Birthdays- it's a Wrap (mostly)!

Well, we survived the July celebrations!  Kaden had a blast on his big day.  We had out of town company, 2 sets, one family and one-like-family, visit that week, so it made for quite a big party!  My exhaustion and lack of planning kept things pretty simple.

I just noticed the baby in the pic above, checking out the ice cream :)  Also note the great cake. The funny thing is that Kaden told JimDad and I that he didn't want any cake, just a 'big ice cream sundae in a fancy cup'.   Then when Grandma asked him, did he want her to make him a cake?  He said, "yes please" and went on to describe it...

Also, the red marks on his cheek/arm aren't wounds- just flash tattoos.

Here's some pics of our visiting friends.  Only two photos, but they capture the crazy fun pretty well, I think.

There's no photos from Jim's fortieth day, but I think it was pretty good.  He and I got out in the am for a nice walk through the woods at a local park, then a VBS program, lunch with the parentals, and he headed off to golf.  Kaden and I had a lot of small surprises for him, but no big gift.

We're not really in a position to celebrate properly, so instead we hatched a great plan:  40-2-40 !

We've got about 15 months until I turn forty, so Jim and I decided to stretch out both our celebrations in the year between.  We're coming up with 40 different ways to celebrate, big and small.  Almost like a mid-life bucket list.  If we're lucky, we'll come up with the cash to do some of them (white water rafting!) and if not, we'll still have some creative things to remember (state park trips!).  

In the Midst

So, guess what we did yesterday?

 Our move "plan", such as it is, consists of having a company dropping off a trailer in our driveway... loading our stuff into as little space as possible... having them drive it to PA, where it's now Jim's problem.  And Kaden and I will take a few days here, visit some friends, hop on the autotrain, and arrive in PA a day or two after the stuff has been unloaded into the new house (we're renting, have I mentioned that yet?).

We didn't plan on being in a hurricane's "Cone of Anxiety."  Or on Kaden getting sick the night before the truck came (not that you can tell from the photos).  Or on having so much freaking stuff!  I'm a bit dismayed- the wee lad himself has at least 8 boxes of toys (which doesn't include the basketball hoop, the car, the large trucks, OR any toy in Pennsylvania).  I know I gave away boxes upon boxes of books and stuff.  And yet... there's still so much.  And while there's nothing wrong with owning stuff- it's not how I pictured my life.

But we did have an awesome family come over and help, both with Kaden wrangling and with truck loading, and another unexpected friend to boot.  There is NO way I could possibly have done this without them, and we've saved quite a bit, so now I'm also taking suggestions for thank you gifts! What do you think?  What's a good thank you for 3-5 hours of sweat and general sanity-keeping?

Fire Trucks, Treasure Maps and Puppet Shows

Today was a good day. Fridays tend to be my favorite days, mostly because I rarely work on Friday. Sometimes I plan on cleaning or running fun errands, but some days we just play. We had lots to play with today. Earlier this week, Grandma and Pop sent Kaden an awesome little fire truck. It's loud, but not annoyingly so :)


Then yesterday we came home to a package on the doorstep. "For meeeeeee?" Kaden asked? Yup, it's all yours little man. Turns out a cool uncle and his family sent a great envelope stuffed with kaden's favorite things: superheros, pirates, coloring and stickers!

There was one very intricate drawing from our nephew with lots of pirates on a boat. First, our boy ran for his sword and tried to find his 'pirate hat' (a bandanna). Then, he studied his cousin's creation for a while, before declaring it his treasure map. It was awesome, as he pointed out who was who (here's Tali, and here's me and here's you Mommy).


We had another fun playdate today, with 3 friends coming over. I had bought some cute foam-y Easter crafts last night, when I realized I hadn't prepared any cool recycling ones :) There were stick puppets, which resulted in hilarious "shows" - one or more kids hiding behind the chair, shouting somewhat recognizable phrases and then falling down laughing. They were pretty good at taking turns, and I think the 20 second actual show time helped!!

Oh, and here's Sir Kaden, knight of all Florida and Pennsylvania too. You can see his knight hat, his sword, his trusty steed who is apparently named "My Turtle" and his maniacal laugh and he rides to rescue someone.

Here the 4 kids are crafting nicely. Hey, maybe I should plan ahead for when the 6 cousins all come to stay, too :)

Welcome to the Swamp

Technically, it's a "slough".

A wonderland of water filtration and flow adjustment.

A nursery for young'uns...

to grow big...

to pause and reflect...

to explore.

Beautiful. Peaceful.

Welcome to our sort of woods.

Weekend Update

Last weekend, we had the good fortune to spend a lot of time "brunching" with some friends. Kaden was fascinated:



He kept chasing the dog around. Fortunately for Casey, she was quicker than the determined army-crawler, so if he got too close, she just trotted to the other side of the room and sat down. The funny part was once or twice, it looked like Kaden was sneaking up on her... and then she'd turn around and he'd back up really quick! We'll see how he does later this week with THREE dogs to, uh, TRY to pet.

As you can see from the annoying date stamp I keep forgetting to turn off, here's Kaden about a month ago. He looks pretty much the same these days, though the cheeks are slightly less red without the chill weather. Oh right, that's starting up again today. And we're visiting PA later this week...

"Ma, give ME the camera!"

You know that's what he's saying. Even if it comes out like "SQUEEE" or "GEE" or even "BUH". No, wait- that last one is bye. Or ball. Or bottle. Or, you know, whichever he's leaning toward at that moment....

For the next few weeks friends, I'll be updating on Sunday nights only. More on that later... In the meantime, Happy Lent!

Happy Hearts, Everyone!