6 (six)

Have you met Boris? No. Well, let me introduce you.

Boris, these are some of our friends and family.

Friends and family, this is Boris, the baby dragon, and one of the key characters in the series, My Father's Dragon.

Boris joined us for S's birthday party this August. I have to admit that he had a wonderful time and serious regrets his having to visit the garbage truck or recycling truck this week. (We'll miss you too, Boris. We just don't have space for a dragon.)

We read the story months ago, and when we started thinking about how to do S's birthday this year, we thought of going on an adventure (like Elmer in the book) to rescue a baby dragon. So we did.

We introduced the tigers to bubble gum with a gum shewing/blowing contest. (Those pretend bubbles were great!)

We taught a lion how to groom his mane.

We escaped from a gorilla via an obstacle course.

We ate lollypops with the alligators.

Finally we saved the baby dragon.

After our adventure, we went inside and ate cake and ice cream and drank blue Koolade.

It was riotous fun, and we're so happy to have a 6-ear-old at the end of it.

Even Superheroes Cry

We missed a birthday party for some friends the other week because the party was on Sunday, so we decided to throw the birthday boy an impromptu party at our house. I threw together some superhero capes for all the siblings (total 6), made cupcakes, and decided to have a ball. Superhero M (birthday boy, aged 4) wore blue and orange, Superhero W (older brother, aged 5) wore yellow and red, Superhero I (birthday girl, aged 2) wore pink and green,

Superhero F wore orange and green (he wanted to be like his friend),

Superhero S wore purple and yellow (he had insisted on me changing his cape around so that the purple would be on the outside, and then wore yellow on the outside the whole party so he could be like W),

and Superhero A wore green and red (because that is what F originally picked). Superhero A thought the cape was wonderful, even though he missed most of the party due to his afternoon nap.

I didn't take many pictures, and I didn't get the dream picture of all the children's backs in order (W, S, M, F, I, A), but I did get some.

The one thing I learned from this afternoon with superheroes, is that even superheroes cry.

He's 1!

(I can almost reach it.)

(Mmm, tasty.)

"Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear A--

Happy birthday to you!"

We had a leisurely birthday party for little A-- this past week. I can hardly believe he is one. It still seems like he should be waking up multiple times a night to eat--wait, he still does. (But then all my boys did at this point, and I'm okay with it, really.) This year has flown by.

A-- really is part baby and part big kid. He loves nursing (though he really only nurses in snatches). He wants to control his own movement and feed himself. He loves his chupete (pacifier). He wants to play with his older brothers, and sometimes they let him. He has started cruising around on the furniture and has taken up to seven steps in a row (this is at least two months earlier than both his older brothers). But he is still "Baby A--" to his older brother F--.

He tried the cake and ice cream, but didn't devour his whole piece like his older brothers did when they were his age. Maybe this means he won't have my sweet-tooth. We love him and are so glad he is part of the family.

Happy 3rd Birthday

My parents drove across the country for a retirement vacation and to visit grandchildren. On their return trip, we decided to celebrate F's birthday, so that he could have family there. (My dear husband would be out of town on his birthday.)F-- had requested tigers, Lightning McQueen and ghosts be on his birthday cake, with my mom's help (meaning she did it while I worked on dinner), he got tigers--three of them crawling up his birthday cake.

F-- gave blowing out his candles a noble effort. He got the first two, but couldn't get the third. He blew harder and harder, but all he succeeded in doing was spraying part of the cake with spit. I helped him get his last candle out (and scraped the spitty parts off the cake). And we ate. It was great.

For the next week or so, as we'd drive in the car, F-- would be singing in the back seat.

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear F--

Happy birthday to you.

And then he would blow out his imaginary candles.

On his actual birthday, we invited some friends we met at the library for the Halloween parade over to the house for cupcakes. F-- tried the candles again, same thing happened (though with less spitting).

Now my little guy is 3, though if you ask him, he will tell you he is 6.

Pictures

I know you've been waiting patiently, so today, instead of working my way through my to-do list, I have been uploading pictures, backing up pictures and computers, and putting some together for the blog. Since I am incredibly behind, I won't give full stories on everything (if you want to know the background, just ask). And so without further ado . . .

New furniture . . . which produces

Crawling through the sides. All the boys have done this.

Happy Birthday, S--. He's 5. The theme was camping. We set up the tent in the backyard and played games like find the bug, tape the fish on the fish hook, mosquito bite tag. It was fun.

Variation on three boys pictures