Bowling party

After much deliberation, Ben decided he wanted a Pokemon bowling party for his 8th birthday.  Gram was nice enough to decorate another birthday cake for us.

The kids seemed to have a great time.  I'm impressed with some of the bowling skills I saw today. 

 Only some...

Ben got a strike and a few spares.  He was very happy with his scores.

 Showing off their strike poses:

8

Ben has been counting down the days until his birthday for at least the last 3 months.  Even though I've known (for a long time) that today was coming, having an 8 year old snuck up on me.  

Ben is pretty much the same kid he was last year.  He got a hair cut for the first time in a year so he's a bit lighter. He still loves Skylanders and Avengers, but has added Pokemon (despite my disapproval).  We're still waiting on his common sense to kick in and if he could read the directions on anything just one time, it would make my year!  He has discovered that sometimes its just more fun to play with his friends than dad (despite dads disapproval).  He gives amazing hugs and is still a cuddle bug.  He tells the worst jokes, but we have to laugh at how funny he thinks they are.  He loves to "cook" toast, build things with Legos and boss Sam around.  He's my helper and my little man.  Happy birthday Benjamin.

Wordless Wednesday: Purple sky and (wrinkled) curtains

First day

Today was Sams first day of kindergarten.  I was surprised at how excited he was to go.  He asked several times this morning when the bus was going to get here.  He was happy to get on the bus and he actually listened to the bus driver.

He came home with a huge smile on his face.  He told us all about his day (or what he could remember) and is excited to do it all again tomorrow!

3rd grade

Ben started third grade today.  I was hoping to start last week, but we squeezed in one last summer Gram camp. He'll be doing school at home again.  After making some changes to our curriculum and style, I'm excited to get going and see how it goes with one boy home and 1 at school.

These are their silly and mad faces.  I think Zach is a little confused!

Always silly

Orientation

We went to Sams school today for his kindergarten orientation.  Hes so excited to start school next week. Its cool to see him ready to go.  His class room is very cute and his teacher seems very nice.  

We went over all those important pieces of information like the bus, snack time and appropriate shoes.

I think its going to be a fun year for him.

W.O.W.

The 2nd annual Worship outside the Walls seemed to be a success.  I think anytime Jon gets to play with tools and walks away with 10 fingers is a success!

Big helpers!

Pictures stolen  borrowed from Facebook!

Essential oils

I've been contemplating essential oils for quite a while. We're not huge medicine people.  A bottle of Tylenol will last at least 9-12 months, but it would be nice to be able to cure many of our ailments naturally.  I have a couple friends that use them and one of the bloggers I follow writes about them quite often.  They all swear by them. We bit the bullet and ordered the starter kit.  It comes with 11 oils and a diffuser.  Of course we easily had about 10 issues last week that the oils would have been perfect for, but I've still been able to put them to good use the past few days.
I had a cold when they arrived.  I put a few oils on before bed and with in 10 minutes I was breathing again and slept hard.  It still took a little while to fall asleep, but once I did, it was good.  Headaches are also a big problem for me.  A few dabs of peppermint and the headache went away.
I'm still mastering all the uses and combinations, and I have 1 or 2 oils outside the kit I'd like to get, but I'm off to a good start.  I'm anxious to put some on the kids and see what kind of results we get with sleep and Sams hyperactivity.

Early morning cuteness

Comfy?

Fair time

We headed to the fair on Wednesday.  Ben wanted nothing to do with it so he hung out with a friend, but the rest of us had a great time.

We went on rides, played some games and ate way too much fair food.

Jon even braved the big, scary ferris wheel because Ellie wanted to ride it with him.  He's such a trooper!

Friends

I love it when they act like they like each other!

Wordless Wednesday: Mario and Luigi

Shes back!

You've been missed!

Camping

The boys and I headed to a neighbors house last week for a back yard camp out.  The kids had a crazy amount of sugar, stayed up late telling "ghost" stories around the camp fire and slept soundly while all the moms laid awake praying for morning to come as fast as possible.  It was a rough night, but the kids had a blast.

The babies were a bit upset about not going to the camp out.  The next night we had an indoor camp out. The kids had more sugar, stayed up much too late watching a movie, but we all got a half way decent night sleep.  Once again, the kids had a great time, but something tells me we wont be doing more camping any time soon!

Outside time

 I love it when they play together!

Timing

He finally loves his Halloween costume, from last year!

Its done!

Jon put the finishing touches on the deck last night.  I made him take the weekend off to spend some time with us.  He put on the skirting Tuesday night and did the lattice yesterday.  All thats left is to decide what we want to do about landscaping.  I'd like to get some mulch down, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to put down mulch if we're going to want to plant some things in the spring.  I think we'll just enjoy it for a bit and decide later!