HappWii Birthday, N1S!

The calendar says another year has passed to mark the eleventh year since Number One Son made his familial debut. I was shocked, last year, when he so abruptly reached his first double digit birthday. This year I am worried that the years are piling up too rapidly and it won't be very long before he reaches the dreaded teens.

But I put all of my anxieties aside this day to help him celebrate.

You may be scratching your heads thinking, "I thought he had his birthday last week at Valleyfair." You needn't scratch any longer. We did celebrate an 'early birthday' with one of N1S's friends. But anyone who knows us, knows that our kids usually get a handful of birthday parties each year. We usually have one special party for our child and a special friend. These are usually a big trip or something else equally costly. Hence, the one special friend rule.

Then we usually throw a party for the rest of the friends. This usually constitutes a party at the park, our home or in this year's case, the water park.

We also have to plan on a few 'family parties' as well. Since both sets of grandparents live far away, these parties take place whenever we visit them within a month or two of the actual birth date.

So this year, N1S got to invite five of his friends for an afternoon of water slides and tubing. It was the same water park that Sweet Pea had her birthday party. The only difference today was that the kids were bigger, and Lady Di and I chose not to get wet. I decided, since SP's party guests absolutely exhausted me a few months ago in the pool, I wasn't going to stand a chance against six fifth graders. I'm not sure why Lady Di didn't swim, unless it was some left over nightmares from the rocket water slide.

The kids swam from 11am until 1pm when we took a break for a picnic lunch outside. We brought extra sandwiches in case we needed them. Fifth graders apparently always need them. Especially one of N1S's friends who made sure we wouldn't be bothered taking care of any leftovers. Lady Di once again, performed her baker's wizardry with a Mario Kart steering wheel and Wii remote cake.

After sandwiches and cake, the kids splashed back into the water and swam for another two hours.

We finally dragged them out of the pool with the promise of tokens for the arcade. Once out of the pool, we sat in a circle while N1S opened his gifts. This year is the year of the gift card. N1S got two gifts and four gift cards and was equally excited for all of them. I was too, because our kids have enough toys. The gifts he got were just what he wanted. Legos and a video game. And now he has some gift cards to buy.........Legos and a video game. This is literally all he ever wants.

It was a pretty great day for N1S and his friends. He had a good day with all of them. He even was acting 'too cool' for his parents most of the day. Which is OK for today.

N1S has a great group of friends. A few posers and at least one vampire, by the looks of this picture. And Sweet Pea is, of course, posing as a puppy.

When we got home, both he and SP were very tired but still had enough energy to try out his new video game.

After supper and a little more cake, we brought out our family gifts for N1S to open. You'll notice that once again, Legos and a video game are included in this group. He also got one of his and his parents' favorite movies and a t-shirt from our favorite northern Minnesota pizza place.

Overall, it was a busy day for the whole family. When it was time for bed, the kids didn't put up too much of a fight. That is, after they tried out N1S's other video game.

Happy Birthday, N1S.

Best Day Ever!

In just a week and a half, Number One Son will celebrate his eleventh birthday. It's hard to believe that he used to weigh only 3lbs just over a decade ago. Although, he always has been something of a stringbean, this summer his body started to fill out a little around the love handle region. He has shot up almost sixteen pounds since last February. He must have thought his little sister was trying to catch him.

So with N1S's midsection expanding, we decided to do a pre-birthday workout at Valleyfair amusement park. N1S invited his friend, D, and the three of us headed out on our thrill seeking adventure. Sweet Pea likes amusement rides too, but she is too small for most of the 'good' rides. And Lady Di's heart rate rises just by mentioning the word 'roller coaster', so the ladies stayed home. N1S and myself are thrill ride junkies. Once we told N1S about the trip to the amusement park, he couldn't talk to anyone without starting the conversation with, "Guess where I am going?"

We arrived at 10:30am and made a bee line for the nearest roller coaster. The rest of the day was spent darting from ride to ride. And we made it to every big ride that the park had. Not only did we ride every ride, we rode them each multiple times. We rode in the front car, the back car, and the middle car of each roller coaster. N1S achieved his goal of holding his arms up on each roller coaster for the entire ride. Our favorite coaster was Wild Thing. Not only was it the fastest and highest roller coaster, it also travelled through a pitch black tunnel at the end of the ride.

We rode the blue Power Tower that shoots you straight up so that your spine is an inch shorter after the ride. We also stretched our spines back out on the red Power Tower which lifted us up at a painfully slow, anxiety building pace. Once we reached the stratosphere, we lingered at the top for a few long seconds to admire the entire city and dodge airplanes before being rocketed down.

Our favorite ride in the whole park, though, had to be Steel Venom. With this ride our seats hung from a horseshoe shaped ride with our feet dangling and would launch us forward and up into the sky to one end, then speed us backward to go up the other end of the horseshoe. And just for fun, the ride would stop at one of the ends and try to shake us out of our seats fifty feet above the ground.

We also rode some 'wet' rides, drove Go-Karts and visited the water slide park.

I think I had just as much fun as the boys did. As the day progressed into evening, Lady Di called to see if we were on our way home. "Sorry, Hon, the boys want to ride some more." And by boys, I meant all three of us. I had never been to an amusement park at night and I wanted us to see the park's lights. We didn't leave until 9:30pm and even then it was difficult to pick a ride to end our night.

We decided to end our evening on the same roller coaster that started our day. With the marquee lights flashing and the tracks rumbling, it didn't disappoint.
Overall, N1S was pretty satisfied with his pre-birthday outing. It's not every day that we both get to enjoy eleven hours of thrill rides. With as much as we were tossed around, I'm surprised my bones were still in the correct places to make it back to the car. The day was hot and muggy. We did a lot of walking and a fair amount of waiting in line for the rides. But it was well worth it and I can't wait for N1S's twelfth birthday.

Double Digits

Happy Birthday Number One Son! I can't believe you are ten years old. It's been an exciting and rewarding ten years for all of us. You've been growing up too fast since the day you arrived three months early. You have been a blessing for Lady Di and I since then too. Where have the last ten years gone? It's hard to believe you once weighed only three pounds and fit in my palm. Now you are almost as tall as Lady Di and your palm size is creeping closer to mine each day. I'm happy that you are ten and at the same time I don't want you to be ten yet. There were many years in your life that I just wanted to freeze time. When you were born. When you walked the first time. The first Christmas that you could talk. Your first day of school. Your first score in a basketball game. Whatever age you were, I wanted you to just stay that way forever. Then you reached another milestone or did something else that filled me with pride and I wanted you to stay at that age too. It's natural for a parent to want their kids to stay small and innocent as long as possible. I have be content with enjoying the now, remembering the past and anticipating the future. The most important being, getting the most out of the present to make the past as memorable as possible. The best part of it is, no matter how fast you grow, no matter how many birthdays you celebrate, no matter how big your hands get, you will always be my boy. Happy Birthday Son!

Here's a few pictures of him. Some old, some new, all N1S. Don't let Sweet Pea know that there aren't any pictures of her. We'll get her pictures up next May.

I hope you noticed that only two of those pictures were from Halloween. You're growing up too fast, kid. Let's make the next ten years slow down a bit.

Bowling For Cupcakes

We have finally brought an end to the endless birthday parties at our home. We've had family parties, neighbor parties, extended family parties, school parties and finally a bowling party.

We invited Sweet Pea's kindergarten class to a bowling birthday party. We invited her entire class, a few friends in other classes and her brother and his friend. I don't know what we were thinking. Luckily for us, only about half of her class were able to attend. The party still came to 15 kids, but once you reach more than 9 or 10 it doesn't really matter how many more show up. And as long as we are within 2 or 3 kids at the end, I don't see any reason spend that much time with a head count.

Our local bowling alley is less than a year old and has a really nice party room connected to a dozen lanes. We used three of them. The kids enjoy bowling as it is, but when the alley turned out the lights and turned on the party lights, the kids went nuts. Each lane had runway lights going up and down the alley. There were also a half dozen large screen TVs showing various Nickelodeon shows.

After the disco bowling, the alley staff brought cupcakes and root beer. Sweet Pea then commenced with the 'grand opening' of her double digit number of gifts. She made a big show of reading each homemade card and trying make everyone laugh with a joke. She did get a lot of laughs though. Comedy clubs may start requiring a two cupcake minimum.

Our party lasted exactly two hours. The alley staff were very efficient. The bowling alley then provided a small cup of tokens to burn at their arcade. I'm sure they do that just in case some Dads have any left over money keeping the moths company in their wallets. They only provide enough tokens for a game and a half. Just enough to get the kids into the arcade to work their financial sucking powers.

Overall, it was a fun and relatively low stress event. One of the kids' mothers stayed and was a great help herding all of the little bobcats. The bowling alley staff provided a great time for the kids and parents. Happy Birthday, Sweet Pea.

Now please tell me that we are done with birthdays for a few months.

Happy Birthday to Us.

Sweet Pea finally had her real birthday. She turned six this weekend. I know we already had a couple parties for her when the grandparents visited, but that didn't mean we could skip the actual day. Lady Di and I stopped by Sweet Pea's school to volunteer on her birthday. She was pretty excited. Later on we took her out for supper to Space Aliens and then back home for cake and a bonfire. The cake was pretty much the climax to the day.

Lady Di, once again, outdid herself decorating SP's cake. This was SP's first ever Barbie cake. We blindfolded her before presenting her cake so I could get a picture of her reaction. My timing was off, of course, and I managed to take of picture of a blindfolded Sweet Pea. Once she saw the cake she squealed, "Hey! That's my Barbie!"

Needless to say, she loved her cake and noticed many of the little details Lady Di included. Barbie had a frosting crown with matching frosting earrings. She then opened gifts which were all, "Exactly what I've always wanted.", according to her. Then we all watched the bonfire turn different colors from burning her wrapping paper.

I decided to borrow SP's birthday and celebrate a little myself while she was in school. I treated myself to a day of accomplishing nothing except fun. I happened to have the day off so I slept in after the kids went off to school. I then treated myself to a new bicycle. I've had my old bike for ten plus years and it was starting to show its age. I haven't been in the market for a bike for a while so I was obviously shocked at what a real bike costs. Instead of Walmart, I went to an actual bike shop. They had some pretty amazing bikes. I had to steer clear of the four digit price tags and settled on a nice mid priced mountain bike. I then had to accessorize and found a great pair of spandex neon colored biker shorts with a matching helmet. Lady Di saved me from embarrassment by talking me out of them.

Now, with nice weather and a new bike, I am all out of excuses for avoiding exercise. Maybe, the kids and I can go for a ride and give Lady Di a little peace for Mother's Day. Happy Birthday SP. Happy Mother's Day Lady Di and to all mothers today.

Birthday Weekend

Last weekend, was a busy one for us. To start, we had an early spring blizzard on Friday. Just what we wanted after a week with temperatures in the sixties and seventies. My folks and my grandmother also came to visit. We have a small cluster of birthdays in our family and since my folks live five hours away, we celebrated four birthdays in one weekend. Lady Di outdid herself on my Dad's cake and it tasted as good as it looked.

On Saturday, we took everyone to a play in Minneapolis called, Triple Espresso. This is a long running musical comedy which is closing this week. We had great luck with traffic and were able to park right across the street from the theatre. We were also surprised to run into someone from our church as we left the theatre. He was on his way to see the next show. Lady Di has always been able to find friends of hers where ever we go, but this was eerily coincidental even for her.

After the show, we all went to our favorite hibachi restaurant and had a great meal. I only lost one eyebrow when the chef made his flaming onion volcano.

On Sunday, we all went to Number One Son's piano recital at our church. He played, Boogie Boardin', and he brought down the house. Well, he at least brought down our pew. We are all very proud of him.

This was the perfect weekend to have so much planned. The weather was absolutely terrible, so we didn't miss anything by being indoors. I'm glad my folks were able brave the blizzard to attend N1S's recital. They don't get to see the kids very often, so every visit is nice.

It was also nice to treat them to something that they haven't done in a long time. They seemed to really enjoy the play and hibachi. We always say, "We should do this more often". Maybe, now we will.

Sweet Pea also wanted to get in on the recital by posing for her picture with her brother. She also wanted to show off the new watch that Grandma Peg gave her for her birthday.

Now she has to learn how to tell time.

Lego My Birthday

Number One Son turned nine years old on Saturday. Almost a decade. Where does the time go? We planned a trip for him and a friend to the Mall of America for his birthday. What nine year old wouldn't want to risk life and limb at a carnival park and go to Lego Land?

We got up bright and early on Saturday (8:30am) and got ready to go to the 'Mall'. The MOA has an indoor amusement park formally known as Camp Snoopy. It is now the Park at the MOA because they didn't want to pay Charles Schulz's family any more money. Anyway, we got there and bought our all-day wrist bands. Lady Di, in a moment of fiscal awareness, suggested that we save some money and not buy her a wrist band. This had less to do with frugality and more to do with Lady Di's sheer terror of any rides faster than the carousel.

Since we arrived at 10am the park was emptier than usual. There were virtually no lines for rides and the kids and I could ride multiple times in a row. The best ride is called the 'Twister'. It is a roller coaster which has a four seat car that spins as it rolls along the track. The last time we were here was about a year and a half ago. What a difference that made. N1S was just a little too short for the really cool rides then. Now, he and his friend, sought out only the most terrifying rides and laughed when Sweet Pea's more tame rides were mentioned.

"I am not going on the Merry-Go-Round.", he firmly stated.

At noon we dragged the kids away from the 'Log Chute' to eat at the Rain Forest Cafe. It was pretty cool. It was decorated in rain forest trees and animals, of course. It had multiple gigantic fish tanks with large colorful fish. Every once in a while the lights would dim and thunder would rumble through the restaurant. Some animatronic monkeys would chatter and move at random too. I know they were robots, but I think one of them stole a few of my fries. N1S mentioned his birthday to the staff and they brought out a 'Volcano'. Three chocolate brownies stacked around a mound of ice cream topped with a sparkler. Pretty cool.

After lunch we spent some time ($$$) in Lego Land to settle our stomachs before our second round of carnival rides. In the afternoon, I took Sweet Pea on all of her rides and Lady Di watched the boys take on the big ones.

We got home in time for a late supper and straight to bed. The kids were exhausted and so were we. It was a lot of fun though. I hope we can make it back this winter. N1S and I can ride the cool rides and Sweet Pea can coax Lady Di onto the Lil' Shaver coaster.

The next day we let N1S open a couple of presents. He got a cool piggy bank from Gramma Bev and Grampa Ray. Complete with coins. And a Batman Lego set from us. This should keep him busy for a few days.

Now, all we have to do is start planning N1S's classmate party in a few weeks. Since he has a summer birthday, we thought it would be OK to have another party and invite some of his new 3rd grade classmates. It will be a pirate party. I am converting the kids' clubhouse into a pirate ship and Lady Di is getting costumes and other decorations ready.

So, how many birthdays does a kid really need? I guess when family lives far away and calendars are so busy, any day can be a birthday celebration. Heck, it's gotta be someone's birthday somewhere. As long as there is cake, I will be there.

Birthday Girl

Today my little sweet pea turns five years old. Emery went to bed last night reminding all of us what tomorrow was.
"Hmmm. There was something I was going to remember about tomorrow. Now what was it?", I teased.
"My birthday, Daddy!", she shouted.
Emery and Lady Di had a Mom and Daughter birthday day today. After Emery's swimming lesson this morning, Lady Di took her to her first nail salon. Lady Di said that Emery had an ear to ear grin the whole time. They then went out for lunch at Subway and did a little shopping at Target.

You may ask why I wasn't invited. I had taken the day off from work to be with Emery on her birthday. Last night, I coached Ethan's team's baseball practice. As I was walking off of the field, I stepped in a gopher hole and twisted my ankle. Nothing broken, but I had a lot of stiffness and swelling in the morning. So I am sitting with my foot elevated, indoors, on the best weather day we've had this Spring. Hopefully, I will heal up enough to join the family at Space Aliens tonight for a birthday supper.

Happy Birthday Half Pint. Don't grow up too fast.