A Happy Father's Day

My wife and kids made sure that I had a great Father's Day.
I started the day with a treasure hunt. The kids had hidden some treasures around the house with clues directing me from one to the next. I found a pink and a blue baseball mit (so we can all play catch together now), a box of chocolates from Lee's (my favorite candy shop), a book about fatherhood from the author of dooce.com, a copy of The Simpson's Movie, some grill accessories, and a long-time family favorite, the game: Facts in Five.
We went to breakfast at Merritt's Cafe where I enjoyed a delicious deep-fried scone.
We spent most of the afternoon at Discovery Center of Idaho.
We wrapped up the day by spending the evening with my Dad.

Happy Birthday Baby Brother

Twenty-some-odd years ago on this day I sat motherless at a mother-n-sons Flag Day event while my baby brother was born. Maybe I'll forgive him next year ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
BROTHER ! ! ! ! !

And Then Came the Party

Last week we had the birthday...
This week we had the party!!!

We had originally planned on being out of town last weekend so we planned Big E's birthday party for this weekend. His daycare sends him down to gymnastics once a week and he always loves it. We noticed a while ago that they host birthday parties there so we decided that it'd be a great place for kids to have fun.

They swung from the ropes...


And jumped in the foam pits... And swung on ropes into foam pitsAnd bounced on the trampolines... And slid down the slides...Even the adults played... Everybody had a great time during the gymnastics hour!

We were going to continue the Harry Potter theme from the week before with a Nimbus 2000 or a Firebolt cake but E had already picked out Dinosaur plates and stuff. We convinced him that a volcano cake would fit in with the prehistoric theme a little better (of course I was just trying to work in a bowl cake). He was a bit skeptical until he saw the smoke and lavaWe ate sandwiches for lunch then got on with the festivities. The Birthday Boy blew out the candles...Then opened some gifts...... before calling it a day.

Having the party hosted by Gem State Gymnastics made it easy and stress-free for us and fun for the kids.

Fiona's First Haircut

This evening we took My Sweet Girl out for her first haircut.
Fiona will turn three in a few weeks and she's never had her beautiful blonde hair cut so we figured that it was about time for a trim.

Our friend, Rachel just started working at a new salon and Fiona was her first customer. Rachel has two girls of her own and she handled Fiona wonderfully.
Fiona does not like loud noises so we thought she'd protest when the hairdryer came out but she loved the whole experience. She sat still and was quite interested in what was going on.
Rachel bagged up the bulk of the trim: a lock about five inches long. We'll get it off to Gram to work it into a scrapbook page.

Here she is just before the haircut:And here she is modeling her new hairdo:

Perhaps I'll have her to wear her hair down more now.

Happy 5th BigE

Happy Birthday Hijo

Five years old

Big E was very excited when he woke up: I'm five, I'm five, I'm five!

He wanted blueberry muffins for breakfast so we started the morning with Costco muffins... mmmm.

He promptly opened bunches of gifts and loved them all.

He'd been promised a new pet from Build-a-Bear so we headed to the mall where he picked out a new puppy. He named his puppy Mr. Scruffy Daddy. I'm not sure where the name came from but I like it.

We continued on the tradition from last year of lunching at Red Robin. Last year he was very upset when the staff came out singing. This year he could not wait for the song and dance routine. He kept whispering to me: "are they coming out to sing yet?"

In the evening we had all the local family over for dinner (mmm, chicken pot pie) and cake.E is really into Harry Potter right now and he asked for a Golden Snitch cake. I'm not one to complain when I see an opportunity to bake a bowl cake!