house in Winchester.

Before Mom left for her trip with Glenn, she gave Jude and gift. She gave him a brain. Yes, a brain. It was one of those "put it in water and watch it grow" kind of things and for a week Jude watched it get bigger and bigger. It made for some interesting conversations: "Jude, don't play with your brain." "Mom, have you seen my brain? Is Cole playing with it?" "He's touching my brain! Make him stop!"

After watching it closely every day, the seventh day finally arrived.

Not too shabby, considering it started out the size of a walnut. Thanks, Mom! The boys thought it was a blast!

We finally arrived at Laura's house mid-afternoon. It always takes longer than I think to get everyone out the door and on our way, this time made worse since we were taking not only our puppy but were babysitting Chad's puppy as well. Whew. Poor George was working nights and managed to make it home that morning to say hello to everyone and then retreat to bed. What I wouldn't have given to have him drive with me!

The Calderwood's house was full of family. It was Grant's 1st Birthday and they celebrated in style with Allreds and Calderwoods all gathering together. It was great!

You'd never guess this beautiful woman just had open-heart surgery three weeks ago. She is amazing.

The cute Birthday boy!

Lily was showing off her balancing skills. She's convinced she's a bigger kid.

Calderwood family!

Grant wasn't too sure about the candle:

He was less sure about what to do with the cake. Tyler helped him out a bit:

They tried to get him to grab it himself, but I guess he's inherited his mother's aversion to sticky, dirty things because this was the result:

Lance made his appearance just in time to enjoy the cake! Scott and Abbey were kind enough to drop him off in Winchester on their way back to Charlottesville from Boston. It was good to finally have him there!

Aunt Amy made his month by letting him borrow her Pokemon DS game. This kid is crazy about Pokemon these days.

Mason and Jude decided to show Grant how the cake is supposed to work and set about making as big a mess as possible.

Grant was not impressed. :)

Gift time!

This little atv and a ball tied for favorite gift:

Story time with Aunt Laura

The kids and the puppies were going crazy, so I took them all on a walk. Chad and Darnell came along with Ashes too.

We walked to the High School that was a few blocks from Laura's house and the boys spent about 30 minutes running laps around the track. Awesome.

Lance ran two laps without stopping!

Love these boys!

The next morning (Monday) we all had breakfast together at Cracker Barrel before Chad and Darnell had to head back to Ashburn to catch their flight home to California.

Talk about kid-magnet! Cracker Barrel is so smart: half the store is a huge selection of toys and candy that you have to walk through before you get to be seated. It took us about 20 minutes to make it 20 feet.

Enjoying the beautiful summer morning.

Amy and Stephen drove back to DC and Chad and Darnell left to catch their flight, so the kids and I went with Laura and her boys to a cute little splash pad to spend the afternoon.

I struck out for home that evening, driving the couple hours to Charlottesville while the kids slept. It had been a wonderful weekend, although I was looking forward to a full night's rest.

We made it home without incident. We must have had someone watching out for us because the next morning after getting Lance on the bus, I noticed one of my tires was flat. Not just flat, but flat flat. I had received a puncture during the trip home and the air must have leaked out sometime during the night. A tender mercy it didn't happen in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere while I was driving four sleeping kids and a puppy all by myself. After a quick prayer of thanks, I changed that sucker all by myself and got it repaired later that day. Never a dull day.

I am so grateful I got to spend time with my family! It was crazy, loud, and busy with all the kids and running around, but it was totally worth it. Jason, we missed you! It's just not the same without you and I'm looking forward to another Sibling Reunion when you get home in 8 short months!