Joshua's Outdoors & S'Mores Birthday Party

On October 15th, we celebrated Joshua's birthday with a party at the Oak Shelter at Black Hoof Park.

He had said he wanted a Batman party.  I didn't do a fondant cake for Hannah's party, but the best design I could think of for a Batman cake worked a lot better with fondant, so that's what I did.  The skyscrapers on the side were a little rushed, as that was the last thing I did, so they weren't the best, but I was pretty happy overall with how the cake turned out.  I combined that with black and yellow cupcakes, and black (and gray) and yellow plates, plasticwear, and napkins, as well as some hanging decorations in the shelter to complete the theme.

The shelter was a great venue.  One thing that they don't do well is make it clear when it's reserved.  We had the shelter for the whole afternoon and evening, but when I showed up to decorate prior to the party, there were a couple other groups in there, including a pretty large wedding party.  But  I needed to get set up, so I let them know that we had it reserved, and they relocated elsewhere, which was kind of a lengthy process  This left me scrambling to make up for lost time, but thankfully Kirk and Joanna showed up early and helped me finish the decorations.  As you can see, the shelter was large, which we needed, since we had invited his whole class from school in addition to a few select kids from church (Grayson was the only one who could come), and his cousins, the Hansons, and Alex's kids and Alaina's kids, and the adults our family and also Halie.

Ron helped out by doing all the hot dog cooking, and Matt helped manage the bonfire, both of which were a huge help to me, as I had to manage many other things as the night when on.

When it was time to do cake, all the kids were drawn in like bugs to a light on a summer night.

And speaking of summer nights, even though it's October, the weather was unseasonably warm, so it was a very pleasant evening.  And speaking of lights, the lights in the shelter apparently come on automatically, and it seemed they came on way later than they should have.  It was quite dark for awhile, and I was getting concerned that the lights might not come on at all.  But finally they did.  In the meantime, one of our coolest decorations had their chance to literally shine, as we had some light-up balloons hung throughout the shelter.  They were regular balloons that you blow up, but they have little lights in them to make the balloons glow and flash in the darkness.

When we asked Joshua what  kind of party he wanted to have this year, he said he wanted it outside at nighttime, and he wanted s'mores (likely remembering the kids' joint party from last year).  That's what led us to Black Hoof, as it's a park we already like to go to, and one of the shelters they have, the Oak Shelter, has a huge firepit.  Again, thanks to Matt making sure it was ready to go, we had a nice fire in the firepit, which allowed us to cook s'mores (thanks to Halie for managing the s'more station).  They were a hit, because everyone loves s'mores, of course.

Finally we opened gifts, and Joshua got a lot of cool new toys and activities that he's very excited to get to play with and use.  It was really a pretty great party from every perspective.  The weather was great, and everyone had a lot of fun, especially our birthday boy, Joshua.

Bros at the K

What's a good way to celebrate being 39?  Going to a Royals game!  Actually, that's a good way to celebrate being any age.  Kirk, Andrew, and I wanted to go to a Royals game together, and today was the day that worked best for all of us.  We go to early service at church now, which works out on multiple levels, one of which is more flexibility on our Sundays.  I leveraged that today by leaving right after church to meet up with the guys at Andrew's house.  We then all drove over together to the K.  A group of Andrew's coworkers were there, so we tailgated with them before they went into the game.  We decided that we'd play some games in the parking lot before we went in, so we set up a game of washers and threw around a football for awhile.  Eventually we went in, and our seats were nearly dead-center with a great view.  Danny Duffy was starting, and he was pitching well.  Mid-way through the game we took a walk around the stadium including a stop in the Royals Hall of Fame.  I'd never been in there before, and it was much better than I expected, with lots of interesting exhibits, including the 2015 World Series trophy.  The Royals won 10-3, but it's basically going to take a miracle for them to make it to the playoffs this year, as they've had injuries to Moose and Wade and others, and they they've also been Soria-ed a few too many times.  But the Royals have done plenty of miraculous things the past couple years, so I'm not counting them out until that math changes from improbable to impossible.

Family Fun, Olympics Style!

In it what is now somewhat of an unofficial tradition, Dad and Deb came down for a late-summer visit so we could all get together and have fun and eat good food together.  After Joshua and I went fishing this morning, our family met everyone else over at Julie and Andrew's.  We had lunch first thing, as it was already a little past lunchtime when we arrived.  The kids enjoyed their hot dogs on the back deck and had a great time laughing with each other.

This was Dad and Deb's first time to meet little Daniel, so they made sure to get some time with their newest grandchild.

We played some yard games.  Andrew, Kirk, and I did our usual ones, and the kids then wanted to play, so we modified the beanbag/washer game for them so they could play against each other.

Because the Olympics are going on right now, Julie and Joanna thought it would be fun to have a family Olympics in our backyard.  Andrew, Kirk, and I are basically experts in creating games out of random items, so we engineered an obstacle course out of the odd collection of things I brought (just in case something like this came up) and the things in Julie and Andrew's house.  The kids went through it, including Hannah who insisted on wearing her new apron that Dad and Deb gave her.  Afterward the kids were done, Andrew, Kirk, and I were too competitive to pass up the opportunity to do it ourselves, even though the course was designed for kids.  But with only a few slight modifications, we were ready, and we each went through it a couple times, with the girls in the chairs timing us.  We got grass stains and bloody elbows, but it was totally worth it.

We sat down for dinner and enjoyed some fresh Iowa sweet corn and yummy steaks.  As you can see, Andrew approved.

After dinner, it was pretty late, so Meghan and the kids went home, while the rest of us stayed up late to play games.  Dad and Deb got a chance to say good-bye to our kids before they went home.  It was another fun family event!

Benjamin Turns Three!

Today we celebrated Benjamin's third birthday at Julie and Andrew's house.  They had a Hot Wheels/cars/automobile theme.  It was hot outside, and there were a lot of flies, so only Joshua was brave/crazy enough to eat outside.  The other sensible kids ate inside.

We then went downstairs to open presents.  After opening his presents, Benjamin got help from others, although Kirk's intentions were perhaps more altruistic than Clara's, as I think she just wanted to play with the toy too.

                               Meghan and Hannah as well as Joshua and I both ended up wearing similar outfits.

                                                                We got some good family pictures.

                                Mom and Ron made sure to get some pictures with Baby Daniel.

                                                                       Lucy was displeased.

Daniel was amazed by this birthday party thing and was probably wondering why he doesn't get one.  Be patient, little guy.  You'll get one in the spring.

A Big Fourth of July Day

We has a really big day today celebrating the Fourth of July.  As usual, I tried to get some pictures of the kids in the outfits.

The first event of the day was the neighborhood bike parade.  We all meet at the pool, and then ride around the neighborhood on a route back to the pool, where the kids (and adults if they want to, which I did) get red, white, and blue bomb pops.  I took Hannah and Clara, because Joshua lost his privilege to go because of some decisions he made earlier in the morning.  Later while playing in the back yard, Joshua found a grass spider.  He always asks me if a spider is okay to hold and this one was, so I let him, which made him very happy.

We then had our traditional lunch of hot dogs (it's American!) and also some blueberries, and then we headed over to Mom and Ron's house, where we met up with the rest of the family.  Benjamin and Daniel were there, and Benjamin was excited to play with his cousins.

Here are two really cute pictures of the five cousins from the Leach side.  When we were ready to take pictures, Clara instantly declared that she should be the one to hold Baby Daniel, and we all agreed that she was the right girl for the job.

Clara made the rounds socially, as she tends to do.  Here she has fun with Grandpa Ron and then appears to be having some sort of dramatic conversation with Uncle Brent.

I took a few pictures of the Fouts family, and then we had our celebration of Ron's birthday (today) and Mom's birthday (a week and a half ago).

In the evening our family left to go to fireworks.  The Olathe fireworks show moved this year, as there is new construction where it used to be.  This year we parked at the K-State Olathe campus and walked a short distance to a place we thought would be close to the fireworks.  We weren't exactly sure where they would be shooting them off from, but we ended up with a pretty decent spot.  Next year we'll be able to position ourselves even better now that we know more.  In the picture of us, I'm not sure what's above Hannah's head.  It looks like one of the glow necklaces that's flying through the air.  Maybe someone flung it until the air right before I took this picture?  Yet it doesn't look like anyone did that.  I don't know.

This was an tiring day.  We did so many things and went so many places.  The kids were exhausted and all fell asleep on the way home.  But it was another great Fourth of July celebrating birthdays and our freedom.