Will Sings a Song

Will has been working on learning one of the songs Adam did for a musical presentation at school. He listens to it over and over again and has some great moves he's developed. I know the in and out blurriness is annoying-but I think it's still worth watching.

Pokemon Power

Adam had his 8th birthday party on Saturday with all the Pokemon fun you could ask for. There was Pokemon Bingo, a Throw the pokeball in the bucket and win a card game, a Pokemon trivia game, a scavenger hunt, a Team Rocket balloon blast and last but not least, a Pokemon Pinata game.

Brad had the idea to make a pokeball pinata- also referred to as a pokeata. They actually made two which worked out well because two kids could swing at once. He and Adam came up with a fun game to go with it. Instead of just whacking the pokeata, they had to draw a slip of paper indicating how many whacks they could take and whether they were "confused"(spin around and blindfolded), "paralyzed"(blindfolded and only move one arm) or had vision(no restrictions). At first we thought it wasn't going to break. Everyone got at least two whacks and finally a crack developed in the first one and then it was all downhill.

BROKEN

Adam's arm is broken. Or, more precisely, his left radius bone has a fracture up near the elbow. Yesterday he was playing tag after school. He somehow tripped as he was running and fell with most of his weight on his left forearm. I was skeptical that he was seriously hurt, but another parent who saw it happen said she thought it was broken and proceeded to regale me with her own experiences of broken bones. Not having ever broken anything myself, I guess I wasn't a very good judge. There were no visible marks on his arm- no bruising or swelling.

I wrapped his sweatshirt around his neck to make a sling so he could ride his bike home one-handed. He complained the rest of the evening that it hurt and couldn't straighten out his arm. It was still the same in the morning, so off to the doctor we went. Three x-rays later they confirmed the fracture. In less than three hours, we saw the pediatrician, walked up to the hospital for x-rays, came back to the pediatrician's office to await results, walked next door to the orthopedist and left with a cast. Very efficient. We were home in time for lunch.

Good thing we didn't plan a swimming party for Adam's birthday party this Saturday. The cast should be off in four weeks.

Bangs

This is what my hair stylist did when I told her I was tired of all one length. I must trust her a lot. I haven't had bangs since high school. It's taking some getting used to. The feel of hair on my forehead is a bit odd. I think I like it. We'll see if I change my mind when I have to style it myself.

Adam LV.X

Following in Will's footsteps, Adam has decided he would lalso ike to have a Pokemon birthday party. I was trying to come up with a different idea for an invitation when I found a great website- http://www.mypokecard.com/. It lets you make your own custom Pokemon card. So, that's what I used for Adam's invitation. I also included a separate sheet of paper with the location of the party since we're not having it at our house. To make it more realistic, I cut out the faux card and glued it onto a real Pokemon card so it has the same back as a real card.

The Serious Soccer Player

This was Adam's second year of soccer. Brad was his coach and both of them took it very seriously. Brad had never coached before but really put a lot of effort into it. He had a great assistant coach who took on an equal share of the work. The kids all improved a lot over the season. By the end of the season they were learning how to play positions and hold their positions. At this level there aren't any goalies yet and there are four kids on a side. Adam especially improved. He went from being more of a spectator to an active participant. He's not the fastest or most agile but he's smart about the game. He figures out where he needs to be to get the ball. He even scored a few goals.

More Halloween

One of the parents in Adam's class is a professional photographer. During his class Halloween party he took pictures of the kids in costume and sent them home. This is Adam's. Apparently, the pose was all his idea. He wanted to "look scary".

House Progress

Bushes gone, paint still there:

Bushes gone, paint trim gone:

Bushes gone:

The trim paint being applied to the garage:

The pruner's revenge:

Brad removing the camellias:

We're finally making progress on the outside of our house. A few weeks ago Brad pulled out all the rest of the plants except for one hedge out front. He got all 1000 pounds of the yard debris loaded on a rented trailer and hauled off in one go.

About a week ago, we had some paint removal people out to remove all the trim paint. And two days ago, the painters came to start painting the garage and the house trim.

The rest of the house will have to wait till spring because we are considering tearing off some of the siding and replacing it instead of having to prep it. Now, we're running up against the rainy season so the painter has covered all the windows on the street facing sides of the house to keep them from getting too soaked. That way, when there's a break in the weather, he can supposedly come out and paint the trim without having to wait for it to dry out.

I can't wait to see the finished look. It's so hard to imagine how paint will look on a big scale like a house.

Will's 5th Birthday

Sneaking up to steal Pikachu:
Blowing out the candles:

The gang(with Infernape masks)

The cake:

Will turned five on Saturday, October 25th. He wanted a Pokemon party so that's what he got! Adam helped a lot with the planning of it and enjoyed choosing Pokemon to hide for the scavenger hunt. His friend Colter came to the party as well and helped with the games. Will's friends Jack, Keller, Lucas and Teague came, but Luke was sick at the last minute.

We played five games: Sneak up on Team Rocket and try to steal Pikachu, Team Rocket Ballon Blast(blow up balloons and let them go and see whose lands closest to a target), a Pokemon Bingo, Pass the Pikachu(person in middle of circle tries to guess who has the Pikachu as it's passed under people's legs), Meowth Gold Coin Treasure Hunt and a Pokemon Scavenger hunt. The kids loved all the activities, especially the scavenger hunt and balloon blast.

I made a Pokeball cake and Pokeball and Pikachu cupcakes. Some of the cake was strawberry and some was vanilla. The strawberry cake recipe was from my favorite cooking blog, http://www.smittenkitchen.com/ and was as good as it looked.

Halloween

Before:

After:

This year Halloween was a lot more low key than usual- and also a lot more condensed. Adam wanted to be a Glow in the Dark Skeleton and Will wanted to be Pikachu. Both those concepts went beyond my non-sewing skills and given my limited time I opted for ordering both costumes off the internet. It was almost too easy. I compensated however by spending the extra time on getting ready for Will's birthday the week before.

About three weeks ahead of time I got all the Halloween decorations up, but then the paint removal people came and I had to take everything down as it was showered with lead based paint dust. I didn't get everything back up until the day of Halloween. That's also when we carved our pumpkins and I bought the candy. The kids got in about an hour of trick or treating and the day was over.