Alex Turns 6

Alex turned 6 in March. (Yes, I know that was 4 months ago...)

For his birthday we requested a swimming pool cake. I've made them for Mary in the past and can probably make them for years to come since the cocktail umbrellas came in a package of 300. This year I went for a figure 8 instead of the standard rectangle.

He invited a friend from Primary over. We went to a little arcade place called Nickel-A-Play (with an entry fee we didn't know about). A lot of the games were free, but we did take along nickels for the skee-ball (is that spelled right?) and little basketball and stuff. We had a good time, though you'd have to practically live there to get enough tickets to really get a good prize, which seemed to be the strategy of several people there. By the time we divided the tickets between 4 kids we came home with a few cheapo army men that have all lost at least 1 limb and/or their guns, about 3 of the teeniest Tootsie Rolls you've ever seen, and a small Chinese fan that has subsequently been lost. Oh well. We had a blast, and I'm even somewhat good at skee-ball. (Not as good as Doug, but we won't dwell on that. I can beat him at air hockey.)

After that we got some pizza and came home for cake and possibly ice cream. I don't remember.

So my cheapo camera (ViviCam X016 so you can avoid this if at all possible) made Alex look drugged in most of the pictures... So just trust me when I say he enjoyed his presents, which included a Spiderman T-shirt, some more army men, a little monster truck, and money, which turned into Transformers and Bakugans (little robot thingies squished into spheres, cubes, etc.).

And as a side note. I'm now going to bed. I'll have to catch up another time, and hopefully Blogger will cooperate better when I'm trying to upload my photos. We also got a better camera today. Did you know if you buy the ugly green cameras on Amazon they're cheaper than the silver or red??? I'll take ugly green if it saves me money.

This is what happens

When you're feeling under the weather and Mom and Dad forget about you while they're visiting with the home teachers.

Keeping My Boy Busy

Alex did morning kindergarten last year. In the afternoon while Adam was napping and I was working Alex frequently just watched some TV... So I decided to put his love of tools of all kinds (even tools at the dentist's office) to good use one afternoon.

Our DVD player went kaput a little before Christmas last year. For a while we nursed it along by taking the case off so you could start the DVD spinning with your finger to get things moving. Once it got replaced at Christmas (Thanks Grandma, Grandpa, and Santa) I decided to see what Alex could do with it.

He only had one rule... No total destruction, just take it apart. Here's what we got.

I'm not sure what the tape measure is for, but isn't that face just the cutest??

 Doug got into the act too... I guess boys of all ages love taking things apart.

Adam also enjoyed the fun after his nap.

So in conclusion... If you want to be the "cool" mom, let your boys take things apart. As soon as the toaster stops working he's gonna get to take that apart too.

The Bright Side

In an attempt to make today's shopping trip with 3 kids (two are crazy boys) I'm going to look at the positive side of the shopping trip. I may or may not be sarcastic. You decide...

I'm grateful:

• for road construction. It's nice that someone is willing to work in 90+ degrees to make new roads. It's also nice that they decided to start the road construction right where I need to turn onto the  major street outside my neighborhood and that they stopped the line of cars beginning with the car in front of me instead of the car behind me.
• for whoever sings about wanting to kiss a girl. It was the first tolerable song I heard on the radio. We're talking multiple channels. Too bad it was on the way home from all the shopping so I spent the other parts of the trip channel surfing.
• that Walmart had another LARGE pile of 20 cent notebooks hidden at the back of the store. I thought I was going to have to take the 4 I found in the school supply section right inside the door, two black, one dirty yellow, and one yellow that needed the wire at the bottom bent back in. (We left the scrunched up green one for others.)
• for Sun Chips. When my children decided the samples in the deli and bakery wouldn't be enough lunch I didn't feel too horrible for buying them chips in the checkout lane because Sun Chips have 30% less fat... (Feel free to nominate me for Mom of the Year.)
• for Target's clearance shelf I ran into by mistake. This matched with my coupon got me very cheap Hershey's syrup that will pair nicely with the bucket of vanilla ice cream I already have.
• for Alex's healthy ankle that didn't break when I ran him over with the cart at Walmart.
• for UPS. It's always nice to find a package inside your screen door when you come home.
• that my garage door and the back door of the van separated nicely when Mary tried to close the garage door prematurely.

Let's hope for more school supply sales next week so we can repeat this all over again.