Gregory Turns 6!

Last Tuesday, September 15th, my oldest baby turned all of 6 years old! It was a fun day, from breakfast to bedtime...

The night before I cooked up about 30 "kitty" pancakes for him to take to school. They ask that the kids not bring cupcakes and we wanted to do something more than just cookies. Gregory and Charla both have this obsession with cats right now and this is a beloved breakfast choice in our house.

Chocolate chip eyes and 2 drops of food coloring, run into a kitty smile with a butter knife- SO easy!


Here's video of everything to do with food throughout the day:


We are BIG Lego fans. After browsing the internet a bit to get some inspiration for a way to pull Lego's into dessert, I came up with an idea for edible Lego's that Gregory could build his own cake with. SOOO easy...

I bought one mix for pound cake (it's heavier and less crumbly than regular cake). I mixed it according to the package and then divided it into 4 bowls. Charla helped mix food coloring into each bowl.

The batter is pretty viscous, so it was easy to pour each separate cloor in without mixing them. I baked it just a bit less than the package called for. Then I set it out of the way to cool completely for the evening.

Charla had fun helping to wrap presents.

I found balloons on mega clearance so we made some fun balloon objects.

One of my favorite gifts is actually for all the kids- an art easel. Gregory got some paint and brushes and paper with it, with the understanding that it's for them all to use. Leora helped herself to the green paint in the cart before I'd even paid for it- THAT was a fun mess to clean up.

It was a fairly warm day, so I tackled the tremendous task of filling water balloons for us to ambush Fred with when he got home. The kids DID try to help. Word of advice: Fill them FULL if you want them to pop without it hurting too much. Sounds like common sense, but it took a lot of force to pop ours, resulting in some tears :/

ATTACK!!

HeeHee... this pictures cracks me up. It looks like Leora is giggling about Charla having an accident. Charla just happens to be standing where a balloon had popped and Leora is grinning for the picture.

While we let Fred go change into swim trunks, Gregory galantly insisted he take the cooler mostly full of water balloons to the backyard so I wouldn't have to. He made it 1/2 way across the driveway- such a sweetheart.

While waiting for Fred we had a nice surprise- Gregory's Primary teacher came by with a jumbo Cookie Monster cup cake for our birthday boy. She is SO sweet! And he thoroughly enjoyed it later :D

See the water balloon?

I picked up a package of primary colored fondant at Walmart and it matched the cake colors almost perfectly! While we were all in the living room, Leora snuck onto the table and picked off 1/2 the yellow fondant, so we were a little short, but Gregory didn't mind mixing colors.

I had hoped to be done and let him just build with the lego pieces, but I think he had just as much fun assembling the Lego pieces! Charla was a great helper, too.


He decided to build a sidewalk. It was fun watching him model it by walking his fingers around it.

We let him put in the candles- I hadn't imagined it would be so much fun letting him be such a participant in the whole thing.

Gift Time! He got a hoard of Lincoln Logs (YAY for Craigslist!).

I found some gently used roller blades at Goodwill. They're even extendible for 4 sizes.

My grandparents sent him a box full of the neatest miniature antique vehicles. He was delighted! He wanted to open them all right then, but Leora was pretty excited about them, too, which made the birthday boy pretty anxious.


Here's video of the gift opening. One final detail:
When helping Gregory fill out a survey about himself for school, one of the questions asked what his favorite sport is. He promptly replied, "HOCKEY." I was surprised and threw out some other suggestions. He stayed firmly by hockey. To my knowledge he's never seen a game or even a movie about it.
Our neighbor across the street is THE authority on hockey. He said he would be thrilled to give Gregory some lessons. He's pretty psyched, too :)

About the President

(The White House, July 4th 2008)

No, I'm not expressing any political opinions in this post- I strive to avoid making them. This is just a brief note from last Tuesday, involving my cute Kindergartner...

As most know, there was a lot of controversy in regard to President Obama's pending address to our public schools. I got some great insights (and some not so great) from various people. Fred and I discussed whether or not to send Gregory to school that day. We ultimately decided not to keep him home.

That morning at breakfast I told Gregory a bit about what the office of President is and what he does. He thought Obama's name was kind of funny. Considering how young he is, I didn't expect him to comprehend most of what I told him, although he did look at me while I talked :P I encouraged him to listen to what the president had to say, and that we would talk about it together when he came home (they ended up not showing it to his class).

As I was pushing the kids out the door, I took the first real look at Gregory's shirt. It SO cracked me up! We got the shirt when we visited our friends in DC last year for the 4th of July. He couldn't have picked a better shirt to wear that day!

Hunting

Neither Fred nor I are into hunting (shooting, yes), but apparently our kids are. Probably some gene that skipped us. We've used this drive to con them into doing several chores.

My 2 personal favorites:

The Laundry Hunt -
We got them all worked up about hunting down every last scrap of dirty laundry- don't let a single sock escape! They rushed around, stuffing the laundry bags full. Then Gregory helped Fred drag them down the stairs. We'll see if it still works a decade from now...


Hide-n-Brush Teeth -
I may have mentioned this in a previous post. My dad invented this game to get my sisters to cooperate when it was time to brush teeth at bedtime. While the parent prepares the toothbrush, they're counting out loud. We usually count to 20. Then they hunt down the toothbrush-ee. Gregory is actually an excellent hider! More than once I've given up and started calling for him. Pretty impressive! We've never dealt with a fuss after finding them and brushing their teeth.

Family Temple Trip

This past Saturday we seized the moment and took our little family to see the temple in Columbus- it was such a fun experience!

We ate a picnic on the outskirts of the temple grounds. The temple was closed due to the holiday weekend, but that meant we were the only ones there, which was kinda nice.

Lunch! I made a point of it to grab this quilt specifically- it's a handmade quilt my great-grandmother made for me when I was in high school. It was very special to have my 4 little ones on it, at the temple. We miss my Grandma Knight.

We LOVE how green Ohio is!

The landscaping is so beautiful- as are the grounds at all the temples. It was the perfect day for a picnic.

Cute lil' thing enjoying her poptart

While I nursed Kai, Fred took the kids around the temple and got some wonderful pictures.

3 of my favorite people- they're so sweet!

LOVE this perspective shot!

The diaper bag took some great family pictures of us- YAY for the "timer" function!

GRIN!

I can't get over this picture! I LOVE my hubby- he's such a great dad!

Family picture! This one's going up on the wall!

She's such a daddy's girl.

It was a wonderful experience! As we pulled away from the temple in our van, Fred had a great idea. We stopped and said a prayer thanking Heavenly Father for the great time we had and for all the temples. When the prayer was over we all sang "I Love to See the Temple." I felt like I was in an Ensign article about families and temples. I'm SO grateful for my eternal family!

Save the Date

It's still 4 weeks away, but here's a note to let you know I'm throwing Fred a party on Friday October 2nd to celebrate his 30th birthday. He knows I'm doing something for his birthday, but not the particulars, like who and where. The thing that really makes a party is having our favorite people there, so I hope you'll be able to make it. More details to come!

-Debbie

Corn Festival

Yes, they actually have a festival to celebrate corn over here. And it's really pretty fun! It's like this farm town carnival with some rides, lots of crafts and DE-licious corn! I actually took Gregory and Charla to it last year when Fred and Leora were in Tucson for his cousin Dave's wedding. It was SO fun going as a whole family this year!

When I saw how this picture turned out, it made me laugh SO hard! I just love how every person's expression is different. I LOVE having 4 kids!!

Baby toes!

I love it when they act like they like each other

There was this sort of "encampment" on the edge of the fair where these hippie-types had dutch oven's going next to their raw-hide tents, selling wind chimes, dream catchers and homemade food. They all wore leather clothes they made themselves, like pseudo Indians. It was a little weird, but the kids liked the drum they had out front.

LOVE this shot

Aww...

Pony rides!

I think Charla enjoyed it most.

"someone's following me..."

That corn was the absolute BEST I've ever eaten! Gregory scarfed down the watermelon before any of us had a chance.

WHEEE!

Cute sisters.

Leora just cracks me up. It looks like she's doing a door approach.

YAY for big brothers! He's walking them to the playground.

Cute girl

The playground is brand new- pretty cool stuff! I wonder how it will weather the winter..?

Of course there was resistance when it was time to go. We hoped by doing the old "Bye Charla" and starting to walk toward the car that she would just follow us. Gregory got upset at us for leaving her and ran back to the playground to fetch her. When she wouldn't come willingly, he DRAGGED her. We didn't let him drag her the whole way- once we caught our breath from laughing, Fred scooped up our little screaming ball of fury and we headed home.