Happy Birthday!

The oldest had his birthday this week. I invited the boy from his swimming lessons and the children from his Primary class over for cupcakes and ice cream, and we were lucky enough that friends from Georgia were visiting for a couple of days and arrived on his birthday.

When he woke up, his dad and I sang happy birthday, and he rushed to the kitchen, looked around, and the collapsed on the floor (we seem to be doing a lot of collapsing lately, but that is another story). I hadn't made his cake yet because I had no clue what shape of cake he wanted, and he seemed to think that meant he didn't get a birthday cake. After a few minutes of sadness, he told us that he wanted a train cake. So a train cake is what he got.


He also got to pick the menu: waffles, noodles, spaghetti and meatballs. His dad had new faculty orientation all day, but surprised him with his first bike when he got home. The oldest was all smiles. The youngest thought the bike might be for him to.

He got a few other gifts: everything to play store, a great bouncy ball, a sit-and-bounce, stickers. And he ate more cake and ice cream than he had All in all it was a great day! It is amazing how quickly he is growing up.

Here is a little collection of movies from the day.

Soil Beans

The boys and I drove down the freeway yesterday to go to a playgroup, and along the way the oldest pointed out the corn and "soil beans" on the side of the car. He distinguishes between them pretty well. (Not that the difference of towering corn stalks and cowering soybean plants isn't easy to miss.) It is fun to find fun words at his age.

We're not in Kansas anymore

Not that we have ever been in Kansas, but we are definitely in a different environment. On Friday we went to the county fair. Now, my only experience with county fairs were the fairs I went to in Colorado when I was about 12. My older (and very beautiful) sister and I were interested in the food, the rodeo (and what a rodeo it was!), and the amusement park portion. We didn't look at 4-H exhibits or the animals or anything like that.

The fair here we did differently. We went through the 4-H exhibits (there were kids who had restored antique tractors to pristine condition), then the commercial exhibits (wind energy, combines, etc.), and then to the barns (poultry, rabbits, horses, sheep, swine, cattle, goats). We finished up by walking through the whole fair, looking at all the different tractors on display and then the amusement park (where we didn't ride a thing).

The oldest was sad because the last of his ice cream slipped from his cone and melted on the sidewalk. My husband and I thought it was interesting to see a different side of our new area (can I say rednecks and still be polite?)

Here are a few pictures.

Just so you know, when the oldest would climb into a large vehicle, the first thing that he would do was buckle the seat belt and turn on all the switches he could, then, and only then, would he start driving. (You can see the seat belt buckled as he reaches for switches in the first picture.)

Who knows . . . maybe this is Kansas . . . or a cousin of hers. It sure isn't Georgia.