Cards

"Mike, how about you addressing this card to your father, instead of me. It might be special to him to see it addressed in your handwriting."

Mike, slightly distracted by some air force work, answers: "sure."

I hang out in the kitchen with him, we'd just gotten the kids down and it was the beginning of a short amount of grown-up time. I'm messing around with something, not paying attention to Mike's progress on the card.

After 2 or 3 minutes he looks up, proud as can be, and says: "Check this out!"

I told him it was nice but I wasn't sure how I was going to MAIL it.

He got a little embarrassed...

We'll see what the post office does with it....

Jack's 5th Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Jack!

This year, because your parents are getting old, we decided to not throw a big party at the house. We talked to you about other options. You suggested we: go to Chuck E. Cheese, the mall playground, and (not or) ride go karts at Primetime. We also decided we'd fore go cake and instead have snow cones for dessert.

So we did.

Well, minus the mall playground, because you big guys aren't actually supposed to be there. (stinks to grow up sometimes)

We brought your 3 best friends: Ty, Wyatt and Britton

I can't believe ya'll actually smiled for this picture. And don't worry about the car seats and boosters. Y'all totally rocked 'em.

See what I mean?

So you may be a big "five", but you were still in a parking lot, and let's be honest Jack, you boys don't have a lot of sense. Like Mom always said: "One boy has a whole brain and two boys have half a brain." Wonder what four boys have? A quarter?

Who knows, but they did have lots of tokens. We may have sprung for Chuck E. Cheese, but we aren't made of money. Your dad and I pre-ate so we'd only have to pay for one sub-par pizza.

And... I brought in juice boxes. Is that illegal? I don't know, but I wasn't going to have four little boys hopped up on soda.

These are some fuzzy pictures... maybe Dad will buy me a new camera. (hint hint).

All of the boys wanted to play the pirate game SOOOOOOOOoooooooo bad. It was one of those games where you (and a partner) shoot all the critters/half-dead that come at you, as soon as your life runs out, you insert a token and play for another 4 minutes. So in theory, if you're there with a birthday party (or have rich parents) you could sit on that machine for hours. And... two little boys from the other party did so.

Jack and Wyatt were more patient than the other two. They waited at least 20 minutes before giving up.

While Jack and Wyatt were waiting, Ty was busy throwing tokens around like the prodigal son. Amazing how quick it flowed. He even had one of those "fair weather friends" another little boy started following him around because Ty'd throw a bone his way every now and then.

Off to the races! We'd assumed there would be four go karts. There weren't. There was only two. And only one of them worked. We were a little disappointed, but it turns out NONE of those kids should have been on the road with anyone else. Wyatt was moving a little slow, Ty couldn't reach the pedals very well, Jack flew by like a maniac and Britton wasn't real great at steering.

Wyatt's picture got deleted. Don't get me started on how much I hate blogger.

We got some cute pictures of your friends, Jack. I'm glad. You love these guys. Britton will be moving soon, you're going to miss him. I'm going to miss him too. But, it's the air force. We'll probably run into him again. Let's not get too down.

After go karts we opened presents... in the van. Like we were homeless. But hey, aren't you glad I drive a minivan? Plenty of room.

Transformers and hot wheels. That was the name of the game. You also asked for and received the veggie tales pirate ship that you'd been drooling over for a couple months.

Then, what we'd all been waiting for:

Snow Cones!!!!

Y'all are so cute.

I think you enjoyed yourself.

Your dad did too. Here he is getting up to order his second snow cone. As soon as it was made public that he would be getting seconds, orders started flying and every one of you kids tried to talk him into getting you another.

For the record, I was on your side. He's the one that told you "No." ;-)