Officially over the hill...

Jack's birthday was this weekend. Sadly birthdays are not our thing. Everyone in our extended families knows that they are lucky to get a phone call and forget about a card...never happens. This year I even set a goal to send out birthday cards to all our extended family and to help me with this I custom ordered from Shutterfly a calendar that included everyones birthdays printed right on it. Still, we have failed in this area. The one thing though that gives me comfort in this is that Jack and I are just as bad when it comes to each other. But thanks to Ty and my parents, Jack had a couple surprises. On Friday morning Ty comes running into our room frantically asking for tape and scissors. Next thing we know there is a wrapped gift sitting in the middle of our bed. I'm curious as to what it could be knowing we hadn't shopped for anything. Attached to the top are two baseball cards that I recognized seeing the day before in his backpack (hopefully not disappearing acts from someone else's backpack). Jack opens the gift to find the super soaker that Ty had received at his birthday party and had not yet used. Ty adds, "dad, this is for you and me to share when we move to California." He was so proud. Now to be clear, Jack knows if there is anything he really wanted for his birthday, I'd get it for him but we just aren't big into buying things just to buy them. It ended up being a low key evening but we didn't care because we were all together! (As you can see the evolution of my cake decorating took a turn for the worse but hey, the candles were cool!)

Highlights of the weekend included Jack attending for the first time this season one of the boys' baseball games, playing tennis as a family...well maybe not playing but you know what I mean, and Jack and I attending a going away party (without kids) for some friends. And I cannot go without mentioning Ty attempting to compete with the neighbors lemonade stand by setting up a stand on the opposite corner trying to sell his junky toys that he no longer wants. Sadly no one else wanted them either... A new business plan is in the works. But I do give him credit for knocking on doors alerting people he was selling his junk.

So this afternoon we are all relaxing up in our room and I notice Connor has a smudge of chocolate on his forehead. A few moments later, Sage pops in with a chocolate beard. I ask where all the chocolate came from and Connor says, "well, I spilled a little bit of my chocolate milk (which is actually more like chocolate syrup with a tad bit of milk) but don't worry I cleaned up most of it." Key word being "most". Granted he did try to clean up what he had spilled all over the floor which you could see from all the smear marks across the floor but what didn't get included in "most" of it was how it had spilled down the fridge and got caught in our bottom freezer drawer. Gotta love those surprise messes...