Happy 8th Birthday, Josh!!

It's hard to believe, but Josh turned 8 on Friday! How did my little (giant) baby who used to look like this

and this

turn into this tall, handsome boy?

Josh's birthday started as his birthdays always have (and probably always will): with lots of sugar. Pancakes with lakes of syrup and confetti sprinkles.  And, of course, a candle to blow out!

I didn't have to make a cake for this birthday, making it one of the most stress-free birthdays ever. (Birthday cakes and I have had a sordid past - and will probably have the same type of future.)  Josh decided he wanted cupcake decorating at his party, so all I had to do was make a batch of cupcakes.  So easy!

He requested peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting.  I had some extra batter, so I made some mini cupcakes for the kids to eat after they got home from school.  You never saw a kid so happy!

I let Josh open a few presents that afternoon since I knew we wouldn't have much time in the evening.  We got him this cool net game thingy called Djibo.  (That's what Cole's holding.) Grandpa ElRay and Grandma Susie sent him a bat and ball set - it was supposed to be yellow, but Amazon sent pink.

Josh was a little offended by this at first, but he quickly found it funny and now loves sing-songy saying "let's go play with my PINK bat!"  He's always had an awesome sense of humor.

Probably needs a little help with his batting skills, though.

As you can see, the cooler weather has not stopped Tess from wearing her beloved pink skirt.

That evening we went to Teppanyaki, which is Josh's favorite. During the week before he would count down the number of days until we were going to Teppanyaki, rather than counting down to his birthday.  (When you hate everything your wonderful, long-suffering mother makes for dinner, I guess a birthday dinner out is a big deal!)

Since it's an even-numbered birthday, Josh got to have a party with friends.  He decided he wanted a candy themed party. (Not a big surprise, considering the sweet tooth this child has.)

Here's the front and back of the invite I designed.  I printed them and then laminated it so it kinda looked like a real candy bar.

I had originally planned to have the birthday party outside, but the weather took a rather chilly turn.  It wasn't too bad, but I knew everyone would be happier with the majority of the party inside.  So Saturday morning I had to quickly come up with some decorations.  Okay, this looks a little sad and/or creepy, but it actually looked pretty cool.  The kids liked it.

Miss Tess loves a good party!

Can't go wrong with a bunch of balloons and streamers - Josh was quite pleased.

Blogger is being stupid and won't let me move my photos around.  Well whatever, Blogger, I'll just make do out of order!

Here's the only party favor I bought - little travel-sized toothbrush sets.

I thought I was pretty clever. (I suspect the parents got a bigger kick out of this than the kids!)

Here's the cupcake decorating table.  Lots of cupcakes, LOTS of candy.  Josh was in heaven.

I had both mega and tiny M&Ms.  Josh thought that was weird, but I thought it was cute.

Mmmm... nothin like a sour gummy worm on a chocolate cupcake...

And of course you had to have a cherry on top!

Easiest birthday cake ever.  (He's making up for the fact that he was the hardest delivery ever.)

When the kids came in they got to decorate their own candy bag.  There was LOTS of candy to be won during this party!

The first game we played was Candy Hunt, which was just like an Easter Egg hunt, only the candy was in little Ziploc bags instead of eggs.  The kids went NUTS over this! (This was also when Spencer lost all reason and thought; he forgot whose birthday party this was and was a general whiny nuisance.  There's always one of those kids at the party, right?)

Since we were already outside we decided to do the pinata next.  Pinatas are always a dangerous thing with kids around; I don't know why I agree to them!

Here's Josh getting the first chance to whack that pinata.  Notice that the pink bat got the honor of bring used.

Blindfolded kids are funny.

The pinata got hit a lot, and it took quite a beating to get all of the candy out.  It was all I could do to protect the rampaging children who were after the candy to not get hit by whichever kid had the bat!

Yeah, I totally made the pinata.  Because free is a much better deal than $25+ for an empty pinata at the store.

Next we played that game where you roll the dice and if you get doubles you get to try to unwrap this crazily wrapped package that is full of candy.  Is there a name for that game?

The kids REALLY got into it once they discovered there was candy throughout all of the layers of the package.  At the last moment Bergen won the king-sized candy bar that was in the middle!

Then we tried to do fishing with gummy worms.  Although it worked really well at our family reunion, it was a pretty epic fail at this party.  The goldfish would not stick to the gummy worms!

So then we played my version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey: Put-The-Candy-In-Josh's-Mouth!

I had stressed about making little candy bar cut outs for the kids to use, but then realized I should just have the kids eat a piece of candy and have them use that for the game.  Genius!

There was lots of giggling and going off-course.

Sometimes a twist on the classic games are the best.

Spencer, who was still being a punk, was the last to go.  He was soooo sure he'd win! (He didn't.)

I don't know why, but his giant head on that poster makes me laugh.

Then is was time for cupcake decorating.  Most of the kids went wild and piled the candy on high, making the cupcakes kind of impossible to eat. I tried to get a picture of each guest.

Kiersten Asay and her cute "cherry on top" cupcake. (Kiersten is in Josh's school class and in our ward at church.)

Heidi Queen (In Josh's class and in our ward.)

Bergen Ream (camping buddy and in our ward!)

JJJJ (I cannot for the life of me remember this girl's name right now.  Hopefully it will come to me later.  She's a friend of Josh's from school)

The birthday boy!

David Ordyna (a friend from church)

Mr. Spencer

Sam Queen (He's in our ward and actually in Spencer's school class; Heidi's brother.)

Little Miss Tess

Finally, it was time to sing and blow out candles! (Of course I forgot to turn on the camera for the first couple of seconds.  Sheesh.)

Josh happily opened presents.  He totally thought Bergen had given him microwave popcorn - it took a few tries to convince him to open the box!

After presents we shooed all the kids outside for a rousing game of dodgeball.  Lance refereed while I cleaned up a bit downstairs.

When I came back up I discovered him playing some form of human bowling that kids seemed to love.  This is a main reason why we have dads - to come up with crazy games like this at birthday parties. :)

The guests eventually all departed and Lance and I collapsed while the kids ate candy all afternoon.  It was a great party.

Thursdays Are Sometimes Hard

This morning Josh had a meltdown over a new piano piece he is learning. (He thinks he should play it perfectly the first time he ever practices a new song and has little patience for mistakes or for his mother helping him.)  ((He also doesn't believe that even his piano teacher has to learn new piano pieces and that when she does she makes mistakes.)) The meltdown was so epic that he refused to get on the school bus, even after I told him that he would lose all computer privileges this weekend.  (This will become especially harsh after he opens certain birthday presents tomorrow...)

But he stood his ground and missed the bus and I had to grumpily load him and Tess and Cole into the car and drive him to school.  I hate driving kids to school.

After preschool one of Tess's teachers told me that she had had a mini-meltdown after snack today because she hadn't finished her snack in time but most definitely did NOT want her teacher to take her cheese stick away.  The teacher said it was a short meltdown and she quickly recovered, but that she thought I would be interested to know that this happened.  This kind of came as a surprise to me, but then I was kind of glad that it happened because if any kid needs to learn that the world does not revolve around her and that she can't always get her way, it's Tess. Even better that this lesson came outside of the home, because despite all of the effort to teach her this lesson in the home she refuses to learn!

On Thursdays Cole gets a little treat from his preschool teachers if he completes all of the centers in his class for the week. (Centers are different activities, like reading, drawing, pre-k type stuff.)  Last week he got a mini bag of M&Ms, and this week it was some fruit snacks.  Tess has had a meltdown in the hallway over this each week.

Today I learned... that my next several (if not all) Thursdays will probably involve a meltdown from Tess when I pick them up from preschool. *sigh*

Today I Learned...

So in an effort to blog more consistently, if I don't have some sort of event or story to write about I am going to try to write each day about something I have learned.  Maybe there will be pictures, maybe not.  Maybe things will be humorous, maybe not.  Maybe this little experiment will gain me worldwide fame and fortune, maybe not.

Let's get started.

Today I learned...

... that even though I am no longer 25 years old I can still function fairly well on less than 5 hours of sleep. (At least with a few Coke Zeros in me...)
... that I need to start amassing dress-up clothes and accessories for Tess.  The girl will love it.
... that no matter how big the umbrella and no matter how hard you try, when running errands on a stormy day with a five and three year old, you're gonna get wet. (Especially when the 5 year old puts the wet umbrella on your car seat...)
... that peer pressure is still alive and active in my life - I am seriously considering joining Instagram... but what would happen to my Facebook activity?
... that Josh totally has me pegged.  At dinner I was talking to Lance about a girls weekend in Indy and Josh asked "What's a girls weekend? "
"A weekend I spend with my friends," I responded.
"What will you do? "
"Oh,  mom stuff. "
"Oh,  you mean buying stuff."
The boy speaks the truth.

I Spy Down In The Basement...

Down in the basement I spy...

A Tess on safari.

A Spencer melting into the couch.

A Cole pretending to be a frog.

And a Josh who has turned into a Puffle Head.