The Boy Turns Eight!

Our boy turned eight on All Saint's Day.

Our birthday boy from birth to 7.5 years old

His birthday wish list involved very expensive items, so most of the family had to chip in to get him the Mindstorms Lego set he wanted.  He's been building and programming Lego robots ever since.

Another very special birthday gift he received was from his sister.

 

She began writing him a survival guide for turning eight this past summer.  The book is filled with practical tips gleaned from her own experiences as an 8-year-old. 

A sampling of tips from her survival guide include:

Tip 32: Your favorite book should always be the Bible, but Percy Jackson is a close 2nd. Don't read it until you are 10.

Tip 20: Mom, Dad, and I are always here for you. Come to us when you have a problem.

Tip 17: Never listen to your friends if they say a girl likes you.

Tip 11: Start a journal. It's good way to let your feelings go. Remember: Journals are for guys. Diaries are for girls.

Our daughter developed pneumonia the week  of his birthday, and we feared she would be too contagious for us to have the party, but thankfully, she got the antibiotic going in time for him to have a sleepover for his birthday, just as she had when she turned eight.

The party did not have an elaborate them like hers did back then for I am way too busy with teaching and other projects (and boys don't really care), but it did end up being Nerf themed (with a little Lego and Minecraft thrown in) in the end.

Orange cups, orange favors, and lots of orange food

 

I baked a cookie cake with orange butterscotch and chocolate morsels.  My husband made a delicious frosting from scratch and decorated the cookie cake to look like a Nerf target with Nerf darts stuck into the target.

I asked my husband to come up with some games and activities for the boys.  So, he turned the 2nd floor play room into Nerf replica of the shooting ranges Marines use in Afghanistan.  He hand crafted the targets to look like those in our son's favorite computer game, Minecraft.

Safety goggles on & planning his strategy

Birthday boy dives into position

Sniper action in prone position

Birthday boy wins the competition

Minecraft, Lego, and Sports Gifts

Group Pic

Birthday Boy and Band of Valiant Warriors

One of the boy's mothers stayed the entire time.  She helped me so much with food preparations and took the group photo of all of us.  Having her here was such a blessing as I had been wanting to get to know the parents of the boys in his class.  (Gift #791)  Another boy's parents stayed for a long time talking politics, faith, and education. I  thoroughly enjoyed that conversation as well and felt so encouraged to meet like-minded families with similar passion for crucial issues of the day. (Gift #792)

Of the three boys who stayed the night, two were quite homesick between 11pm-midnight, but thankfully, they all settled down and got some sleep before waking up at the crack of dawn wired and reckless ready to start a new day.   We thankfully survived our first boys' sleepover, and even better, I think our little guy has decided he needs down time after a party and will not be hosting any more sleepovers for a while.  Hallelujah!  (Gift #793)

Celebrating Dress-Up and Rot-Your-Teeth Day

Since the kids were born, we have gone to our church's fall festival every year we were in town.  This year, each of our kids brought a friend (Gift #789).  Our son brought a friend from school, and our daughter invited a neighborhood friend whose father and little sister also came along.  As usual, there were inflatables, pony rides, bounce houses, climbing walls, face painting, golf, carnival food, and lots of game and prizes for various ages. An inflatable trike race was new this year and was a hit with the boys.

These school friends look a lot like brothers.

My daughter took my camera and snapped this strange photo.  The placement of the flag in the background makes it look like I was puffing smoke.  I guess I can be a bit like a fire breathing dragon at times.

Since we have moved to a new neighborhood this year filled with new neighbors we would like to meet, we decided to take part in trick-or-treating this year as a way to get to know them.  Some of our neighbors make Halloween a huge deal as their yards and homes were decorated elaborately to look like haunted houses.  They also hosted a neighborhood potluck with some of the creepiest foods I have ever seen.  Halloween is a big deal to them.  Our son went trick-or-treating with his friend Ben in Preston, which is a much larger and more expensive community than our little neighborhood with only 29 homes.

Our little pirate and his friend Ben after trick-or-treating

Meanwhile, we attended the neighborhood party, and I gave out candy while my husband took our daughter trick-or-treating with the other neighborhood kids.  It was a blessing to actually get trick-or-treaters this year. (Gift #790)  Our next door neighbors have 3-year-old twins.  When I held out my basket of candy (which held 3 unopened bags and 3 opened bags) for them to pick a few pieces of candy, they each grabbed one of the full size jumbo bags of candy.  Smart boys!  I told them they were welcome to several pieces of candy but that I needed the jumbo bag for the other children who would come by that night.  Their family gave out full size candy bars, and my kids remembered them for it.  While the variety of candy I gave to each kid was the equivalent to a full size candy bar, the kids remember you better if you give our full size bars.

Our neighborhood kids

Trick-or-treaters at our house

I expected my son to collect far more candy since he was gone twice as long and had a larger neighborhood to canvas, but as you can see from this "after" photo, his big sister collected far more candy in our tiny little community.

Left:  Girl's loot in our little community, Right:  Boy's loot in upscale Preston

Over half of our neighbors are from India, so a number of homes were covered in lights that night as they celebrated 'Diwali' , a Festival of Light.  As my precious Christian Indian friend, Preethi, explained, " Diwali is an Indian Hindu festival which is celebrated in a big way in India and here by Hindu people in which they decorate the house with lights and lanterns. They clean the whole house and decorate it and make lots of sweets and do prayers offering all those sweets to their gods and then distribute among friends and family. The light firecrackers at night in belief that goddess of wealth will come to their house as in to welcome the goddess they do lights and also they believe it's an auspicious time to start up a new business or venture or anything new. So it's like Christmas to them."  I'm so thankful to Preethi for teaching me who to relate to our neighbors.

2014 State Fair

I do not enjoy the State Fair.  I do not even like Disney World.  Not in the slightest.  I do not like rides, lines, rigged games, crowds, fried foods or their noxious aromas, or price gauging.   Given that introduction, I am happy to say that we have successfully avoided the State Fair since the kids were born thereby keeping a lot of extra cash in our pockets and trans fats out of our bodies.

But alas...the kids go to school now where other kids talk about the state fair.  So, the kids added a visit to the fair to their bucket list and have been begging for at least the past two years ago.  Guilt set in for depriving them of this simple bucket item, so, even though our kids have been sick off/on all school year, and the fair is where germs have the best parties, on a teacher workday during the fair, my husband was the only one still sick, so we decided to go...even though neither kid looked totally well.

My husband does not like crowds either, but he loves the rides...although paying $8-$9 per person  for one 60 second ride made him him love those rides a whole lot less.

Father & Son Bonding

Our daughter begged to play those silly games to show her mettle, so we gave her a very limited cash budget to spend as she so choose.  She needed no help to win her prize fair and square, but when she realized they guarantee every child a prize (like that cursed self-esteem movement which is ruining this generation), she was angry and decided these fair games were a rip-off. Having her reach that conclusion was a life lesson worth every penny we spent there.

Bummed about her over priced prize she won fair & square

I will confess, however, that I did enjoy the plant and animal section....well except for the boring cattle show at the end.

That 262.5 pound watermelon would not last 24 hours in our house.

Two tired kids and a 1404.5 pound pumpkin

Deck Extension Idea

Bonsai trees make me nostalgic for the 80s era & The Karate Kid

"Mums" the word!

Cool plane in back

Big fish!

He was so sick, and I was weary, but we love each other dearly!

Honey, I shrunk the kids!

This talented man carved amazing faces into pumpkins

This pic reminds me of the flamingos that kept appearing all over our principals' yard.

Another landscaping idea

I loved all the landscaping!

I am a lion. Hear me roar!

The fair bunnies were unusual and cute.

But none could compare to our sweet Muffin.

This prize winning bunny looked like a Rex version of our late Cody.

The cattle show was boring but the little kids in pigtails steering them sure were cute!

Note to self:  See Dulcimer Dan for a dulcimer and lessons for our boy!

Fair food makes me gag, so I passed on most of it but did enjoy an Amish fudge sample!

John Deere tractor churned homemade ice-cream

Scarecrow contest:  Harry Potter won.

Now that we have a frugal wedding dress idea for our daughter, we can put the savings toward our own 2nd/3rd honeymoon adventure!

Secret confession #2:  I absolutely LOVED the stunt show by our local national superstar BMX & Motorcross team, King BMX.  Those guys flying on the motorcyles are ages 45 and 47. They totally rocked my perception of the mid to late 40s.