A Super Birthday

We have been watching a lot of home videos lately. So much, in fact, that I find myself constantly in a state of surprise at how grown up the kids are. I get used to viewing them as fuzzy-haired, falsetto-voiced toddlers that when I take a good look around following a trip down memory lane, I no longer recognize these creatures who are my children.
When did she lose her baby face?
When did his voice change? Is that supposed to happen yet?
When did he stop teetering over as he walked and all his teeth come in?
Anyway...it is a sad state of affairs.
Though...not really. We sleep through the night more often than not now and I don't have to change any diapers.
Who knew change could have a silver lining?
Plus...I like our kids. Though maybe not darling in the exact same way, the more they grow, the more they are just super fun kids who are pretty cool to hang around with.
Anyway...again...
another one of these ever-growing kids had a birthday!

James reached the milestone known as FIVE YEARS OLD.

It was momentous.

First of all, he had preschool on his birthday which is, of course, the quick road to celebrity in his age group. It was a big day for Mr. James.
Though, at the start of the day, his voice sounded as if squeezing through a swollen throat so I kept asking him if his throat hurt.
"My throat doesn't hurt on my birthday."
Oh, okay.

After preschool, since it was his fifth birthday, Mom and Dad took him out for lunch. Just the three of us. It is always so fun to get them 2 on 1! It's just a different dynamic and it's fun to have here and there. With Bethany, we started the tradition of The Rainforest Cafe for the fifth birthday. It is the perfect age for them to enjoy the fun environment without being scared of it!

Here, James leads Daddy through the parking lot toward the restaurant.
Excited!

Our first encounter was with the snake!
Oooh...

Then he discovered the aquarium. It stopped him in his tracks!

Then he took a nice long look.
It can be rather terrifying...I mean mesmerizing...

With Dad's help, our five year old figured out what he wanted to order.
Not that he would proceed to eat any of it.
Much more important things to do.

But I am not complaining, given the level of joy he gathered from his surroundings!

As is apparently tradition, the waiters brought him a special dessert and sang to him.
This was his reaction.
My children are just...my children. They hate attention being drawn to them in public.
James is the least like this, but he is still somewhat like this.

But no child of mine will be found complaining about new toys purchased to celebrate a birthday!
James found the perfect little set of jungle animals in about one and a half minutes.
When we took Bethany, she wandered the store for about half an hour, changing her mind every three minutes. No joke.
The contrast was so amusing to me.

Goodbye Mr. Elephant! My brother will be here to see you next year!
(My brain just exploded, by the way, at that concept.)

Once home, James got right to sharing his new toys with his siblings. They had been lucky enough to hang out with Grandma Trudie for the past couple of hours.
James is really fantastic at sharing these days. He, of course, has his moments, but he really has a soft heart and is in a phase right now where he does not mind showing it. I love it.

We proceeded with the rest of our afternoon...a little rest time...a little outside playtime...then came the time we were all waiting for! Since Aunt Monica was still in town on break from school (barely...she left like, a week later), James had made a special request for a cake. And changed that request like, ten times. But, eventually, he settled on exactly what he wanted.

Wolverine.

Excellent choice, my son.
(Please don't forget that we are a superhero nerd family. It just is such a fun thing to be into with them at this phase.)

This is always the best.
The great reveal.

I realize this picture is all askew, but it must be shared.
The faces of the receiver and the creator.
Awe and Happiness.

Want to know why his face held awe?
Take a look...
Wolverine Cake.
Complete with claws.
I hope claws is the right word. I am new to this game. I don't know if it's like when I get antlers and horns mixed up when I am talking to JC. The nerve, right?
But sorry, this is not about me.
Once again...
Wolverine Cake.

After we all spent a while staring at it, James stuck some candles in. (He insisted on doing it himself...probably because he knew both his mother and his aunt would spend too much time deciding on the proper location of the candles...)

And he blew them out!
(Well before there was any concern about the claws catching on fire.)

Which is a good thing because those claws were put to good use, thanks to the help of Daddy.

Yesss.

This is an awful picture...blurry for some reason...oh yeah, because I don't actually know how to work a camera...but I thought it was really cute when he went to check himself out with his claws.

After a few minutes, the claws were replaced with the birthday crown he had acquired at preschool. Because, after all, a birthday crown does not get in the way of eating birthday cake.

Which came next.

In the final installment of the day, it was time for family gifts.
His gift from Mom and Dad was waiting for him outside. Dad had put it together with some help from Uncle Austin (since Daddy has a broken thumb) not long before.
Down the stairs he went...

Ben acted as a guide, beckoning us closer!

And finally, he discovered his new basketball hoop!

He was pretty darn excited. He gave it a shot.
Woohoo!

Ben helped Dad see how high we could make it.
Good, it will be of use for years to come!

Or...he could use it at that height now apparently.

I turned around to see Bethany helping out with the garbage we had left behind.

We played around outside for a bit and then it was time for gifts from his siblings!
They had gone the action figure route this year.

We had stuff ranging from transformers (which are actually quite hard to transform if you ask me!) to Thor and beyond.

Daddy explains important information on Captain America to a very captive audience.

This is..weird.

Bumblebee!

Enthralled.

Then, in an effort to combine the birthday experience, we took the action figures outside to play some basketball. It was a fun time for all. Super and regular-type.

So...that is our little boy's fifth birthday. And he loves that he is five. He brings it up whenever he finds is applicable! Which is...in most conversations! He is really growing up so much! Not only is he becoming more centered when it comes to his emotions (does anyone remember the royal fits he used to throw??), he is really understanding and expressing so much. I have always been inclined to coddle him a little because he has always been so sensitive and easily frustrated and that always kind of ruled him. But now it's like he has the same desire to accomplish and understand and yet he has this patience and ability to just...experience something without having to conquer it. It catches me off guard sometimes and I realize that it is probably time to take a step back! He really is growing big and strong in body, mind, and spirit. One of my favorite things about him in recent months is the way he says goodbye. When JC or I leave the house, he always shouts out, "Goodbye! I love you! Have a good day! And remember - - if you get scared or see any bad guys, call for Jesus!" Haha it cracks me up. But it is definitely representative of his perspective. He often thinks and talks about what Jesus would say or do in any given situation and uses that as his guide. I love it. He adds so much to our family.
We are lucky to have him.
Hooray for James, the birthday boy!
...He's five years old...
(I just thought he might like me to remind you of that one more time.)

Oh, and in case you are wondering, his throat "didn't hurt" all day. Next morning, he woke up with a sore throat, fever, and achy body.
The power of the mind.

That first weekend...

The time has come to finally finish this post I started a week ago. It was at this time last Monday night that I had to walk away from the computer mid-blog to go sit with poor James as he struggled to breathe regularly in his sleep. Little guy has swollen lymph nodes like you wouldn't believe. Fighting something off big time for a week now...feels pretty well during the day, snores like crazy all night, trying to breathe around those golf balls in his neck! I have slept next to him for most of the last week to make sure it doesn't get too bad. We've had good nights and rough nights but now I am back for closure on the month of April.
Hopefully.
I am feeling rather fuzzy and unable to form coherent thoughts (possibly due to easter candy) so we'll see how much of these back-posts I get done! But we will start with this one!

For some reason, the first weekend in April always turns out to be a great one. Maybe because that usually marks the first really warm weekend, or maybe it's because it's so near the start of spring and everything is blooming, or maybe it's because it's usually general conference weekend. Whatever it may be, I am always glad when it rolls around!

It was a slip and slide weekend!
We pulled out the one we got last year and lo and behold, it survived!
James helped to set it up to ring in the warm weather.

While we're in the backyard scene, I might as well tell you that this is representative of what our backyard has looked like since mid-March. Scattered with popsicle wrappers, napkins (used to hold the cold popsicles), corn dog sticks, etc. Toys, of course.
All the things that keep kiddos happy and allow Mom and Dad to work on the garden. This first gardening year is turning out to be rather demanding. Not particularly strenuous or anything, just requiring a lot of time outside, figuring out what works, getting things planted, keeping plants happy while they get used to our backyard, and so forth.
I think it has been really great for our family in more ways than one.
A little independence for all of us.
But then when it's time to be done, we're all hot and tired and the backyard keeps looking like this. Though it's recovered a bit by now. The inside of the house...don't ask.

I took quite a few pictures of the kids playing on the slip and slide. I loaded a bunch of them onto the blog...I'm not sure they are in order and I AM sure there are pictures that are practically identical to others. But I simply kept adding pictures because nothing looks more fun than kids playing slip and slide. And they must be shared.
See?

I love mid-air ones like this.

And faces like this.

Woohoo!

It's a race!

Ben's a brave soul on this thing.
To think, last year he was scared of it.

I love James' body language here.

And his excitement here.


Oh, and...our plums are growing.
Yay.

The pomegranate blossoms are at their very best. When they get like this, Ben calls them, "Real Flowers." Don't know why, guess this is just, in his mind, what a real flower looks like.

The citrus blossoms may not be 'real'...but they are plentiful! Can't wait for the winter tangelos!

This scene makes me sing "What a Wonderful World"

So does this one - - my kids eating veggies.
Haha, we went to store this evening to pick up a few things and realized it was getting on toward dinner time and the kids had earned the movie "Tangled" so we had that to watch and didn't feel like making dinner any big production (do we ever these days?), so we bought ourselves a veggie tray along with some all-natural fruit snacks for dessert (we might have had smoothies too...sounds like us...smoothies belong to all times of the day around here...but I don't remember)

My boys like to be difficult and frown at me every time they know I'm taking their picture.
So, boys, if as adults you flip through photo albums and decide you had a very unhappy childhood, I'm telling you right now...that's all you.

Alright, so...as it turns out, whoever does the whole slip and slide thing took things a step further this year and came out with a triple dipper slipper.
I...don't think it's called that.
But I call it that.
Call it that.
Anyway, we are just so festively excited for the warm weather and we needed a special event for in between conference sessions that particular weekend so...even though we had another one that worked okay...we added to what now appear to be a collection.
James sets up again...

Bethany gets the pool ready...and...

Introducing...
the...
Triple Dipper Slipper!

Woohoo!
(again...)

Ben and his slip and slide face do not discriminate.

There's a good slide if I ever saw one.

It made it even better when Daddy gave a push.

Wall of water.

Oh.
And there were ice cream cones.
And yes, James got sick afterwards.
I am sorry, I am quite particular on what my kids eat. And so often they get junk elsewhere so I feel like I really can't give it here at home. But really, I would like to be the one who gets to give them crap every once in a while. Call me crazy.

Ben savored it.

Bethany enjoyed hers floating in the sandy pool.

Brain freeze!

Brain...something...?

Besides all of our lovely outside time, we really enjoyed conference. The kids watched some and let us watch almost all! It was a great weekend to be together as a family. The kids played so nicely a lot of the time and the weather was wonderful.
We are really at a great point in our family dynamic right now. The kids can really push each others' buttons and it seems sometimes they spend most of their energy on that! BUT, they play together so enthusiastically! And they are fun and energetic and eager. They keep me on my toes and teach me much every day.
Right now, the monitor I have nearby teaches me that James may not quite be out of the woods and I may be sleeping in there with him again tonight.
(sigh)
Oh well. The only thing that really bothers me is when they miss out on so much when they are sick. It is hard to watch them have to spend a day laying around or a night missing out on rest. There is so much to do and explore.
And, around here, apparently, so many slip and slides to make use of!
So, I sure hope he's back at it soon.
In the meantime, we will dream of this lovely sunny day and look forward to more soon to come!