I’m not sure where they got the idea, but the moment we took down the Christmas tree the kids decided that they wanted to ride it. I’m not really sure what they had in mind, but I had a simple solution. We took the tree, tossed it on the wagon and strapped it down. All that was left was for them to climb on. They loved it!

The first night we just walked around the back yard. The next morning we went out front and ran up and down the sidewalk and street.  They didn’t want to stop.  I hope this doesn’t become a tradition.

 

Of course, it wasn’t just us. We had the whole family involved: Kathleen, Dave, Amber, Joshua, Adrianne, Cody, Corey, Willow, Wesley, Aidan and Jillian (I think that is roughly by age).

The train heads down the tracks a short ways, stops near a small waterfall and then heads back the other way. While the train is stopped the engine is moved from one end of the train to the other. So our car was the first on the way out and the last on the way back in. The perfect combination if you ask me.  The train cars are from the early 1900s and in surprisingly good shape. When we were kids it seems to me that the engine was steam and the cars were more open, but I guess things have changed a little.

Starting at one end Santa comes down the train and sits with each of the kids. He takes their seat and does his usual thing. Wesley was really excited that he got to be the first kid on the train to sit on Santa’s lap. And Jillian didn’t scream at all this year!!

From the opposite end of the train as Santa comes Ben the banjo player. He plays and everyone sings carols.

We had hot chocolate, apple cider and lots of fun.  Look at these faces and tell me they didn’t have a great time.

 

More than being really difficult, the trouble with going homemade is just how long it takes. First we made the dough. This was fun and Jillian was a big help. But then you have to bake the shapes three times for each house. The roof and long side get baked twice and the other side of the pan, the small sides and chimney, get baked just once. But you can’t bake them back-to-back because the pan is hot. You have to wait for it to cool and that takes hours. So, for each house it took me three days. I’d make the dough and then bake each side a night. Then repeat the process for the second house. I wanted my own house, but I was too lazy to make any more.

Once all of the pieces were baked I took another day to assemble the houses so they could dry and be sturdy enough for the kids to work with. We used a pretty standard royal icing recipe and it gave us structurally sound little houses.

Finally, a week later, we were ready to decorate these little guys. Amber bought a ton of candy and there was plenty to go around. Interestingly, even though we divvied everything up 50/50 some strange things happened. Some of Wesley’s candy bowls were empty even though hardly any of them were on the house. Where did they go?

To start with we let the kids go there own way. Once they had made good progress Amber and I each started adding little touches and giving the kids some more complicated ideas. They each came up with great ideas of their own and copied from each other when they saw something they liked.

They had fun. Here they are with the finished product. The houses had to be moved to the mantle almost immediately since pieces of candy were being removed even before the frosting was dry.

 

They are ready to celebrate!

in the tv room

the green room

vests, bandanas, eye-patches & gold earrings for everyone.

the goodie bags

the kids and I made repurposed crayons in pirate shapes.

looking in to the front door area

arr...

arr...

arr...

arr...

After a lunch of macaroni & cheese, pasta salad, green salad, rolls & fruit… it was time to hit the piñata.

Wesley starts us off.

Then Addison

Jillian

Stellanne

Aidan

Lilly

Ben

Aidan

then Wesley again with a strong finish!

they quickly filled their treasure chests.

Then it was cake time.  To see more about the cake you can see the post I did about it here.
Before we sang to Wesley, the kids who wanted to – got to launch the cannons too.

Wesley launching the cannons.

a nice and powerful jump.

Jillian launching the cannons. The small black dot near the edge of the table is one of the cannon balls.

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Wesley. (not quite sure what Jillian is doing...)

Wesley is still talking about his party and had such a wonderful birthday!

Thank you to all of our guests – you really made it magical for him.

 

Joshua’s cannon design was great and really launched his hand carved cannon balls.  Wesley and Jillian both loved playing with it before it went into the cake.

Then I needed to put it in the cake…

Wesley wanted blueberry cake, so I found a blueberry bunt cake recipe and made it in 9×13 pans.

Here is how I created it:

Joshua thought to reuse this blue basket for the base. He then cut a piece of thin wood to fit in the basket for a strong base for the cake.

Here is the sculpted cake with a blueberry cream cheese filling between the layers.

I had to use a lot of skewers in the cake to keep the layers together.

I put on a thin crumb coating, then Joshua and I put in the cannons. The green thing is the launching pad taken from a game we have called FroggO.

The stern of the cake ship.

The bow of the cake ship.

The "front" of the cake with the cannons facing out.

Then I used brown gel coloring to make the cream cheese frosting brown.  Blue water was added then ocean animals were glued onto the basket to make it look like it is really in the sea.

The front of the cake.

The sails are made out of chopsticks and fancy paper.

The stern of the ship. The rigging, wheel and ladder are made with melted chocolate.

"W"'s and upside down "w"'s and the #6

The back side of the cake.

There is even a plank...with shark infested waters.

The bow of the ship.

Close up of the bow.

Hours spent:
Building the cannon & carving the balls – 2 hours
Baking the cake and making the frosting – 3 hours
Carving & decorating the ship – 5 hours
Total hours spent: 10. 

 

Happy birthday sweet boy!

 

What are they?  Eagle of the Month awards are given to students who have demonstrated growth in one or more of the Lifelong Learning Skills or achievement of a remarkable academic goal. *

What are Lifelong Learning Skills?  Lifelong Learning Skills are skills that help us navigate the social world and help us to be successful at home, at school and in the workplace.  Edmonds school District has identified six Lifelong Learning Skills essential to healthy social/emotional development. They are Respect, Responsibility, Cooperation, Problem-Solving/Decision Making, Reflection/Self Awareness and Independent Work Habits. Teachers not only evaluate student’s skills in these areas but they also explicitly teach and continue to provide opportunities for growth & practice of these skills. Each student’s progress in these areas is reflected on their report card.*

How are students nominated for Eagle of the Month Awards? Eagle of the Month awards will be awarded to those students who have shown outstanding effort and growth in these areas.  Please encourage discussions with your children at home about the meaning of these skills.*

Does every student get an EOM award by the end of the school year?  Not necessarily.  Students are recognized for making a concerted effort and for demonstrating marked improvement.  “Self-esteem is most likely to be fostered when children are esteemed and receive meaningful feedback in the form of appreciation rather than empty praise and flattery”*.  Therefore, teachers take great care to describe the specific ways in which students have progressed.  It is important to remember that classroom teachers also recognize students for positive feats in other ways.  Many are rewarded with trips to the classroom treasure box, are given Kool Kid awards, are reinforced for reaching personal goals as outlined on positive behavior charts, or are recognized and celebrated within their own classrooms.*

(*Quoted from the school counselor’s monthly newsletter)

Respect is defined as: “demonstrates empathy and kindness toward others; appreciates diversity; follows classroom and school rules; takes care of classroom and school environment.” 

Responsibility is defined as: “demonstrates self-control and self-management, handling frustration appropriately.  Reflects on and evaluates learning and behavior for the purpose improvement; sets goals”.

Here he is getting his award from the principal. (The awards are normally given out during the school assembly... which will be Thursday afternoon, but since he goes to am kindergarten, the principal came into his class.)

With his principal

With his teacher and the other nominated student from his class.

We are super proud of you Wesley!!!  Keep up the good work.

 

It all started with bowling. Bowling as you may know is extremely dangerous. Right up there with car racing, bull fighting and playing chubby bunny. You don’t believe me that bowling is dangerous? Well hang in there. It started innocently enough as a fun game of bumper bowling with her brother and grandparents.

Here is Jillian bowling. Pay attention to the center of gravity.

And now for Wesley. See how much more stable he looks?

It turns out having a good center of gravity is important in bowling. Because somehow shortly after this video was made she fell onto her ball and split her chin open.

Yes, that is a 1 inch wide, down to the fatty tissue cut on her chin. And yes, that is her in the ER (our doctor was closed and the urgent care place doesn’t like to give kids stitches).  On the way home from bowling she ate far more lunch than she normally does. She seemed perfectly happy to have the gash. In the ER she had fun working on her sticker book and we were teasing her that she needed to work on her sad face. She looked like she was having too much fun!

She wasn’t too thrilled with getting stitches, though. She cried and screamed, but mostly held still. She ended up with three stitches and it looks like she’ll have only a tiny scar (and she seems a little excited that I have an under-chin scar, too).  That red dot above the stitches is where she got poked by the needle when we weren’t quite holding tightly enough. Sorry J!

You might be thinking, that sure, a 4 year old gets hurt bowling, but that hardly makes bowling a dangerous activity. I mean 4 year olds get hurt walking across the living room. True, but our nurse told us that she was the 3rd bowling related injury she had personally seen in the ER that week. I’m telling you the bowling lobby in this country is too strong. Its time that someone takes a stand for bowling-related safety!

Wesley is always a sweet brother, but especially when Jillian gets hurt. Here he is taking good care of her while Amber is getting ready to put on a clean bandage.

You’d think that stitches would be enough to qualify for a bad day. Oh, but you would be wrong. This poor little girl spent 10p-12p puking her guts out. All over her bed and then again and again and again. Luckily she has the best mom in the world to take care of her. Of course she woke up at 7 am as if nothing had happened. I think she’ll be fine.

As a side note, for those keeping track at home:

Yes, we are all tied up. It is getting to be quite the nail biter. Who will end up with the most? Stay tuned!

 

Today we picked at Larsen Lake Blueberry Farm in Bellevue.  We would probably go there again – the berries were close to the parking lot and they had real bathrooms.

We took Sarah with us today.  She is in kindergarten with Wesley (and she was also in his preschool class).

They are ready to GO!

Sarah suggested we stop for another picture on the way...

We found a row to pick on.

They got right to work!

Showing me her favorite berry.

He could not decide - so he chose two.

Jillian just did it because the others did it too.

He was very proud of his way to use both hands.

We finally made it to the “lake”.

A few more pictures with the berries and the lake in the background:

So much love!

Such good friends!!

After picking for an hour – they were done.

And I picked 1.17 pounds.  And the price was really good too – 2.39 pounds = $2.98.

We really did have a good time!

Yummy! Let's eat them.