Birthday Slacking

I forgot to give an update on Isaak's family birthday party. We held the May birthdays at our house. That included: Isaak (turned 8), my nephew Evan (turned 11), and my nephew Edison (turned 2).

They all like cats, so I created a Space Cats invite for them. I took out my address and stuff for this post. Edison kept pointing to Isaak saying, "Ikick". He says his name so cute. He's talking more and more.

Isaak got a Lego set and journal from my parents. Aunt Terra gave him grow your own garden things in cans, and boxes. Cilantro and something else is growing in our kitchen. Mushrooms grew in a box. They grow fast! Aunt Angela is taking Isaak out to see The BFG when it comes out.

He's all about being silly lately. Stickers are on his face. Notice the gold wrapping paper that my mom found. Gold is his favorite color.

Isaak wasn't too excited about the mushrooms. He doesn't care for mushrooms, but he likes them in Chicken and Dumplings and Chicken Bitki, so we made Chicken Bitki with them. It was fun watching them grow!

I try and find perfect gifts for my nephews and niece. Edison needed a toddler pillow, and I had a book I reviewed for him with his name in it. 

Evan was asking for a robe. I didn't think about the fact that it looked like a graduation gown. Ha! It came satin boxers. I tried to pull a Christmas Story by embarrassing him, "Evan try the boxers on! ;)" He wouldn't have anything to do with that.

My house is small. If you remember right I was worried about having extra people there. There were 15 adults, and 7 kids. My niece's boyfriend came, and one of my brother-in-law's invited his parents. I wasn't too excited about the in-laws because they are on their other side. We made it work.

We had Greek food. Funky food is sometimes hard for older people to understand. My 89 year old Grandpa was clueless. He didn't know what 1/2 the things were, and we had to help him. It was all good though! 

We pushed the kids outside to eat. My sister said, "Good thing it's not raining." I said, "Even if it was they'd still go out there. We have a covered porch. Outside is where they belong when there's lots of people." 

Pleasing Everyone

Last week on Friday Mica had 3 friends over to study lemurs. They have their pop quiz this week, and they go to the zoo to study them. I checked out a lot of books on lemurs from the library, and got a lemur movie.

Of course  Morgan Freeman was the narrator. 

Source

The kids were all given a PowerPoint, and study guide to go over as well. 

Kid number 1 walked in the door. He was wondering why we have bones all over our front porch. Hummm....Halloween. 

Kid number 2 came to the door with a bag of food. She's a super picky eater. She can't have red sauce, or many fruits because of her acid reflex. 

Kid number 3 came to the door. Her mom was annoyed because arrangements were made with her father. She's divorced. She didn't know about the event until last minute. Nor did she know about the time it started. 

My husband held up the event. Let's just say he's a wonderful Dad! He just should have communicated to kid number 3's mom better. It's not his fault. He pretty much had the other kids all day because their parents had to work.

Isaak's friend called and he wanted to come over. Kid number 4 showed up. It was good because little brothers can be in the way at times. Thankfully they played video games, did artsy things with his scratch board and played with his Thomas trains stuff quietly in his room.

Lunch time was coming soon. I bought pizzas, brats, there were raw veggies, and fruit. There was soda as a choice. We won that at the Fall Festival. It's not something I buy regularly.

Kid number 1: I don't eat pork of any kind. I'm a conservative Christian. I also don't drink soda.

We never heard that one before. Muslims not eating pork, we've heard of. Travis offered him leftovers: A beef brisket. He was happy with that.

Kid number 2: I can't have red sauce if you're serving pizza. I don't drink soda.

No worries I bought an alfredo sauce pizza because I knew she couldn't have red sauce, since she was at Mica's birthday party. Travis made her pizza, she took 2 bites of 1 piece and didn't eat anymore. 

Kid number 3: I love pizza and soda! I'll only eat raw veggies with Ranch Dressing.

No worries I bought Ranch Dressing just because I knew this girl was coming over, and I know she likes Ranch Dressing from previous play dates.

Kid number 4: Wasn't picky. He didn't drink soda either. 

Crazy picky eaters. You just can't please everyone.

At least the lemur study group went well.  

June Birthdays

Emerson and my birthday were only days apart in June.

We celebrated this last weekend. Our theme was bubbles.

Aunt Terra made stuff for tacos, Grandma made 3 different flavors of homemade ice cream. I made Chocolate Chip Cookies, Lemon Cookies, and Zucchini Brownies.

I didn't plan on making so many desserts, but here's why I did: 

• At first I made extra Chocolate Chip Cookies for our works, and they devoured most of the cookies. One girl from my husband work sent a note home with him saying, "You make the best cookies ever." Needless to say I had to make something else, or more Chocolate Chip Cookies.


• I decided to make Zucchini Brownies. We have so many Zucchini's from our garden. I need to use them up in whatever ways I can. Why not add them to desserts? They were so good! The problem was: The Daddy wrote the recipe down for me. *He used his Smart Phone, since we didn't have internet. The recipe was for a 9x9 pan. I was thinking it would be for a 9x12 pan. I didn't want him to have to find a whole other recipe to write down. So I went with it.


• Looking at my desserts, it still looked like we were limited. A little of this, and a little of that. Our family is growing! We have 10 adults, 2 teens, 4 active boys and Emerson who doesn't eat much and Edison who only gets Mommy's milk. Back to the drawing board. I made Lemon Cookies. They were so good!

All the desserts were really small. Many people took one of everything. All were made with gluten free flour. The brownies had coconut sugar. The cookies were made with coconut oil instead of butter. None of it was healthy, but it was better than the original recipes.

Here's what I got Emerson: Matching hat, tie, and leg warmers. He looked great!

Daddy said, "You really do pick out good presents." That's the first time he's ever told me that. I've been buying most of the presents for years.

Emerson got a bike from one Grandma. His other Grandma got him a swing. He's just learning how to grip things. This is a bike he's used in therapy. That thing on his head is a hearing aid he's testing out.

Here's Edison being passed around:

Terra looks scary in the background. This is Edison with Grandma - my Mom.

This is Great Aunt Becky with Edison. The boys think of her as a Grandma.

Here's Isaak holding his youngest cousin Edison.

Grandpa wouldn't let Edison sleep. He kept touching him. Then Edison woke up crying. Right after Edison woke up I looked over and there is Grandpa - my Dad sleeping away. What was I to do? I tickled my Dad. I touched and pestered him just like he did his grandson. He was annoyed with me, but that's ok. I get this pestering side from him. Secretly I know he enjoyed the attention.

What did I get?

My parents give me money and 1 item. This time I got a Fellowes Laminator. I got 2 bread pans. Daddy gave me a leaf blower | sucker. Romantic I know. I asked for all the above.

Happy 30th Birthday Aunt Terra!

We went to Aunt Terra's to celebrate her 30th birthday! I'm 5 years older then Terra and Aunt Angela's 2 years older then me. Now you know how old we are. 

I brought Terra a few baby samples ecomom sent me. Then I brought over massage cream and our mutual friend Jodie brought over a massage chair. We gave her special treatment right in her own living room. I had already given her a few gifts a few weeks ago.

I made a homemade carrot cake. Terra LOVES carrot cake. It took 4 EVER just because I hand grated all the carrots. Aunt Angela asked why I didn't just use a food processor? Answer: I didn't think about it. Silly me! I used it to chop up the pecans! Everyone loved the cake! :)  I kept the pecans separated for those that don't like nuts.

The boy's had fun!

Here's Mica with my cousin Stacy's son Alex.

Here's Isaak with Alex.

Here's baby Alex:

Emerson would cooperate with photo's today. Here he is yawing and with Grandma Spiehs and Alex screaming {It's so hard getting photo's of 2 babies! One is almost always blurry!}:

We had fun! Except for the fact that Isaak took one of the samples from ecomom and flung it up in the air scratching my eye! It hurts! I keep tearing out of it! I actually put a wad of tissue on my eye and put the boy's pirate patch over it. Isaak scratched my eye once before, but the first time was worse. Then I should have gotten it treated. This kind of stuff always happens on a weekend. I look like a ridiculous pirate!