Showing posts with label Elias. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elias. Show all posts

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Gabe is 9

And the celebration took a whole week!  Ha!  Not really but sort of.  We were having a hard time coordinating when family could come and when friends could come so we did a family dinner last Saturday and had friends over yesterday.  His party couldn’t start until he went out for testing for the Highly Capable program.  He’s technically already pre-qualified for next year but the school is having him finish the test anyway.  I’m sure he did brilliantly but we won’t get the test results for a couple of months.

As usual, I don’t have a lot to say but I do have a lot of pictures:

The family dinner.  My sister and dad come as well as my sister’s foreign exchange student and a friend of the family.  Also my friend Nora and her whole family come since it fits in their schedule better and they’re pretty much family anyway.

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Gabe was given a choice of the kind of cake he wanted and he picked a chocolate fudge bundt cake with sprinkles.  Easy enough for me – yay!

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Elias says “I Matman!”

After the party my sis takes all the kids with her and gives us a couple of days off.  Sunday we got to go to church, then to lunch and even shopped a book store all by our lonesome.  Rob worked the next day so I even got to do a few things by myself.  At first I felt a little lost but I managed to do a few fun things just myself.

Fast forward to his party yesterday (some of the pics aren’t here because I don’t know if a couple of his friends’ parents are OK with having their photos online).

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Rob concocted this wonderful Angry Bird Triathlon in keeping with Gabe’s party theme of choice.  The kids were divided into teams doing the different activities.  1) Coloring an Angry Bird page, points were given for coloring and then for the kids’ pick of favorite 2) Completing one level of the Angry Birds game on the iPad, points equal to their score 3) Playing the Angry Birds Jenga game, points given for pieces knocked down.  Elias mostly just bombed the photos I was trying to take of the activities.

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There were prizes for first and second place.  We were all a little surprised when Gideon won first place.  Apparently all his time “practicing” at both the electronic and “real” Angry Birds games has paid off.  Gabe came in second.

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I had every intention of making Gabe’s cake again.  He wanted lemon so I baked that cake, two rounds, put the first round on the platter and covered it with raspberry filling.  Mmm.  Looking good.  Then went to move the second round and could tell right away it wasn’t going to be easy.  The second piece was falling apart just sitting there.  I did everything I could to move it in one piece and managed to get it on the bottom round but it just disintegrated.  I even tried “gluing” the major pieces together with frosting but I’d be working in one area and the other areas were falling apart even more.  I have no idea what happened.  So I had to make a call to a local grocery store for an emergency cake.  They did the grass and sky and I put on the Angry Birds pieces (from one of our games).  Oh well, at least we had a cake.

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Afterward the kids get to try out one of the games Gabe got for his birthday.  At one point we walked out to meet the chickens, a couple of Gabe’s friends were so excited to meet real chickens and had lots of questions about them and their eggs.  I ended up sending two of them home with half a dozen eggs.  They were possibly more excited and them then they were the goody bags.

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No post is complete without a cat picture, right?  Silas and Savannah spent the party trying to figure out what the heck was going on and had to have some time to chill after.

It was a great time celebrating our oldest.  We are so blessed by him.  He’s smart, funny, inquisitive and we just enjoy him so much!

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Thank you, Grandma!

Oh we surprised the kids big time yesterday!  Rob’s mom sent us some spending money as a Christmas gift and yesterday, on the way home from a birthday party, we pulled into Toys-R-Us instead of going home.  THEN we got to tell them they could actually purchase for themselves some things that have been on their wish list for a while. What a joy for all of us, Rob and I got to say “yes”and their faces were just lit up!

Zion chose a scooter and a cute basket (thanks to the scooter being on sale).  She’s been wanting one for so long.

Gideon and Elias wanted the same thing so we/they pooled their portion and got them a Batcave add-on to go with their Geotrax train set and they each got to choose a smaller item.  Gideon picked a stuffed Angry bird (a green one of course, his favorite color) and Elias chose a two-pack of Cars characters that also go with the Geotrax.  The love of trains in this house is not going away anytime soon that’s for sure.

Gabe looked and looked but didn’t find anything he’d been wanting.  He perused.  He browsed.  He checked out a lot of things but ultimately decided to shop elsewhere. So after we went home Rob and he went back out and checked out GameStop.  Ooo, we love it there!  And Gabe SCORED!  GameStop was having a sale.  Gabe got two game guides and a set that came with a game guide, a game and a Lego toy.  Wow!

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You can see how happy they are.  Well, Elias may be a bit overtired but he’s happy on the inside! Thank you, Grandma Marlene!

And because I’m overdue, puppy shots:

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They are HUGE and they are characters and so sweet, like giant teddy bears and they were a couple of days shy of 4 months old in these shots.  More puppy photos soon.  :)

Sunday, August 19, 2012

The Actual Vacation

I thought I should return quickly after the sad post so I can talk a little bit about what we did on vacation that was fun.  We did have a LOT of fun despite the stuff that was yucky. 

Our first full day we head down to a series of trails and take a walk and wade in the river.  Well, most of us wade, two of us ended up dunking themselves. 

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Later we head to the pool.  Gabe prefers being under the water.  I’m so impressed with how well he did since it’s been a while since we’ve been in the water.

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We had foaties and water wings for the other kids.  Every day they got more confident in the water.  Elias on the other hand was too confident from the start.  He was thoroughly convinced he needed neither floatie nor parent while in the water and was constantly trying to push out of our arms.

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One night was went to the park next door but even though it was almost 6 o’clock at night it was still in the 90s and too hot for the kids to play long.

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So we went and got ice cream.  I thought it was funny that Gabe chose mint chip, Rob’s favorite, and Zion chose bubblegum, one of my favorites, even though we so rarely go for ice cream that they couldn’t have known. 

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Another day we went to a trail that used to be a water pipeline.  Zion grabbed an umbrella out of the van for portable shade, clever girl.

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This bridge is actually the water pipeline cut in half so that you walk on the inside of the pipe.  The view is gorgeous.

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It’s once again too hot to hike for long so we return to the trail head and play in the river.  Elias jumps right in.

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I realized earlier today that I forgot hiking sandals so we had to stop at a sports store.  I ended up getting Vibram FiveFingers.  They look ridiculous and like they’d be more suitable as slippers than shoes for hiking but they were great.  I am terrible unstable on uneven terrain but these made me feel so stable and I was able to go right from the trail to climbing down boulders and then into the water and back to the trail.  Sweet!  (And do you see the fish by my foot, how cute is that.)

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Zion and Gabe brought suits and had a great time in the river!

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Another day we did a series of events, first mini-golfing where Elias got to golf for the first time ever, then we went to see Ice Age4 (super funny!) and then to the arcade to play games.  And it was very nice for us that all these things were at the same location.  Yay!

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Gideon adopts a unique stance for putt-putt.

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The kids loved the fountain.  I kept thinking that the little building behind it would make the cutest chicken coop EVER!

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How a mommy golfs.

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One of the employees took our picture.  Rob is sitting on the rock so he looks tiny and I look like a giant.  LOL

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We end the day with a stop at a bakery that make only cookies.  And fantastic cookies they are!  Elias seems to want one of every kind.

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That’s not all we did but I’ll save some for later.