The Big Number Five

Caleb turned five on Thursday and oh, did we celebrate! We brought cupcakes into his class for a little class party, went to dinner at Golden Corral (his request) and then had a day of parties on Saturday. We had some friends for a little kid party in the morning and family over in the afternoon.

Here's the birthday boy with his pirate bandanna and bag of pirate gold that came with the pirate treasure chest Auntie Su and John sent.


Here are some photos from the kid party:

Playing musical chairs (I've never seen so many tears over the game in my life!)


Camille working on the pinata


Caleb tries the pinata


Once the pinata split and the kids collected the candy, Rob broke it into pieces so the kids could have party hats. Look how excited they are.


A close up of the Ninja Turtle cake Rob made (This one is Leonardo.)


Caleb loved the cake!


And this won the prize as the best birthday present. Who thinks of giving ant farms as presents? Apparently people in our family as Caleb got TWO of them. Here's the one my Aunt Gail gave Caleb. She ordered the ants ahead of time so they got there in time for the party and we could start them right away. Here is a picture of it.

The other ant farm came from Uncle James and Aunt Georgia, but we haven't opened that yet. I never thought I would be interested in ant farms. I remember our neighbor had one back when I was a kid and the ants got out and ended up in our apartment. Now ant farms are cooler because they are self-contained units filled with this edible gel stuff. There's no dirt, there's no collecting ants, there's no feeding ants. Just stick the ants in the container and that's all you have to do. I spent 40 minutes the other night watching them tunnel. They really are fascinating - but that's another post to itself!

Playtime at the Park

Here are a couple of short clips of the girls playing at the park.




Enjoy!

Some Baby Firsts

Chloe took her first stroll in our big double jogger the other day.


She had her first ride in a park swing.




Camille had fun at the park today too!

Manic Monday

Look at these cute girls!


Here's some artwork by our budding little artist:

Caleb drew this picture at school today. It's him and a giraffe. At the top he wrote "I see jraf."


This is the picture that he drew on the reverse side. It's a picture of a happy dad and a sad Caleb. I asked him why he was crying. "Because I wanted to get a doughnut and my Daddy wouldn't let me." Why is Daddy happy? "Because he doesn't want me to get a doughnut." Poor kid. His parents are even mean in his imagination.


Caleb drawing a monster for his homework. The assignment was draw something that is loud and something that is quiet and then write the words. A monster is loud. What did he draw for quiet? A dragon (that looked suspiciously like a monster)!

What's the Password?

Here's just a quick post for post's sake.

Caleb had a good second week of kindergarten. Each day has been fun, but also long and tiring. The bus picks him up at 7:20ish and he doesn't get home until 2:30 - they do get a few minutes to put their heads down if they wish but Caleb is not a kid that typically wants to rest if there is playing (or reading or anything else remotely interesting) to be done!

Chloe has learned a couple of new skills. She can now reach for toys or other objects and manage to grasp them in her little hands. She doesn't always hold them for long, but she's working on her coordination. Also exciting is that despite rejecting the pacifier on every occasion she has adopted a self-soothing mechanism. She is becoming a thumb sucker. She doesn't do it all the time so I'm not concerned about it, but I do think it's darling that she has finally managed to find her thumbs. (I know, everything this baby does is darling!)

Camille seems to have become such a funny little individual and we're really enjoying our extra time together while Caleb is at school. The other day she decided she wanted to play password. It's this game where she blocks the doorway and doesn't move until I offer the correct word. Typically it's "princesses" if she's the barricade or "ninja turtles" if Caleb's the barricade. I tried both responses and neither of them worked. What was the password? Boogie woogie? "No!" Camille insisted. "I eat boogies!" That my 2 1/2 year old wouldn't move out of the way until I said it was tremendously funny, although I did draw the line later that day when she wanted the password to be "I eat poop." This mom does have a little dignity!

Delouse the House

We had some friends over to play today. Well, if you consider blood sucking parasites friends. I discovered head lice on Camille. What a treat. She must have caught it from nursery because it's been the only time she's been around other kids in the last couple of weeks (I know, we don't get out much). Anyway, we spent a busy afternoon - three full hours - washing with lice shampoo and combing out the nasties. And then washing all of the bedding so we don't have any further cases.

What does lice look like? Good question. Here is a picture I grabbed off the web. This is not my kid, nor did my kid have that much lice. Thank goodness!

If you see this, run - do not walk - to the nearest drugstore and get some lice shampoo.

(*I have taken down this photo to please my squeamish mother. Simply do a google search to find this picture again.)

Is your head itching yet?