Happy Birthday M

Happy, happy birthday M! It's hard to believe its been 15 years. This last year has seen a lot of changes. You finished up middle school and moved on to high school - into a very demanding magnet program where you have thrived. Your dad and I are very proud of how well you have handled yourself. There have been a few mis-steps along the way, but overall you have stepped up to the plate, getting your work done (even mostly in a timely manner - and when you have had to stay up too late, you are learning how to cope with tiredness the next day) and getting great grades!

You finally got to be as tall as Dad last year when you turned 14, but you have grown several more inches since then. You are at least 5'10" now, and not showing any signs of being done growing. It's hard to believe that when you were little all the predictors said you would top out at around 5'9". Now predictions are anywhere from 6 feet to 6'1" or even 6'2". This makes you very happy.

I didn't get any pictures of birthday celebrations this year, but we had a lovely dinner out at an Italian restaurant and then back home for the (traditional for several years now) "perfectly chocolate chocolate cake with perfectly chocolate chocolate icing". Quite yummy and we will be enjoying it for several days to come.

I hope your next year will be as good or better than this year!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy Birthday Mimi!  She's actually my aunt, but the kids know her as Mimi and she's celebrating a big birthday today.  She had a big surprise party last weekend that my mom flew to Dallas for.  It was evidently a wonderful (and very surprising) party.

It's time for the annual wearing o' the green again - and time to hunt for whether the kids have any green that both fits and is appropriate for the weather.  A was fine this morning, but M had a bit of trouble.  M finally found a short sleeve shirt that was green, and was fine for this afternoon when it hit 70, but not so comfy for this morning's 40-something temps.

Speaking of hunting for clothes, its the time of year again where the kids sprout up with the plants.  I swear it seems like as the plants put on new growth, so do my kids.  Several times recently I'll look down and see ankle where I should be seeing pants.  Sigh.  It's not too hard with A - I just have to remember which pants to put away and pull out the pile of next size up pants.  But for M this year - OH MY!  He is on the verge of outgrowing boys size pants, but really not into men's sizes yet.  And sizes in boys are all over the place - while some 16's fit fine, others are way too small.  Even in the same brand sometimes - he has some 16 pants from Target that would be huge in the waist (thank goodness for their adjustable waists), but the 16 jeans (also Target, both pants and jeans are Cherokee brand) he says are too small.  ARRRGGGH!  I'm sure he'll be into men's size pants by next fall, but what size that will be I have NO CLUE.  In the meantime I hope he doesn't grow too fast in the next 2 months til we get to shorts weather (and I'll be making sure I keep his pants washed more frequently so he doesn't run out in the meantime).

Happy Birthday A!

Yes, we've had another birthday over here. No more people in single digits anymore in this house! Even the cats, if counted in cat years, are in double digits.

That's right, A turned 10 just a few days ago. For his actual birthday, he chose to go out to dinner to a local Italian restaurant, where he had manicotti for dinner. Then we came home to presents and baklava. Nope, no cake on his birthday because I really didn't want to bake 2 cakes in as many days. I knew we would be having cake tonight (Saturday) for his party and it doesn't seem right to serve a partial cake to his friends. So, baklava it was - and it was delicious!

Tonight was/is the party. 5 guests plus A equals a LOT of noise in the house! One guest has been having a real issue with the noise, but I think he's going to do okay now. They have played on the Wii and played swords and played in the yard and played with new Magnetix. They are currently watching a movie and (I hope) falling asleep. Please let them be going to sleep as its 12:30 and I'm tired and want to go to bed. zzzz

Here is A with his cake. with the auto re-lighting candles that the kids love so much. I finally had to put them out with wet fingers.

The kids all got a kick out of the relighting candles too. But then the strangest thing happened. Most of the guests did not want any cake! or ice cream! I guess maybe they ate too much pizza for dinner. I've never had more than half the kids not want cake. And in the past, I've had kids who didn't like chocolate cake (sacrilegious if you ask me), but who wanted ice cream. Whatever - all the more leftover cake for us!

Then it was on to presents after a bit. A got some new magnetix (which he promptly checked out) and a model airplane kit - and the ubiquitous Tar*get gift card - 3 of them. He'll be able to buy himself a new DS game of his choice.

It's mostly quiet downstairs now, but I guess I'd better go check before heading off to bed myself. I put the volume on the movie a bit low so that they have to be quiet to hear it. Heh, heh, heh. sneaky mom...

Happy Blogaversary

Happy Blogging Anniversary to me! It's hard to believe that I've been blogging for 3 years now, but I checked and my first posts were 1/1/06. A is now the same age that M was then, but both kids did a much better job of staying up to watch the new year in. Back in 2006, they both conked out before 11. We were probably not playing exciting games back then, however.

This year, though, they were both going strong at midnight, wanting to stay up and play on the computer more. Nope. They were in bed by 12:15 and probably asleep soon after. M even slept in til after 9 this morning - unheard of around here.

For dinner we had a picnic of appetizers in the living room in front of the fireplace. Menu included pot stickers, cheese quesadillas, pizza rolls, carrot and celery sticks.


Then we listened to Capitol Steps - always a treat. After that it was time to break out the games. First up was the new game the kids got from Uncle D and Aunt K - Galaxy Trucker. It was lots of fun and we got to see some new twists in the game we hadn't seen the first time we played - like M and D each ran out of humans on their ship at one point (in different rounds) and had to sit out that round.

After Galaxy Trucker, we played a rousing game of Blokus. More fun and that took us reasonably close to midnight. We watched the ball drop and then on to bed.

Happy Halloween photos

I realized on Wed night that it was only 2 days til Halloween and we didn't have any pumpkins yet. I had a minor hope that the kids would decide that pumpkins weren't really necessary this year, but no such luck. So, Thursday morning I headed out to buy pumpkins. Note - Oct 30th is not the best time for a good selection of pumpkins! But at least I found 2.

Neither kid could be bothered to work on his pumpkin on Thursday, but Friday afternoon A started working on his. I had warned both of them that I would be too busy Friday afternoon to help. And besides, at 9 and 12, they are really old enough to scoop pumpkin guts and carve a face.

Here's A scooping pumpkin guts.  

Since daylight savings got pushed back til after Halloween, it was still light after dinner.  So, since the trick-or-treating hadn't really started yet, A got busy carving his pumpkin, while in costume.

A's pumpkin.  Also note the scary deer skull between the pumpkins - A found it in the woods several years ago and it has lived on the porch ever since.

A the Bionicle, ready to go collect candy.

Happy Birthday D!

Having a birthday right near Memorial Day means that often D hasn't had work or school on his birthday. Well, this year he only sort of had work. He spent yesterday and this morning chaperoning a group of rising 9th graders around GA Tech. It did mean that he got out of a day of post-planning yesterday (though the room cleaning and organizing still have to get done sometime this summer and sooner rather than later). He had a group of students sing happy birthday to him at breakfast this morning.

D got home early afternoon, so plenty of time to relax before I made him grill dinner. I fixed the rest of it (with my mom contributing her yummy potato salad and deviled eggs), but it is just too hard to get meat grilled and anything else cooked and have it all be even reasonably warm together. D had initially wanted tuna steaks for dinner, but when I went to the store this morning, they were all frozen solid. I bought them anyway, but also picked up some lamb chops on sale. D decided on lamb chops for his birthday dinner and we'll have tuna steaks in a few days once they've thawed all the way. We also had tasty spicy green beans (from Trader Joes). Those were great. I didn't think they were too spicy at all, but A did - so he joined M in having plain green beans. There was enough spicy marinade left over that I saved it and I'll add it to the grown up green beans the next time.

Here's D with his presents after dinner:


You can see that we are big believers in gift bags! I made several of the bags from my cloth stash.

The most unique gift D got was an Altoids tin that M made out of clay. It has a bottom and separate top and is labeled appropriately on top. We decided that the mints in the tin needed to be housed in a baggie though, as the clay is not completely dry yet.

Then we finished it all off with carrot cake. Yummy!

Earth Hour

We signed up for Earth Hour tonight. The idea is to turn off all lights from 8 to 9 pm.

I wasn't sure how it was going to work since we had A's Blue and Gold Cub Scout banquet tonight from 6-8pm. As it turned out, M wasn't feeling well (temp of at least 101), so he and D stayed home. A and I went to his banquet which ran long - we didn't get home until 9.

We came home to find M feeling better (amazing what a bit of acetaminophen will do), and M and D playing Upwords by candlelight.


It was a little dim, but they had a good time. A and I kibitzed for the last bit of the game. It was a close call as to whether the game would end first or the candles would burn out!

The candles lasted through the whole game, but one of them is down to less than a half inch nub. Guess I need to put out new candles...

Happy Easter!

Easter egg hunt at home:

M and A with flowers for flowering the cross at church

A with the partially flowered cross:

12 years ago

Right about now, 12 years ago M was born.

Happy Birthday M!

We'll be celebrating tonight. In the meantime, I suppose I should go wrap some presents...

egg dying

Egg dying seemed so much easier this year since I didn't have to make up the dye. My mom had brought back the dye she and A used at the assisted living center. So all I had to do was lay out newspapers and open the lids on the yogurt containers. Easy as pie!

M and A dying eggs:


D dyes one egg:


M's trogdor egg:


M drew the design with pencil, then tried to trace it with a wax crayon, but I think he didn't get enough wax on there. The pencil shows up nicely though.

We ended up with 15 hard-boiled eggs dyed. After the bunny hid them outside this morning and the kids found them, we each had one for breakfast. That and Uncle D's saffron bread made a quite yummy breakfast. This time I even used some saffron in the bread, but I can't tell that it made much difference.

M's birthday party

M's party was last night/this morning.  It went quite well.  I had been a bit concerned that there might be some 2 against 1 issues since we only ended up with 2 guests (out of 4 invited - one had a baseball game last night (we told him/his mom that he could come over afterwards, but he didn't) and one went out of town for the weekend).  No such issues though.  Good!

They were so excited about playing on the Wii, though, that they ate dinner in bursts.  When D came home with the pizza, they each ate 1-2 slices and then declared that they were full.  I looked at the 2 full pizzas remaining and thought we were going to have lots left over.  Not to worry - they came back up twice more for another slice each, and before I knew it, I had just over half a pizza left.  That was good, because I only had room in the fridge for one pizza box.

My mom came over 8ish to have cake with us, but having just finished another round of pizza, the kids weren't interested.  We finally ended up eating cake around 9:30 I think.

Finally the cake!

Unfortunately no re-lighting candles this time. They are really getting too short to use again. I need to buy some new ones. And one of M's friends stepped in front of the picture of M blowing out the candles, so instead we got M cutting his cake.  After the first ceremonial cut, he wanted me to do the rest.

Then after cake came presents.  It didn't take too long with only 2 gifts, but he was quite happy with his presents:
an iTunes gift card and cold hard cash (plus a cool holographic birthday card).  His presents from us will come on his actual birthday.

I told M and his friends that the pizza was fair game for midnight snacking as well as popcorn (regular microwave and flavored) and bananas, but that the cake was not - it was being saved for M's actual birthday.  One of his friends was surprised to hear that - "you mean he's having another birthday party?"  No, just family.  

I like separating the family and friends gifts, because when I've been to parties where they don't, it seems like the friends gifts get short shrift compared to parent/grandparent gifts.  It's hard for a kid to be excited about a $15 gift card when you're comparing it to a video game system or motorbike.

It seems I'm 0 for 2 on movies at the kids parties this year.  But its not because I'm picking them out - no, each time the kid has picked out his own movie and then not watched it during their party.  Last night M and his friends watched the Simpsons movie (I don't have a problem letting 3 12 year olds watch it, but I wouldn't let A and his 9 year old friends watch it during his party).  Amazingly enough, I think they even went to sleep once the movie was done around 12:45.  Or at least, we didn't hear anything more in the night.

Tonight we watched M's movie - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  M enjoyed it and says he wants to read the book now.  I think there was a fair amount there that he didn't get, but that's ok.  There's probably some stuff that I got now that I didn't when I read the book many moons ago.

Happy Mardi Gras!

or as I grew up, Happy Shrove Tuesday.  I never really connected that the two were really the same day until I was an adult.  As a kid, Shrove Tuesday meant pancake supper at church.  Yum.

Then I went to college and had the chance to go to Mardi Gras over Spring Break one year.  Wow.  We got LOTS of beads (and NO, I didn't show anything I'd regret - I still got plenty of beads, just not so many big, long beads).  Then, I moved to Louisiana after college.  Let's just say, Louisiana isn't voting today.  Mardi Gras is a huge holiday there.  The kids are off school.  Lots of people are off work.  No pancakes for Mardi Gras, but we generally had king cake.  Also very yummy.

Usually our church has a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper, but, unfortunately, not this year - because they are using the parish hall for voting.  So, we had our own pancake supper at home - oatmeal pancakes and bacon.  Tasty!

Birthday Party in Progress

I can't tell from the sounds coming up from the basement if they're having fun or conflict. The latter, I'm afraid, but no one has come up to complain. My guess is that at least part is caused by M's presence.

Ah, D's back with the pizza! That will break whatever cycle they are in. He reports that all seemed well with the kids. I might have checked (or might not), but I used the cat in my lap as an excuse not to.

Pizza went well - only one kid left anything more than crust on their plate. And some kids ate their crusts.

After dinner they went back down to play on the Wii. Unfortunately A was playing Lego Star Wars which is a one-player game. It claims a second person can help, but we've never managed that. It was evidently so engrossing that they didn't want to come up for cake - or maybe they were too full of pizza?

We had to have a chat with A about including everyone. So far they have had a bowling tournament and played tennis, at least. Luckily we were able to borrow 2 more controllers for the Wii so everyone has one and they don't have to switch around.

Oh, and now I hear a boxing tournament going on...

Here's a photo of A bowling...

I thought I'd gotten some photos of A blowing out the candles, but now I can't find them on the camera. Huh.

A had 3 friends for his party, but now he is down to one. One kid couldn't stay - his parents said he was getting over a cold and he needed his sleep. Another way planning on staying, but when he heard kid one was leaving, his stomach suddenly started hurting. That leaves just one - whose mom said he wasn't sure about staying if he didn't know the other kids. But since its just S and A now, I think he's staying. Which is good - I'd hate for A to have no one sleep over at a sleepover!