Chatter Boxes

A few pictures of the birthday festivities today.  Seth turned 9 and Colin 7.  I find it all a little hard to believe!

As kids, we celebrated lots of special occasions with these red "You are Special Today" plates.  I love that my kids now get to have them too...

...and thank you to my sister for buying me another one so both boys can have one on this special day!

I cut the cake and as I was putting Seth's piece on his plate, I heard him quietly mumble to himself, "I'm so glad I'm alive."  Me too Seth!

We got the boys a few small things to open on their actual birthday.   They both got origami books.  Seth got one on making paper airplanes and Colin got animals.  Should be fun!  I envision lots of paper floating around this place soon!  I mean...more than usual.

Thank you Chad and Katie for the gift cards.  This is Colin saying, "Whoa!"  They are excited to do their own shopping!

Happy Birthday boys!  Next up...a surprise visit from Grandparents tomorrow!  They have no idea.  Hee Hee!

The boys have a birthday this week.  We surprised them with a quick trip to The Great Wolf Lodge after school on Friday.

They were surprised and loved almost every minute of it.  They woke up at 5 am Saturday morning and were shocked to discover that the water park did not open until 9 am.  We powered through our disappointment and had a great rest of the day.

We have a few more birthday activities planned for this week but I thought I'd get these pictures posted for now.

Birthday Boys!  Seth will be 9 and Colin 7.

This was right before he performed what he calls his, "famous back flop".

I think this is a game of tackle water basketball?

Pure joy!

Seth was too cool to wear his wolf ears so I wore them most of the weekend.  I haven't been cool for quite some time.

Goofing off in the elevator

Colin wanted to hear the bedtime story read by Wiley the wolf in the lodge lobby

This was Seth five minutes after we got back to the room.  One tired little wolf pup!

Happy Birthday boys!  Here's to a fun week (we celebrate birthday weeks around here.  Unless your John, in which case, one day will do.  One more way he earns his "low-maintenance" title!)

This wonderful sister and aunt is having a birthday today!  We got to celebrate with her yesterday.  She was really hoping to have a snow day today (teachers like them too!) since that's what has happened the last two years but no such luck this time around.

Nonetheless, we wish you a very Happy Birthday Aunt Kelly and blessings in this new year of life!

John, Kim, Seth, and Colin

It seems so unreal to me but nonetheless, I now have an 8 year old and a 6 year old.

We been celebrating the boys birthday over the last few days.  We took them Cosmic Miniature Golfing (an indoor glow in the dark course) then out to dinner with my sister over the weekend.

We all loaded up on glow sticks!

John went for a more simple glow stick design.

Colin reconfigured his glow stick arrangement several times throughout the evening.

Then tonight the boys requested "breakfast for dinner" which is exactly what they got.  Just like every year before it, they declared this the best birthday ever!

Once again, on this day, I feel blessed to be their mom.  I think back to each birthday we've celebrated with them and I can't believe how much they've changed and grown.  Some things have stayed the same like their interests and mannerisms but I see their personalities and characters developing and I'm excited to see what the years ahead will bring for them.


Happy Birthday boys!  We love you!

A look back if you're interested 2013, 2012, 2011 , 2010.

We were able to celebrate the boys' birthday in Oklahoma with Grandpa and Grandma.  It was even more special because the boys share a birthday with John's dad.

When John had birthday parties as a kid, his mom would make pocket bread with chili and he and his friends would celebrate at Clayton Lake.  Since we would be there for the boys' birthday we decided to do it too!

Grandma made her special birthday lunch.  I made a cake (barely...for some reason my birthday baking is jinxed.  Things I bake come out fine the rest of the year but nearly every time I attempt to bake for the boys' birthday it goes haywire.  One year, ants enjoyed some beautiful sprinkled cupcakes I left out on the counter overnight and I had to make a last minute run for a store bought cake as guests were arriving for the party. This year, I was distracted by a story John was telling me and added three times the amount of oil I was suppose to.  There's no grocery store to run to near Grandpa and Grandma's house so we managed to compensate for the oil overload and I got the cake frosted.  But on our way to the lake, Seth was tossing a football around the back seat and it veered to the front seat and landed smack on top of the cake!  I think my birthday baking is doomed.  Next year...ice cream sundaes!)

Aunt Kelly mailed birthday cards to the boys.  They love getting mail!

The cards had cut-outs.  Seth is Iron Man and Colin is a pirate.

The cake!  Not too shabby all things considered.

The Birthday Boys!

Colin got a wii-mote charger (I know...it's very practical for a 5 year old but he did actually ask for it so he could "keep playing instead of not playing when the batteries need charging" - actual quote).  He also got this, which I highly recommend to parents of small children.  It's like paper dolls only with magnets and they come in different themes...robots, houses, planes, dolls, ballerinas, etc.  It's great for the car.  We all played with it on our trip home.

Seth asked for "something to play music in my ears" after watching mommy do yard work while listening to her ipod.  So, he's now the proud owner of his very own mp3 player and headphones.

I gave the boys Silly String in their Christmas stockings last year and they've been asking for it since.  Which is how we came to have a birthday Silly String fight at Clayton Lake State Park.

Seth is clearly winning this battle.  Mommy stepped in to aid Colin after taking some pictures.  As they get older Colin will figure out how to work those aerosol cans and Seth better watch out.  Youngest children always seem to get their revenge.

It was kind of nice having a small little party.  Big parties with friends are fun too but this year it felt nice to relax and enjoy these two boys.  We didn't plan for things to be so simple but I felt especially grateful for it on this day.  The boys felt sufficiently celebrated and I wasn't stressed about keeping people entertained or well-fed (although most of the time I enjoy being the hostess-with-the-mostest!).  We didn't rent any air-filled climbing, jumping, sliding apparatus or reserve a party hut, tent, cabana or room.  As I watched the boys splashing around in the lake with their dad, squealing on the playground, and smiling as they opened their small stack of gifts I was struck by how easy it is to over indulge the emotions of our kids.  We, of course, want them to feel special and loved on their birthday (and every day) but it may not take as much as we think it does.  I credit John's mom for helping us have such a great time together.  She may not have meant to,but she was the mom of two small boys once who kept things simple.  Maybe somewhat out of necessity (not a lot of party places close by).  She fixed a special lunch, went to a special place and decades later one of those boys did the same with his two small boys and they loved it!

The boys will get older and the pressure on them and us to create the biggest, most magical, most spectacular birthday ever will come, no doubt.  I hope we all remember this year and what it was that made it feel special.

Grandpa got a new grill for his birthday so we tried it out.

Aren't they cool?  Grandpa took us all to the Boise Hawks baseball game for his birthday.  The sun was setting just to our left.  John and Kelly made do.

The kids took the field to sing during the 7th inning stretch.  Seth and Colin are down there somewhere.

Dancing with Miss Idaho on top of the dugout.  Gotta love minor league baseball!

Spring Break found us visiting Grandpa and Grandma in Oklahoma this week.  True to form...these are the only pictures I took.  

This is what happened when I asked Colin to smile.

I won the fish count this time with 3 keepers and 2 little ones (I named one of them Herman...he was just a tad bigger than the bait that caught him).

Colin had a fun adventure while fishing in the boat with Grandpa.  We're not sure what happened but the boat flipped and they both ended up in the water.  Colin had his life vest on and Grandpa was quick to get him back in the boat.  Colin stayed calm until he saw mommy and daddy and then he started crying and shivering.  We warmed him up and cuddled by the fire and soon he was telling everyone about his "shipwreck".  John has been reading The Black Stallion with the boys.  It's a story about a young boy, Alec, and a wild Arabian horse.  They just fished the part of the book where they're shipwrecked on their voyage back to America and Alec is saved by the wild Arabian.  It's kind of the same. 

I also celebrated my birthday while we were there.  John's mom made me a homemade apple pie.  Delicious!  John took me "to town" for dinner and then we rented a movie and watched it in our car while parked lakeside at the nearby state park.  It was a lovely day.

We're back home and headed into the first weekend of Spring with a winter storm watch.  Ugh!  Enough already.  Please oh please let there be sunshine soon!

My sister had a birthday recently.  We were able to take her out for lunch on Saturday and then we all went to Seth's basketball game. 

Happy Birthday Aunt Kelly!

Seth's card thanked Kelly for letting them come to her house and that he hoped she had a good birthday.

Colin's card said that he like horses, he liked zebras, and he liked Aunt Kelly (that's a high honor in Colin world...to be placed right up there with horses and zebras!)

Here's a look back to last year. 

Over the holiday weekend we ventured out to a new exhibit downtown.  Aunt Kelly came with us and provided the photographic proof of our fun day on the town.  John's parents had given the boys some birthday money for a "family activity" so thanks Grandpa and Grandma.  It was a fun day.

As promised, we took the boys to a baseball game yesterday to round out our birthday extravaganza (that's what happens when both children have the same birthday...one big extravaganza).  Through a series of circumstances we ended up with four extra tickets so we got to bring some friends along.





The boys had fun.  Seth watched the game intently and Colin ate through it.  The grown-ups had fun too.  Watching a losing game is still better than working.

And thus ends another birthday extravaganza.  Colin woke up this morning and wanted to know if it was still his birthday.  It's sad when good things come to an end.  Until next year!