Happy Birthday Chris

Today Christopher is 14! We had our usual family party with Italian food and chocolate cake for dessert. We had a good time as a family. :) Happy birthday Chris!

Homemade chocolate cake :)

Sooo many blinding candles

Playing rockem' sockem' robots rings.

A new watch!

Happy Howler Ween

On Saturday, we went to the pumpkin patch in town. Each kid picked out a pumpkin then we came home and did some carving. The results were a lot of fun. :)

I realize that they have the greatest expressions, but I woke them up very early for this trip... and had to bribe them with Starbucks.

This year we didn't do the trick-or-treating, I didn't make costumes, and frankly, I'm not answering my door tomorrow night when it rings.
We did, however, have an awesome family Halloween party and movie night. Each of the kids got a pumpkin filled with candy, we had more junk food than has EVER been in this house, and I didn't even make real dinner. I figure, let 'em get sick one night a year on pure candy. :)

Happy Big 1-0!

Bryan turns 10 on the 17th, but we did the party today. The neighborhood kids came over for hot dogs, chips, cupcakes and general mayhem. I'm glad we had it, and I'm glad it's over. :)

A dinosaur party, with fun cupcakes.

The double digit birthday boy (doesn't it look like the dinosaur on the shirt is eating the cupcake?)

Please be a gun, please be a gun (that is what all the kids were chanting)

Eric's fabulous magic tricks for the kiddos.

Not saying this is every day or anything...

This is my update on my star chart. It went very bad for two weeks (only 4 stars in two weeks), but!!! And, that "but" is what we have all been waiting for.... TODAY BRYAN GOT 4 STARS! Four stars in ONE day. That, I was pretty sure, was near impossible. He had, what his teacher called, a perfect day at school. Ah, I know there will still be ups and downs, but it is SO nice to hear that he was "perfect" today. Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling like something is going right. :)

This is what a perfect day looks like. :)

Pictures I (not so sneakily) Snuck (???)

All of my boys crafting

I mean, come on! How cute are these guys?!?!

You're never sure what might be fun

I have no pictures for this blog, mostly because I know that I would be disowned. I have been slowly weaning my older boys off video games, but they were bored today. So... enter the craft store. Their dad has been making candles as his hobby lately, and I love the fact that my house finally smells good. The boys, however, made a huge stink over how "gay" it was for him to do crafts.

Well, today, my two oldest boys are sitting at the kitchen table. One is making a bead necklace (because, hey it's cool if you make it for a girl) and the other is painting a wooden lizard that he found. I am genuinely surprised that for this entire evening, not one XBOX or computer game has been played. And, if the only concession is that I have to listen to really bad loud music, I'll take it. :) It's so nice to see them doing something creative.

Happy 17th Birthday Ray



Boys, pretending to talk so they don't have to look at the camera. :)






Ray's birthday was actually yesterday, but our family had a couple issues with having a family dinner at home yesterday. So, we planned the party for today. In this family, on your birthday you choose the menu. Whatever you want. Ray chose salmon, risotto (rice in cream of mushroom soup, he calls it), Caesar salad and french bread. For dessert he wanted a blueberry cheesecake. So... I made them all. :)



I'm not normally pictured in family events, but I didn't want the cheesecake to slide so Eric took the pictures





gonna blow out the candles


We did presents today. Grandma sent Ray a wonderful quilt. He was so excited he exclaimed "YAY! Now my blanket isn't white anymore!"


Reading quilt inscription from grandma and grandpa



This is the quilt his great-grandma made for him. How perfect! Great color choice!



Today was a lot of fun, good times, and good food. Now I'm tired and gonna nap.

The nap, of  course comes after they set off the birthday poppers that I got them. :) Noisy little buggers.