N's Birthday

N turned 8 at the end of August. For something different, we decided to take some friends to the bowling alley. I got pretty ambitious (for me) and made bowling-themed invites, matching T-shirts for all the kids, and a bowling ball-shaped cake. We played one game, had a pizza, then went back to our house for cake and presents. It was a good time! E's ball rolled so slowly that we weren't always sure if it was going to make it all the way, but it did every time. Thanks to cousin C for helping us out. 

The next night we celebrated with cousins at the Butlers' house. I have to post this first picture of N with cousins E and J because it makes me laugh every time I see it. It's just one of those odd moments that happened to get captured forever. The next picture is pretty good, though, and makes up for the absurdity of the first.

Happy birthday, N. We love you!!!

J's Birthday

J celebrated his 10th birthday at the end of June with cousins and by going to see Wall-E. This year he decided on a Bionicle cake.

J's present from us was for me to take him to Mesa to see Eoin Colfer, the author of the Artemis Fowl series - a GREAT set of books, by the way. T and I love them as much as J does, and I was as excited to go as he was. Eoin (pronounced "Owen") was doing a tour to promote the latest book in the series and did a presentation at the Mesa Arts Center. He showed pictures from his childhood and told anecdotes about growing up with brothers and how his family influenced the characters he created.  He is a talented public speaker and his stories were hilarious. He was a teacher for many years and really knows how to relate to youth. Plus he has a beautiful Irish accent which was lovely to listen to. At the end of the presentation he did a book signing, so J was able to talk to him for a minute and get his own personalized copy of The Time Paradox. After the show we went to dinner at Chevys (yummy) where J and I shared this dessert. Olé!

The next day we went to the Visitor Center at the Arizona Mesa Temple, then drove to Phoenix and spent a few hours at the Arizona Science Center where they have hands-on exhibits and were featuring a Chronicles of Narnia display with props and costumes from the movies and interactive features (they didn't allow photos in there :( ).

My favorite display had to be the Dancing Iron Dust Trees by TechnoFrolics. Magnets and iron are choreographed to different songs - I could have watched it all day. It would be fun to have one for a party!

Summer recap, part 2

Okay- I think I have the picture thing down, and I figured out how to add animated gifs (in a roundabout way), which allows us to have a little more fun with the pictures. I know some of you are light years ahead of me with this stuff, and others don't have a clue what I'm talking about, but we'll just take it from here.

We spent 4th of July at the T's parents' house swimming. Here's N doing the classic swim dance, well, his version anyway.

E finally decided to try jumping off the board.

And here are a few shots of V and Daddy trying out the crab boat.

Finally, here is V decked out in her patriotic garb. She wasn't happy about sitting in the grass, so I was lucky to get any with her smiling.

Summer Recap, part 1

Even though the kids have been in school for a couple of weeks, and even though the hot weather will be sticking around for a while, Labor Day still seems like the end of summer to me. So I thought I would catch up on what kept us busy this summer.


Once again we kicked off the summer with swim lessons. E likes to swim like Grandma B's dog with his tongue wagging.


J had to be... persuaded to jump off the diving board for the first time.

N, however, went willingly off the board.
V got to sit in her stroller while the boys were in the pool.

Okay, so putting together this post took a LOT longer than I expected - I didn't realize working with pictures was such a pain in a blog. Why don't they go where I want them? Anyway, I'm going to figure out what I'm doing and then finish the summer summary.