L's Special Day

So today we celebrated L and his special day! 

L is our sweet, sweet, compassionate boy.  He is quite nurturing...he is always interested in babies, and is so sweet and soft with them.  If one of the other boys is hurt, he will go over and pet them softly.  He loves to collect stuff and organize stuff.  He will walk around with all the red legos, or all the yellow checkers, or all the Mater trucks.  He is sooo pokey.  He is always about 10 steps behind everyone else, just going at his own pace (note, he was last born too...even though they expected him, by where he was located, to be first!).  He is very hot and cold about stuff.  If he doesn't want to do something, he WON'T.  If I have to pick him up when this happens, he just "flops".  He can slide right out of my arms!  He also has a tummy that is just so cute and big.  :)  He tends to be a bit of a mama's boy, and snuggles me a lot.  He is pretty chill and accommodating to his brothers, so he is very easy to play with.  He is very expressive in his face, and he is a delight to just watch as he is observing something.  He doesn't like to be outside very much either (at least when it is cold).     

He, too, woke up to balloons.  He got a Lightning balloon and two more orange balloons (his color). 

 He was excited to put on his shirt...but then he was done with it. 

 I couldn't get him to look at me and smile! 

 He just got DONE, and decided to collect up all of his cars and take off.  He is quite the collector. 

 His cereal was Cookie Crisp.  Yes, I bought them cookies for breakfast.  Wow. 

 What a sweet boy!!!

 We didn't do anything fun today either.  Poor kids.  Tomorrow we will be all up to par again (which is good since we have family coming in town!)

His dinner of choice was chicken nuggets.  And to be honest, I'm so wiped out from this week that I indulged him.  And ordered a $4 pizza and salad from Cecil Whittakers for us :) 

For his cake, he chose chocolate cake and chocolate icing (that's my boy!).  He loves Guido, Luigi, and "Pantomino" (that would be "Uncle Topolino"). 

 He has a LOVE for sorting and organizing stuff.  Here he is saying "2 Guido, 2 Luigi, where other Pantomino?"

 We got him a movie and then more Cars...

Happy happy day, sweet boy!!

N's Special Day

Today was N's Special Day!  He was born a minute after C, so he is number 2. 

N is our charmer...but don't let those looks deceive you!  Most people fall head over heels for him first, he is so cute.  He loves puzzles, and is AMAZING at doing them.  (He put together a 60 piece puzzle on his own the first time he saw it a few weeks ago).  He loves to color, and will color for 15 minutes on end, and makes small, neat little marks and keeps it all in the lines.  He has an unbelievable focus, if it is something he wants to do.  He can be a bit of a stinker, and tends to spend a bit more time in time out.  He can be stubborn when he wants his way and often refuses to cave to Mom (or brothers, for that matter).  He is outgoing.  He does not like to be outside if it is the least bit cold...in fact I find him often standing on the heating vents :)  He has this sweet little voice that he can use if he wants to love on us.  Otherwise, his voice is crazy loud and shrill, but man, can he use that voice.  HEY MOM!!!!!  HEY DAAAAAD!!!!   He tends to be the second one (birth order, even) to do whatever we're doing.  Even though he is smallest, he is not intimidated by any of his brothers!  He is a picky eater (but a quick learner...only once did I have to send him to bed for not eating his 2 bites...and when I let him get up 10 minutes later, he ate them right down).   

This morning he woke up to balloons!  Blue is still his color, and we got him a Toy Story (Woody Buzz) Balloon. 

 Get over that grin! 

 He is still the littlest.  He is probably a solid 10 pounds and 4 inches shorter than C.  This does make it easy for clothes though...he just gets all the "big boys" clothes from the previous year. 

 Still working on fine motor skills here, too! 

 His special cereal was Trix.  This box included a spoon.  I had to wrangle it away from them because even though it was N's special day, I didn't want a fight. 

Today we didn't do much either.  I had to make a ton of copies for a project I'm doing at church, and it took way longer than I expected, so we actually got to eat McD's for lunch.  I guess that counts for something. 

He chose waffles for dinner.  N is NOT an eater, but he does love breakfast food (as long as it is carbs). 

 His cake of choice was a yellow cake with yellow icing and animals...specifically a kangaroo.  I have NO CLUE where the obsession came recently over a kangaroo, but Nate managed to find one at Michael's.  N was thrilled! 

 Love this sweet boy!

 "My ANIMALS!!!!"

 He got a Cars coloring book...

 and more Cars toys. 

We love you No-no!!!

C's Special Day

We decided this year that we would give each boy a "special day" so that they each get some individual attention.  We are basically going to treat it as their birthday, so no one will probably ever actually have their day on their actual birthday.  This year we will have a family party on the actual day, maybe in the future we will just go out to dinner or something else. 

At any rate, since C was born first, we will make his special day first. 

C is our clown.  He often intentionally does silly stuff then looks over to make sure we're laughing.  He also seems to be quite physically adept.   It will be interesting to see how that turns out for him.  He can tend to whine and cry if he doesn't get what he wants.  He has the silliest laugh that you've ever heard.  He is almost always the first to get into something, or to do something, or to get somewhere (interesting, as he was the first born, as well).  He is good at following directions, and generally obeys, and is quick to respond if he is disciplined.  He is a Daddy's boy, and will just walk up to Nate and hug his legs then walk away.  He also can be pretty independent.  He loves to play with Legos and will sit and play with them alongside Z for a long time.  He loves trucks, trains, and all things machine.  He enjoys being outside.  He gets humor and will laugh at stuff on TV or things that people say.  He is a fabulous kid!         

On to our day...

He woke up to 3 balloons.  He got green ones.  Green has always been "his" color, and he still loves it!

He was pumped to get out of his PJs and get his Cardinals shirt on.  He spent most of the day wearing it around! 

 Love this kid!!!

His cereal of choice was Oops All Berries.  I can feel my teeth rotting as I write that. 

He does not quite have the fine motor skills yet to hold up 3 fingers.  Clearly, he is not 5. 

 We didn't do much today.  The kids are still all battling some nasty colds/coughs, so we have been homebound for several days.  They don't seem to mind though. 

His dinner of choice was grilled hot dogs.  Thankfully it was decent out so Nate could grill. 

 The cakes have been a discussion for the past 2 weeks.  Everyone kept changing their minds.  The inside color, the outside color, what they wanted on top...ugh.  One would say one thing, and then the other 2 would decide they wanted that too.  C finally decided on a yellow cake with green icing and "two Lightnings" on top.  He got one, and was thrilled with it. 

 Holy moly, is he not so cute?

 Again, we are working on the fine motor skills of "thumbs up".  He was working really hard at this :) 

Then on to his gifts.  More Cars arrived.  (My friend from CBS was clearing out her sons old toys and TOTALLY hooked up up with Cars gear.  You will see more over the next few days!)  All the boys were sooo excited about all of them!   

 We also got C a remote control car.  It will take some practice, but we think he'll enjoy it (if Z doesn't snatch it away first!). 

Happy special day, Big C! 

The Birthday Party

We have never had an actual birthday party with friends for any of our kids yet.  We had a Halloween party a few years ago (and that was a lot of fun).  Z has gone to a few friends parties this year, and he wanted his own.  I finally caved.  BUT I knew I would not be renting the gymnastics center, BounceU, or anything like that. 

So we told him that he could invite 6 friends (because he was turning 6) for his party.  I decided a pizza party with a movie would be an easy kind of thing. 

He decided up front he wanted a Ninjago party.  I kind of planned on that, but since there were no Ninjago invites, I knew I wasn't locked in to that (we got "pizza party" invites instead...leaving it very open!). 

Good thing. 

Monday he decided that he wanted an Angry Birds party.  So much for my general party.   

So Tuesday I told a girlfriend, and she sent me a great link for awesome cupcakes that she used for her sons Angry Birds birthday.  (Mine turned out pretty good, I think!)

Tuesday night I went out to get his balloons, and got Angry Birds plates, and decided to look for a slingshot as a party favor. (Note: I have never actually played Angry Birds. I don't really know what it is about. I DO know that it involves a slingshot.)  Well, there are no slingshots that I can find anywhere, except at Oriental Trading Co, and no way was I going to pay $40 for 2 day shipping. 

So, I get crafty (you can laugh all you want here..."I" and "crafty" are not normally in the same sentence).  I finally decided to get a "Y" from Hobby Lobby, and Nate and I were able to rig up our own slingshots.  Not perfect, but ok.  Thursday involved 2 plus hours driving to 2 Hobby Lobby's and 1 Michaels (plus Office Max and a Chik-Fil-A stop to bribe my kids with chocolate milk).  But I got all the Y's.   

I found a link to make fun balloons, too.  My kids loved them, and I was glad that I was able to double up with Z's birthday balloons (just had to run out to get one more). 

 I guess this is the only picture I have of the slingshot...

So Friday night the kids all get to our house and play outside for awhile. Then we came inside and they got to decorate their slingshots with Angry Birds stickers. Then it got sticky...they all got into their marshmallows and let them fly with the slingshots! They loved it :) 

I didn't let the littles use slingshots, but I did let them each pick out their own stickers.  N got Toy Story, L got Cars, and C got Thomas the Train. 

We ordered pizza and then the kids ran off to play.  They covered every inch of the house that I allowed them to (just not our room, the littles room, and the laundry room).  You know that scene in Toy Story where the mom says, Kids, time for cake! and all the kids go running?  That really happens.  7 kids running and pounding around my house, like a stampede. 

Z got some fun gifts from his pals...a lot of Legos (guess those kids know him!).

 And then came the slip.  Z chose a movie (Over the Hedge) for them to watch.  We figured that would take an hour and 45 minutes or so.  About 5 minutes in, they were all DONE.  They took off to the basement again.  Z and one boy watched for about 30 minutes, but that was it.  Ok....plan B? 

They were playing fine, so we got the littles to bed (thankfully they are already quite adept at sleeping through anything). 

After a bit though, they needed something.  Nate got the great idea to hook up the laptop (with Angry Birds on it) to the TV, so they all took turns playing and watching the others play.  Problem solved.  (Love that husband of mine!)

The kids really seemed to have a good time.  I was glad to have just my kids back though.  We'll see how much of a tradition this becomes....

It was a lot of work, but look at the grin on his face!  :)