Birthdays Synopsis

We are recovering from Birthday season.

Leora kicks it off August 17.  
Then Gregory picks it up again on September 15.  
Finally, Fred and Charla run it home together September 23.

I get Winter to myself and Kai rules over Spring.

It's been a great Birthday season, though.

We celebrated Leora's actual birthday with Inga and her beau, Eddie.

  We did a drive-in movie with popcorn. 

 Her cake had little fondant kitties representing each member of the family.

Then she got to celebrate it again in Tucson.  She was serenaded by the staff at our favorite Mexican restaurant, "Molinito's".


A month later....

Gregory enjoyed a family birthday.  He got to play Minecraft with his papa most of the day.  We had nachos for lunch and Cici's Pizza for dinner.  He got many Minecraft-themed gifts. 


The highlight that day was DEFINITELY when he got to pick out his own kitten from a shelter adoption group at Petsmart.   


It was just going to be Gregory getting a cat (to replace our lost Cinders)....

(no kitty could truly replace our beloved Cinders)

Then Charla fell in love with a sweet little calico.  We reasoned that since her birthday was 8 days away, the kitty could be her gift.  (Now Leora feels that justice will not be served unless she gets a kitten next year, too.)

Meet our black kitty,  Lapiz, named after a precious stone in "Minecraft" 

And our Calico Serena, named so because of her serene personality

And we wrap it up...

(sadly, I could not find my camera OR my phone during the party, so you'll have to use your imagination)

Charla and Fred celebrated their birthday together.  The invitation was open to everyone in the ward.  We had about 10 families show up, bringing food to share (we provided the chili dogs and cake).  We splurged and rented a bouncy castle.  We took over the pool, pushing out the drunk college students who usually dominate it.  The kids got thoroughly filthy playing in the beach volleyball court sand.  We wrapped up the party with a Pinata.  Fred got to give it the final death blow, spraying the delighted children with treats and Dollar Store trinkets.

The next day Fred's classmates came over for birthday fun.  Charla loved being the center of attention as she  eagerly unwrapped her gifts- they totally fawned over her and even let her give them little make-overs with her new play make-up.

One of them got to put his engineering degree to use by helping Kai assemble (and repeatedly put back together) a Transformer toy someone had thoughtfully gifted to the birthday boy.  Who wasn't Kai, but he claimed it as his own.

Throughout the week leading up to the big birthday weekend, and on into the next week, a stomach/intestinal bug slowly worked its way through each member of the family.  Somehow we managed to keep it from ruining the fun.

Now that the excitement has died down, Leora is already planning next year's birthday party.  Here is the list she made today: (Sarah M. is a little friend in her class, I first learned of when Leora interpreted this for me)

If you look closely, you can see words along the top, shining through from the other side.  They're from Leora's "homework".  

Kindergarten Vocab words so far are: am, the, little, I

She begs for homework, so I arranged them with her last name:
“I am the little Olsen”.  She loves writing it over and over again

PHEW!  That's a wrap!