The Pizza Guy Turns 7

David turned seven today.  And as much as I was hanging on to my beloved Davey, his little boy nickname, when I was writing his name on his birthday card today, I consciously chose to write David.  This is the name he uses at school and with all of his friends.  Davey is a pet name, a family name, and somehow he seems to have outgrown it, although he will always be Davey Bear in my heart.

So what does a grown up David want for his birthday?  When it comes to presents, a remote control helicopter and some spy gear (night vision is so cool to a seven year old!)  When it comes to food, pizza, pizza and pizza.  I would describe David as a selective eater. Joe just calls him a picky eater.  He currently eats cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese sandwiches, yogurt, smoothies, peanut butter sandwiches, dry cereal (milk on the side), green beans, peas, pears, apples, baby carrots, french fries, bagels, donuts, cereal bars, popcorn, nutella, waffles, bacon, sausage and...pizza.  Lots and lots of pizza.  Last year David would not have anything to do with hot lunch at school.  In fact, the one day that he forgot his lunch in the car, the principal called to ask me to bring a lunch to school because David was having a mega-meltdown about being forced to eat hot lunch.  This year, about a month into school, he announced that he was going to try hot lunch on a breakfast-for-lunch day.  "Are you sure??" I asked him, remembering the phone call last year.  He was sure and decided that he loves the breakfast sausage the school serves.  Not sure what is in the sausage, but around here, we call this progress.

So on his seventh birthday when he asked me for breakfast pizza, I was envisioning a pizza with eggs and sausage on it.  "Where did you try breakfast pizza, buddy?" I asked, proud that he was trying something new again.  "No, mom, I want regular pizza for breakfast!...It's my birthday, you know?"  Right.  Like father, like son.  Not only was Joe a (much more) picky eater when he was David's age, but Joe also thinks pizza is the perfect food and has been known to eat it for breakfast.  So David had pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner on his birthday, lucky boy.

Joe is in Chicago for work today and was sad to miss David's birthday.  When I sent him these pictures, he thought David suddenly looked very old.  I told him I had the same feeling back when AJ turned seven.  Must be something about seven that is grown up.

David showing off his new spy camera gear.

The cool birthday boy.

So glad that he still has that dimple!

Merry Christmas Near and Far

This time of year it is always hard to be away from family who live out of state, or in the case of Uncle Andy, out of country.  The kids made these cards to send down to Uncle Andy with Grandma Julie when she goes for a visit.  I love them all, but I think the "oops" is my favorite.

Elves

My merry little elves goofing around tonight.  Feeling very blessed this holiday season with three healthy kids, a warm house and plenty of food on the table & wanting to do more to help others who are in need.

Thankful

We had Joe's parents, Uncle Roger and my parents here for Thanksgiving.  It was one of those great, traditional Thanksgivings with pumpkin pie, puzzles and football.  Speaking of pie, we made a new one this year--cranberry caramel pecan.  Amazing.  I predict it will be a new tradition.  Julia is studying pilgrims at school and made both Native American and Pilgrim head coverings.  My grandfather did some genealogy research and figured out my family has ancestors from both the Cherokee and Powhatan Native American tribes.  Part of my grandfather's legacy to our family is that we are all very proud of our heritage.

The bottom picture is of Julia's Thankful cross that she made at Sunday School.  I love that she is thankful for flowers.  

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree

Well I guess the old saying about the apple not falling from the tree is pretty true.  I took Julia shopping the other night for a holiday dress when she spotted these shoes.  "Oh, mommy--can I please, please, please get those most beautiful shoes?!?"  And then once she had them on her feet, she couldn't wait to wear them and begged to wear them home from the store. I may or may not be known to stash my old shoes in the new shoe box and wear my new shoes home myself...

Happy Halloween

Pumpkins + Costumes

Julia bravely answering the door.

Kitty cat Grandma and Unicorn Julia

Family jack-o-lanterns

On trick-or-treat night (called Beggar's Night in our neck of the woods), the boys were quickly off running the neighborhood with their buddies.  Julia said from the get go that she wanted to answer the door with Grandma Julie and hand out candy again.  This has become their thing together.  Julia ran the show this year, asking kids if they had a joke to tell and telling each child that they could take two pieces of candy if they wanted to.  Toward the end she started answering the door without assistance and things went along quite smoothly.

The favorite joke this year was "Where do spaghetti and sauce go to get together?"..."To the meatball!"  AJ's joke was "How does NASA get ready to sent a rocket to Mars?...They planet!" (get it...plan it?)  David insisted on telling the same joke he has told for the past three years: "What comes out at night and goes flap, flap, chomp, chomp, ouch?...A bat with a cavity!" And I confess I wasn't disappointed when it started to rain with an hour left to go.  We had more than enough candy around this place.

Class Party

I volunteer to help with one of the classroom parties in each of the kids' classrooms every year.  As a parent who works outside the home full time, I am always looking for ways to feel involved in their school experience even though I am usually not the one doing morning drop off or afternoon pick up.

Classroom parties are interesting beasts.  They are challenged with high energy levels, sugar overloads and the difficulty of coming up with creative things to do in a classroom in 45 minutes.  I remember classroom parties in elementary school when I was little, but I don't recall parents being so heavily involved.  Perhaps it was that I just don't remember parents being around or they were just successful at staying in the background.  Someone must have made all those cupcakes, right?  To tell the truth, I find the parties a bit stressful.  I am usually rushing from a work meeting to get there, the parking lot is jammed with other parent cars so there is nowhere to park, and the activity or thing I am helping with usually involves dragging in bags of supplies.  But then my kid sees me there and is so proud I am helping with the party that I want to do it again.

Going to third grade this year definitely upped the ante in terms of what the kids find engaging.  Their sense of humor has changed, and they also have a perspective for the first time on whether something is cool or not.  My station was pumpkin decorating, and I was in charge of bringing supplies for the kids to use in decorating.  I had markers, foam stick-on facial features, yarn for hair, googly eyes and random washi tape. I threw in some toothpicks in case they were needed to hold anything down.  Enter third grade boys.  One boy came up with the idea that the washi tape could be a headband and the toothpicks could make a mohawk.  Suddenly all third grade boys wanted pumpkins with headbands and mohawks.  I quickly ran out of toothpicks.

Party Dog and His Girl

Julia thought Charlie would want to wear a party hat for her birthday, too.  Not so sure what Charlie thinks about that idea...

It was a good family celebration of our youngest turning five.  Nothing too over-the-top, just enough to mark the occasion and make her feel special.

Cannonball into Fall

Loving this kid and his ability to jump into things even when he knows he will not like the landing.

Tea for Ten

Julia had her 5th birthday party this weekend, a costume tea part at the Botanic Gardens.  I love so much about five.  It is the pinnacle of early childhood.  Their imaginations are still incredible and they can use the bathroom and feed themselves without assistance.  What's not to love?

Rainbow unicorn and Princess Merida

Rainbow unicorn and Wonder Woman 

We played many party games, including this one called stack the tea cups.  Other games/amusements included musical chairs, pin the tea cup on the saucer and a pinata.

My favorite part of any party...the cake!  

No captions needed for the next three pictures. She was so proud that she blew all five candles out in one breath.

Jumpin' Jumpin'

It's that time of year when the ash tree in our front yard turns purple on the outside and yellow underneath.  I am not sure quite how it works, but it looks like it is lit from within.  And it only lasts about a week or so, especially this year due to some very windy days last week.  We had our fun raking it up and doing some jumping.  AJ asked me to take a video of them running and jumping but I did these still pictures instead.  Somehow I think it captures the moment better than video.  From the first picture with Julia holding the Swiffer because big brothers took all the rakes to the picture with David's arm up and face exuberant to the last picture where AJ clearly does not like the smell or feel of the leaves, these pictures capture that moment for me so clearly.

Pink Cleats Rock

Julia finished her first competitive soccer season this weekend.  She wasn't so sure about this soccer thing.  Getting to pick out her own pink cleats and ball helped motivate her a little.  Most of the time she was the kid who was pretty happy to hang toward the back of the pack and watch what was going on.  This was made easier for her by having a teammate who was an incredible soccer player for age 4.  Julia's teammate scored at least 10 goals in each of the games I watched and truly ran the field, so it was pretty easy for Julia to do her "I'll just stand here ten feet away and watch what you do" routine.  Julia seemed to like defense the best and in one game stopped two balls from going into the goal with a big kick that her coach called Julia's signature move.

As the mom of a girl, I am focused on making sure that Julia does not only the dance and gymnastics that she loves but also some field/court sports that require teamwork.  I believe the studies that show girls who play sports have more self-confidence.  If she wants to wear pink while she plays sports, I'm all for it.

Julia in her normal position, about ten feet back (see her in the back with the purple hat?)

Julia, super proud of her end-of-season medal like her big brothers have.

Wednesday Nights

Joe has been traveling much of this fall for work and is gone a lot during the week, so the kids and I have a routine now where we go out to eat on Wednesdays after religious ed classes.  It is my little celebration that we have made it through half of the week and are on the downward slide--yea!  Our favorite spot to go is Red Robin.  They have video games at the table that the boys love and little chalkboards that Julia loves to draw on.  What is it about little kids' drawings of people that is so compelling?

Sweater

Grandma Francie knit Julia some beautiful sweaters this fall.  This pink and purple one is one of her favorites.  When did those legs get so long?  She also gets her beautiful long legs from her Grandma Francie.

Rainbow Unicorn Pegasus

It's safe to say Julia likes her Halloween costume this year.  Every year I think I will wait until the day before Halloween to show the kids their costumes so the thrill doesn't wear off by trick-or-treat time, and every year I am so excited to see their reaction that I go out way too early with it. Julia promptly wore this thing to her brothers' soccer and football games and received lots of compliments, which only increased her love for it.  I love that she loves it.

Uncle John did request borrowing the rainbow mullet (a.k.a. the "mane") that comes with it to make his own Halloween costume, but I am thinking she will not give it up.

Speedors

We are still in the era where the kids love going to parks and playing hard on all of the equipment.  Here they are pretending that these things are star wars speedors.  I love the imaginative play that comes  out with physical activity.

How Tall This Fall?

We continued our tradition of going to a local apple orchard.  For me, it has almost become more about getting to see this picture and watch the changes over the years.  For the kids, it is still all about the apple sling shot and the corn bin.  And oh yeah, the apples.  Guest star this year from Sassy, the farm kitten.