Alex’s Birthday Party

We started the day off having Uncle Mark and Grandma and Grandpa Konlock over to open Alex’s gifts from us and have a family celebration prior to the party. We then all met up (with the exception of Grandpa) at Kids In Motion for Alex’s first friends only birthday party. It looks like a lot of presents, but it is really only six. (On a side note, I think Andy may have a toy buying problem.)

While I am getting to the point (already) of not wanting to have separate birthday parties for the kids anymore, since this was Alex’s first official birthday where he got to invite all his friends I felt like I couldn’t let him miss what Jack got to experience twice. He invited six of his friends from school (because that is the maximum amount of little boy energy I can effectively monitor) to Kids In Motion (the same place Jack had his first party) and they ran wild around the indoor playground for two hours.

They have tons of different rooms full of all kinds of activities and a big climbing place in the middle of it all. Alex got caught up in the magnetiles room and I had to push him a little to get out and enjoy his friends.

He is fairly happy playing alone as long as he likes what he is doing and I found that his friends gravitate towards him rather then the other way around.

Of course, they all just ran amuck and were completely sweaty and disgusting even though it was a chilly single digit temperature outside.

We brought in Pizza for the m since we had the party at a later hour then normal (from 5-7pm). We also had cake even though most of them were so excited to paly that they barely managed to get a bite down before they were off again.

They got to play a round of laser tag after they were done eating and near the end of the party. It was a big finish and everyone had a ton of fun.

I was worried about how Jack might get along with all the younger kids but he pretty much did his own thing and I found him periodically helping other smaller children do things. He joined in on the laser tag at the end, but was good about letting Alex have his time with his friends.

Afterwards we adjourned to Andy’s parents house where Alex opened all his gifts from his friends and then proceeded to paly with everything.

We let them stay the night with their Grandparents and their Uncle Mark. (Can you see how well trained they are? They know when they open a gift that they are to stop and pose with it so I can get a picture.)

2013 Pinewood Derby

I think that Jack may have a bit of a skewed sense of what the Pinewood Derby entails. Last year he won third place and it was the first time a Tiger scout had broken into the top three positions. This year he moved up a notch to the second place position and I am a little nervous that he if he doesn’t get first place or at least one of the top three positions that he may have a little bit of a meltdown. As I was watching the races all night long I kept calling him over to tell him he did a really good job, but that so did a lot of other people. You know, the whole winning isn’t everything speech. He would nod and say “I know Mom”, but then come back and ask me if it was possible to get a ribbon AND a trophy. LOL. That boy has more faith in his and his daddy’s ability to build a fast car than I did. Luckily, I was proved wrong.

Weigh in started at 6:00pm and this year they didn’t have to make any adjustments so they were assigned a number and the car went straight into the pit. They got a brand new track this year so there was a lot of uncertainty as to what to expect with the speed of the  cars and other factors. turns out lanes 1 and 3 are the fastest.

While Andy did the majority of the labor each year he increases Jack’s participation according to his ability to use the power tools and other things in a safe way. This year Jack chose the shape of the car and the paint design. He also used a saw to cut the rough shape of the car out and was able to sand a lot of it down. Andy did the fine sanding and the placement of the weights as well as the paint job. It turned out pretty neat.

Turns out that there are a lot of rules that I am blissfully unaware of that have to be followed in order to make the car eligible to race. One of those rules is that you are not allowed to move the axles of the car from the prepositioned place on the bottom of the car block. The three cars to the left of Jack’s in the picture below had their axles moved which increases the speed of the car. The judges did not catch this on weigh in and so at the end when all the race averages were being tallied there was a leader meeting on what they should do.

The fair thing was that since it wasn’t caught in the weigh ins before the races they allowed the three cars to take the places they earned with no penalty. In the defense of the three boys (who are actually triplets) the rules were never given out until about a week before the race and by then it would have too late to change anything and still get a car in on time.

While this made it unfair for everyone who did follow the rules, the design of their cars would have made them fast no matter what and they didn’t tell everyone what actually happened so there was no cause for anyone to be angry. Also, considering that they are all brothers and their cars are identical it wouldn’t be too far fetched to believe they would all race the same. Had they placed higher than 4th through sixth position the judges would have given them all a single trophy in order to make it more fair for the other racers. (Can you see how tiny Jack is on the far left compared to all the other boys? He is definitely not one to let his size get in his way.)

And again, while winning isn’t everything it is nice to know that when you follow the rules you can still beat someone who doesn’t (even unknowingly) and come out on top. I believe that is what is called a life lesson. Jack’s best time was 3.446 followed by a couple of 3.6’s and a 3.7, so he was pretty consistent. the first race was the slowest because he got so excited that he put the car on crooked and didn’t take the time to straighten it out. He was much more careful afterwards and did a ton better.

Can you tell how excited Jack is about his second win in a row? Next year should be even more interesting as it will be Alex’s first year in Cub Scouts and he is a bit more competitive then Jack, so there may be some sibling rivalry going on there.

Jacks Birthday party

Due to circumstances beyond our control, i.e., weather, we had to fall back to our Plan B for Jack’s birthday party and have it in our basement. Andy found a great craft project that was just perfect for boys in range of 7-9 and there was plenty of pseudo-weaponry to keep them entertained for the whole two hours.

We celebrated Jack’s actual birth day with his grandparents with just a small party of pizza and cake. He opened up his presents from us as as well as the one’s from his Grandparents and his Uncle Mark. I would say he was pretty pleased with what he got.

No longer a seven year old.

Making a wish.

MMM… delicious cake.

The dog wants cake too.

The loot!

Some of the aftermath. A lot of what he received was Mega Blocks or Lego so it required some assembly.

I was a little leery at having so many kids in my basement, especially since we haven’t done too  much to redo it so that it looks at least a little presentable, but it was clean and safe and full of toys and there was plenty of room to play.

They were fairly well behaved and didn’t break anything or hurt anyone too much. They were all full of energy and were able to keep themselves entertained for the majority of the party.

We had a craft activity planned which went over better than I expected. they were able to calm down and pay attention and each made their own paracord bracelet to take home along with their gift bags full of goodies.

We had cake and ice-cream floats for desert and everybody sang Jack Happy Birthday. The time passed so quickly that they were barely finishing their cake when all the parents started to show up. All the parents were pretty concerned with how it went and relieved that it went so well. I think they were looking to see how bad it might be if they did the same thing.

These are Jack and Alex’s bracelets that they made themselves (mostly). They love them and wear them every day. I got an update and their friends still wear their bracelets to school the majority of the time.

Happy New Year

We have fairly new traditions each year that we have been cultivating since we moved to beautiful Wisconsin. One of those is our New Year’s Eve celebration family style with our very good friends The Balistreri’s and Emanuele’s. We have for the last three years joined their families to ring in the New Year with all of our children who are around the same age. While the children laugh and entertain themselves we get to have a little adult conversation and catch up on what has been going on in each other’s lives along with a meal prepared by Melissa, who is a phenomenal cook, though she would say otherwise. What a better way to ring in the New Year than with the people you enjoy?

Some sledding

We tried to go sledding after having had a little bit of snow. The hills we go to were a little hard though. One hill had good powdery snow, but it had been worn away where you sled. The other hill was good but our sleds were leaking air which made it hard to get good speed. We had fun anyways, which is the whole point.

A few of our Christmas memories this year

Christmas foosball.

Looking at the gifts the kids made in class.

Playing Kerplunk.

Echo trying to help build Lego sets

The presents under the tree and the kids patiently waiting to open them.

A firefighter and mercenary. Watch out for the rubber bands they can hurt.

Resting and enjoying one of my presents.

The crazy hat family photo.

Jack building his Halo Mega blocks set and Alex and Mark working on Monster Fighters Lego set in the background.

Echo the Christmas dog. She was s o well behaved the entire time.

The majority of the Christmas memories were made on Christmas Eve when everyone was around. On Christmas day Andy had to go to work so he couldn’t spend that much time with us. We did have Christmas morning together with just Andy, me, and the kids before it was all spoiled by work.

Hope everyone else had a Merry Christmas and is looking forward to a great New Year!

End of the World? Not quite…

Although it sometimes feels like it could be the end of the world when you are dragged away from all the fun that freshly fallen snow has to offer to the drudgery of something like school.

After not getting anywhere near the drop of snow that we were told to expect it was kind of nice that at least there was enough for the kids to find some fun.

jack had just enough time to make a shallow snow angel on the driveway while waiting for the bus to come pick them up to go to school.

Because the wind had blown really hard there was plenty of fallen branches to occupy their time while waiting.

At some point the fun is bound to end and real life begins.

At least it was only a half day.