Memorial Day Sing-a-Long

The boys had a Memorial Day Sing-a-Long at school today. It was very well done. The kids sang several songs,  a few grown-ups spoke about military service and what Memorial Day means and a few children spoke too. Now for the bragging...of all the kids, only about 10 spoke at each performance...10 from all of K and 2nd grade and Max was one of them. And, I think he was the best! I probably think so because I'm his mom, but still! (I don't know why the video looks so dark. It wasn't that bad on my computer but it looks worse on youtube. oh well.)

Nolen's grade also performed the sing-a-long at a separate time. He sang and looked adorabl. Again, because he is my kid.

Nolen and his "best buddy" Jonas.

Nolen's Birthday Party

For Nolen's birthday party, I convinced him to have a "Water Party". This is the poor man's "Pool Party". It was a little chilly but the kids didn't care and it turned out great! I asked the kids to bring squirt guns with them, we set up the slip n slide and I filled up a bunch of water balloons. The kids had a great time running around for about the first hour. That was easy. And I'm happy to report, there was no crying, whining or fighting in that time! I was half expecting at least one squirt gun injury or at least some hurt feelings.

We had about 8 kids from the neighborhood and 4 boys from Nolen's class.

Nolen and Luke are attacking from atop a hill. There's probably some cool military term for that but I don't know what it is.

I decided to make Nolen's cake again. For the past few years I've made his cakes and at the end of each one, I swear that I am just getting a grocery store cake next time. But I think this years might be the best yet. And it was easy! No swearing involoved! Yay! It had two layers of yellow cake with chocolate frosting between them. I found this cute idea online. Its made of blue sugar and brown sugar (the actual brown sugar you bake with, not just colored brown sugar.) and they little people are Teddy Grahams. The life preservers are Gummy Life Savers, I used some Swedish Fish and the towel is an Air-Head.
We tried to do the cake outside but it wasn't meant to be. ....I didn't want 12 wet kids running around my downstairs, or trying to sneak down into the basement. It was a very windy day, so first the candles wouldn't light, not even one. Then as I was telling Nolen that we would have to do candles later (maybe after dinner with dessert), a very large branch blew out of the tree and landed on Edward. That was when I decided to move the party inside! Of course, then I had a hissy fit trying to keep the kids from crowding Nolen and the cake. It bugs me that its hard to get good cake pictures with this table/cake arrangement because all of the kids are crowded around Nolen. Anyway...Nolen was still thrilled!

I was able to get a cute group shot of the boys. Somehow, all of the neighborhood girls managed to hide from the picture. I also noticed that the inflatable palm trees I had placed in the picture were stolen (by one of those not in the picture) while I was trying to round up the boys. But trying to get 7 boys to sit still for any length of time is an incredible feat so I just snapped it.

Because of the wind, I made an executive to open presents after all the kids left. It was WAY too windy to do it outside, and again, I didn't want the kids inside. I recently read in a magazine that its not rude to do so and its much easier than trying to keep 12 kids from jumping on top of Nolen while he's trying to enjoy opening his gifts.
He got lots of great Lego kits and some video game stuff. He was a very happy 7 year old! Max is playing with the Legos more than Nolen right now. In fact, he has already put together 3 of the sets. Ha!

By the end of the day he was pooped. He still managed to play his new Wii game and veg for a bit before heading off to another party at our neighbor's house that evening. I think he had a great day and I hope everyone who came had a good time too!

Weekend Fun

We had a great family day Saturday. Edward and I got a lot done around the house/yard and in the end, I cleaned up the old slip and slide and set it up for the boys! I love the warm weather!


We were finally ready to knock down the old shed. The new garage was built last year but we had some major organizing to do before we could clean out shed and knock it down. Ed did  a great job taking it apart and finally knocking it down. He took a bunch of it to the dump and still has a pretty good pile to haul off still. Yuck! Such a big job!

Nolen's Birthday!

I can't believe my boy is 7!! Since he had to go to school on his birthday, he didn't get to open his regular presents, but I did let Max give him his gift before school. Max had picked out a Webkinz dog and a Mario trinket filled with candy for his brother. He was so excited to give his brother his present!

Thanks his little brother with a hug.

Seems like every night is filled with another activity for us and Nolen's birthday was no different. It was Family Fitness and Reading night at the boys' school. I had volunteered to teach some Junior Jazzercise during the event. I felt bad leaving Nolen on his birthday night but all the boys stayed home and played video games so they loved it. Two of the ball players from our local minor league team the Blue Crabs came and so did their mascot pinch. Why isn't their mascot a crab? Oh well, Pinch is cute too. The event went really well.

Birthday Lunch

On Sunday we took the boys to Red Robin for Nolen's birthday lunch. They love Red Robin, as you can see!  I think he was excited. Either that, or he thinks he is at the doctor. "Say Aaaahhh."

While we were eating, someone else had the whole birthday treatment. Nolen asked how they knew it was that person's birthday and I played dumb as if the waiter's had some secret way of knowing. Ed and I gave each other the look. His look said, "Don't do it." But after a few minutes I could tell Nolen wondered why no one was singing to him. So of course I told them it was his birthday. When they came to sing, his eyes got real big like he was scared at first, then he enjoyed it. He said it scared him because it was too loud.

Max wore more ice cream than he ate. He really enjoys his food!

Later that day I pulled into the driveway and found two bunnies eating the weeds, I mean, clover in our yard. They were so cute. They stayed right there while I took their picture. We have quite a few bunnies running around the neighborhood this time of year. So cute - but stay out of my garden!