Happy 5th!

Bob opened gifts in the morning, chewed gum all day, played with his new toys, and watched a movie.  He also wanted to play a game of Ultimate One Night Werewolf as a family which we did.  And he stayed in his PJs all day...again.  He wanted muffins for breakfast and meatballs for dinner, but I was only able to swing the meatballs the next night.  So for dinner he settled for pizza the night of his birthday.  I froze his cake after his party in order to thaw and eat the rest of it on his actual birthday which worked out perfectly. 

The next night we had the ever popular sweet barbecue meatballs and potato skins that he wanted.

It was a quieter birthday than some, but in the end he thought it was awesome and that's all that matters.  Love you, Bobby pants!  Have a blessed year!

Bob's Early Bubble Gum Birthday "Party"

We decided to celebrate Bob's birthday early since my parents were in town on a regular Sunday dinner night.  My sister and brother were going to all be there at my sister's house where we could swim, have pizza, and cake.  Alas, the coronavirus strikes again and my brother couldn't come.  He was quarantined, not because he necessarily had the virus, but because his son's daycare teacher was positive for it.  Bob was so disappointed to not have his closest aged cousin and best bud come to his birthday party.

The fifth birthday is the one where the new five year old gets the privilege of chewing gum.  SO, Bob chose this cool cake.  It was supposed to have red icing on the bottom like the real old fashioned gumball machine, BUT my red dye was empty when I opened it.  We improvised with blue.  The top is white cake and the bottom is chocolate which is what he asked for.  We saved half of it in the freezer for his actual birthday in "11 days" as Bob kept reminding us.  (This is going to publish on his actual birthday though.)

He doesn't know it yet, but he's getting a gumball machine for his birthday from us.  Shhh, don't tell!

We were frantically packing in the days leading up to his party.  I caught him reading in his own little nook of boxes.  

Opening gifts from my parents and my sister, after swimming and eating pizza.

Ended the evening with cake

Gotta Get Outa Here!

I have been fine during this whole quarantine thing.  I'm an introvert anyway and loved the excuse to stay home and clear of calendar.  However, with all the house stress and everything else going on, I was really getting kind of down.  I needed change, but wasn't sure what we could actually do outside the home when it was so hot.  A friend of mine was telling me all the things they've been doing and I was realizing almost all our stuff we've been doing has been in our house, crafts, cooking, movies, books, drawing lessons, and more crafts.  The only things out of the house for the family has been church where we can't socialize currently, walks in our neighborhood, and my sister's pool.  

Anyway, my friend gave me some parks and trails to check out and encouraged us to go early in the morning before it's too hot.  We are actually pretty good at getting out of the house early when we plan it, so we planned it and made it happen.  Three mornings a week I go to a Zumba class that I love and so on the other two mornings we're trying to do something other than just walk in our neighborhood now.

The first day, I talked the girls into going willingly by bribing them with breakfast tacos if we just got up and headed straight out the door by 7:30am.  This walking trail was short, about a mile run trip and it had several playgrounds along the way.  Isaac and Drew brought their bikes to ride.  (I could only get two bikes to fit in the trunk of the van.)

This is a pretty cool merry-go-round we found.  It's harder for the older boys to "accidentally" throw off the younger ones with the nice buckets.

The next time we went out, I let the girls sleep in and just took the boys.  Bobby was dying to try his new Stomp Rockets and we wanted to try them in an area without many trees to see how controllable it was and how far it really shot the rockets.  It turned out to be quite a cool morning, relatively speaking of course.  We didn't get back home until 10am, and I never broke a sweat even during our hike.

Playing with the Stomp Rockets

The hike

It's Independence Day!

Due to some craziness with our landlady and next year's rental contract, we are having to move.  We have been looking at houses and thought we missed out on the one that we liked the best.  While we were looking at it, our realtor (and good friend) texted the listing agent to find out more and found that they'd just accepted an offer.  However, it fell through a couple days later and we jumped on it.  All looks well so far and we are pending contract as I write this which is quite a bit later than the actual July 4th.  So we went into full packing mode the week after the Fourth.

The day before the holiday, my sweet boy Bob, AKA the Flash, brought me Peter Rabbit and asked me to read to him right after I'd laid down for a tiny break.  How can one resist the Flash such a request?!

Brian used our ice cream maker to  make us cookies and cream home-made ice cream in the afternoon of the 4th of July.  We all got very small portions as the electric machine isn't built for big families.

Brian smoked some ribs and we had chilli dogs too since we didn't have quite enough ribs to go around as a main course for everyone.

After dinner, my brother's family came over for roasting marshmallows and making s'mores.  This didn't turn out so great because it's so HOT here, but we were trying to burn some of our built up brush that wouldn't fit in our compost bin since we are moving soon.  Let's just say it was short lived.

Then we moved to the front yard and did our own fireworks.  No big fireworks shows this year, because...corona.  We didn't let it get us down, we made our own fun and the rest of the neighborhood did as well.  We are outside the city limits and so completely in our legal rights to do our own fireworks.  

It started out in the light of the evening and with all children happy and excited...

Someone *may* have went overboard in buying fireworks.

Every child held sparklers (Secret:  I never have held a sparkler!)...

Still smiling...

And then somewhere early on in the evening, a Saturn something or other shot some fireworks between a few children and the two littlest boys, Bob and Turner never fully recovered.

At some point in hopes of coaxing out their cousin, one of my boys got the noise cancelling headset for Turner so he'd come back out of the house and watch the neighborhood shows.

Brot Zeit

Brian was out of the house at dinner time somewhat last minute, so we discussed making dinner a smaller ordeal.  Drew asked when we'd ever have Brot Zeit again.  That's "Bread Time" in German where they have cold cuts, cheese, raw fruits and veggies and fresh bread.  I did make broccoli salad as planned, but the kids helped me do the rest and they got very involved in making it beautiful too.  Here's the spread...

Germans often serve this kind of meal at dinner time since they have a bigger lunch typically.  They also use special wooden Brotzeit plates.  The kids all have their own personalized wooden plates for this.

Genna was in charge of the veggie tray.

The "New Normal"

Things in Texas are not really getting better.  They've reverted back to mandatory mask wearing here, closed bars again, and reduced capacity of restaurants.  In person school is now optional in the fall, with a remote learning option, deciding quarter by quarter.

This is what our life is now, wearing masks during a piano recital at our piano teacher's house with only one other family after we were all sent to wash our hands upon entering the house.  Sigh.  I still love this slower paced life, but I miss normal human interactions.

Although Judah and Drew picked easier songs than they were capable of, everyone played beautifully.

The kids black masks have music notes on them.  

Genevieve has been taking voice lessons and got to perform her song for the very first time.  (She was allowed to remove her mask when singing.)  Bravo, Genevieve!  She was very glad for the small audience.