He's Prime!

Nathan’s birthday celebration is always spread over a few days, but this year he got to celebrate for nearly a week. Last Friday was his friend party, Sunday was his celebration with my extended family, yesterday we celebrated with our little family at home, and tonight was pack meeting where he earned his Arrow of Light. That’s a lot of celebrating! Now for a few details:

Our crazy schedule meant a purchased cake for Sunday. Nathan chose carrot cake and a fancy soccer ball design. When we picked the cake up on Saturday, he was pretty pleased with how cool it looked.

(I love Nathan’s little candle helper. She is our little copy kitten.)

With Pack Meeting scheduled on his real birthday, we had our small family celebration the evening before. I was pretty sure he was going to want some time with his birthday present and if we waited for his real birthday, he would have time to open it, get excited for a sec, and then have to leave right away for pack meeting. So we opted to do the present portion of the event the evening before. Daniel, Matthew and Malia got him Spiderman toys. Kev and I encouraged the budding musician in him and got him his own set of The Scribner Radio Music Library. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, this is a set of nine books of sheet music published in the 1930’s and 40’s. It is composed of music that was popular on the radio at the time and is a really good cross section of classical music through the ages with some fun “contemporary” things mixed in. My dad has most of a set of these (he has the piano volumes and one of his sisters has the vocal ones) and when I was growing up my sisters that play piano played out of them a lot. They are out of print of course, so we had to buy them used but got a rockin’ deal. We paid $30 for the entire set with only $17 shipping to get them here from New York. And when I paid for them I was pleased to discover that 100% of the purchase price would be going to charity. I felt like I had made the best purchase ever! And Nathan was super duper excited. He has been sitting just like this for the past two days:

I’m thrilled that he likes his gift so much and it is something that he will be able to use his entire life.

As of this morning Nathan is officially 11. To celebrate I took Nathan, Matthew and Malia bowling. We arrived just after the bowling alley opened at 10 a.m. and were the only ones in the place until we were nearly done with our second game. Being able to visit attractions when few other people are is one of the perks to year round school. The kids all had a great time and because we have signed up for the kids bowl free program, we only had to pay the shoe rental fee (a total of $6). You really can’t be that for a fun and economical birthday activity!

Tonight Nathan received his Arrow of Light. He thought it was pretty cool that he received it on his actual birthday. And he’s already totally jazzed about being in 11 year old scouts. Having enthusiastic leaders who have already been to visit him and give him the rundown of all the cool stuff he will get to do definitely contributed to that. :-)

So I guess this year Nathan didn’t have a birthday as much as he had a birthweek…

Life is For the Birds!

It has become a tradition for us to visit somewhere fun on Memorial Day as part of Nathan’s birthday celebration. This year he wanted to go to the aviary. Two years ago was our last trip to the aviary and we ended up cutting our visit short because Kevin’s dad ended up in the hospital in need of a quadruple bypass. Nathan’s actual birthday was on Memorial Day that year and it was definitely not a fabulous birthday for him. Anyway, we went to the aviary again and this time we got to see everything.

The only crappy part of the day was the big old migraine I ended up with. It wasn’t overly hot so I’m starting to think that bright sunlight might be a migraine trigger for me as well. It pretty much stinks. But the first part of the day was fun!

Who Dunnit?

Nathan decided that he wanted to go with a detective and mystery theme for his birthday party this year. Originally he wanted to watch “The Private Eyes,” but after a quick google search, he changed his mind and decided to go with a murder mystery game instead. I’m so glad he did! It turned out so fun! The game he chose was part murder mystery, part scavenger hunt so we had kids with notebooks and magnifying glasses running all over the house trying to figure out who did it. Nathan ended up being the ghost and I was the one who murdered him (don’t read too much into that-he is a good kid and I needed a fingerprint from the murderer and didn’t want to ruin the game for any of the guests by asking for one in advance). It has been such a busy week that I didn’t have time to make cupcakes this year so we bought plain white ones and added a drizzle of blood (red decorating gel) and a dagger (you gotta love those little party picks that look like swords). The kids also thought that was great fun. I’m pretty sure there will be more parties like this one in our future. :-)

There are Good Snakes in the World

Daniel’s middle school has an award called the Diamondback of the Month. It is basically a student of the month award and the diamondback part refers to the school mascot, the diamondback rattlesnake. Every month each teacher nominates one boy and one girl who are outstanding in terms of academics and citizenship. The nominees are compiled into a list and then the teachers vote. The boy and girl who receive the most votes are then selected as the Diamondback of the Month. Once each quarter they hold an assembly (by grade level, of course, because the school is way too big for all three grades to fit in the auditorium at once) where they announce the nominees (who receive a nice certificate) and then they announce who has won by reading a short biography of the winning students written by the parents. The winners are then given a nice plaque and a stuffed diamondback. The parents of the winners are invited to attend the assembly and a cookies and punch reception afterward. The school makes a really big deal out of the whole thing so all the kids know it is a huge honor. Out of approximately 500 kids in each grade, only a total of 27 will be honored in all three years at the middle school.

A few weeks ago I received an e-mail informing me that Daniel had been chosen as Diamondback of the Month for April. I was one proud mama. Kev, Malia and I headed over to the school before the assembly this morning and although we had trouble keeping Malia quiet (“There’s Daniel!”), Daniel did not know we were there and didn’t know he was a winner until they were reading his biography. When they finally announced his name, he stood up to cheers from his section (he was sitting with all his bandmates) and did a big fist pump. Funny kid!

In addition to his plaque and snake, each of his teachers wrote him a letter telling him why they had selected him. It was nice to hear all the ways he is doing well at school. We’re so proud that he is doing so well.

After the award ceremony, I joined my mom and my sisters Rachael and Esther for lunch and my first pedicure of the season. As always, it was delightful.

Kev worked from home so I could leave Malia here. She watched “Cinderella,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Tangled” and I came home to find “Tangled” running for a second time and Malia hanging out on the couch.

She got to watch princesses until she was too tired to stay awake. So it was a great day for all of us!

It Was Big

This afternoon Kev took all the kids on a spur of the moment trip to see a train that is passing through the area on its way to be restored in Denver. I opted not to go as there were other things I needed to do and since I ended up developing a big old migraine, I was glad I had decided to stay home. But Kev and the kids had a grand time seeing one of the few remaining “Big Boys.”

The train you can see is all engine, no additional cars. That's one big engine!

Please Hold the Cheese

Pizza is not something that Matthew gets all that often. Before today, I think he’s only had it once when he was around 2 years old. It was homemade, of course, and he didn’t really like it. And homemade pizza is kind of a lot of work so since he wouldn’t eat it, I didn’t bother with all the work again.

In the last couple of years, I’ve tried a lot of new recipes in an attempt to get out of the food rut we fall into. Eating the same five or six dinners week in and week out because that is what the kids want gets really old really fast. So I make new things and let them decide whether we keep the recipe or toss it. As they have gotten older, there are more and more recipes that they decide we can keep. The newest keeper is less a recipe than an idea gleaned from pinterest combined with recipes we already know we like. Tonight we had homemade calzones. I used an easy pizza sauce recipe I’ve used in the past and my favorite super-fast French bread recipe for the crust. Every person got to make their own so they got to choose their fillings which leads to less complaining. Nathan and Matthew decided they needed to make small individual pizzas instead of calzones and I was fine with that. Matthew made his before the cheese came out and we baked it on a separate cookie to keep everything safe for him. Even without cheese, Matthew loved his pizza. We will definitely be doing this again.