Birthday Boys!

The holiday season at our house has begun! We celebrated the boys' birthdays over the weekend. We celebrated ALL weekend!

The birthday madness officially started Saturday with an early morning trip to Panera and Harris Teeter. The boys are funny. Every year I offer to make them separate cakes, and every year they turn me down. This year I was told "it would be a waste" to have two cakes. They also have historically rejected separate birthday parties every year. Love them! But they disagreed on what to have for a birthday breakfast. Mike wanted donuts and Leon wanted bagels ("because bagels are healthier"). I suggested that perhaps we could have one on Saturday and the other on Sunday, and they both thought this was perfectly acceptable. So off we went!

It was just the boys and me for our early morning shopping, which was nice. The boys were extra happy because I let them wear their pajamas to the store. (We left the house at 6:45. I am a big believer that pajamas are perfectly appropriate street attire on children before 8am. They fully agree.) Other than Natalia being incredibly upset when we got home, it was a good trip. (And Natalia was a green-eyed monster all weekend. She was not okay with the weekend being all about her brothers. Not that she ever wants to share Mama.)

We enjoyed a nice breakfast, and then Jeff headed out with the girls so they could shop for presents for their brothers. While they were gone we decorated the cake and stuffed goody bags for the party. And then it was off to their bowling party!

Their party was great. The boys and four friends had a lane to themselves at the bowling alley. It's funny how grown up they have become. They kept up with their game and did a great job of taking turns (and going at the right time) without anyone having to remind them. Meanwhile our girls, the girl guests, and a younger brother bowled on a second lane. I think they had fun too. And no one on either lane broke a finger or smashed a toe. Amazing!

Sunday was a combination of regular errands and family birthday celebration day. In the morning we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts before heading to buy groceries. There weren't any tables left, so the kids got to sit at the counter. They enjoyed that. (And, again, amazingly no one got hurt!) Sunday evening we headed to Chuck E. Cheese for games and then to a Mellow Mushroom next door to Chuck E. Cheese for pizza. But, of course, Leon had to squeeze in one more prize winning jackpot before dinner.

Overall, I think the boys had a great birthday. And it was a good way to start the holiday season!

Myrtle Beach

It seems like once the boys hit kindergarten last year, our lives got completely crazy. One of the things that went out the window was blogging on any kind of regular basis, so forgive me for jumping around in time with my posts now. Back in March, as we were packing up to leave our hotel in Myrtle Beach, Mike declared, "Mom! You have to write about this on Nutty Mommy!" Except I didn't. So now, just because Mike asked, I am. But I guess I should back up and start at the beginning.

Last winter it dawned on me that we had never taken the kids on a true vacation. We've traveled out of town to visit family, and we've traveled to weddings, and we've traveled to family weddings, but we've never been anywhere just for fun. With the kids getting four long breaks a year from school, their schedule lends itself well to traveling outside of peak seasons, and the kids are finally big enough that traveling for fun actually seemed like a possibility.

Not wanting to get crazy and spend too much money or venture too far from home the first time we tried this crazy vacation thing, we opted to spend a few days in Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach is less than 90 miles away, and several friends recommended a hotel with an indoor water park. It's not nearly as fancy as a Great Wolf Lodge, but again, when you've never done anything like this before, anything is new and exciting.

The kids were excited, but they also took the trip very seriously. We left in the late morning with plans of stopping at Broadway at the Beach, a giant outdoor mall, for lunch. Leon cracked me up - he was very focused on making sure he had a perfect outfit for this excursion, and he elected to wear a button down shirt and cargo pants. Jeff decided he was dressed perfectly for the occasion, if he was a little old man. The other kids were only slightly less serious in planning their attire.

Because the drive was fairly short, Natalia wasn't completely horrible on the car ride, and we had a great time at Broadway at the Beach, walking around, playing on the playground, and eating lunch at Joe's Crab Shack. The kids even managed to eat all of their food and were very proud of themselves for not having leftovers. After lunch we headed to our hotel, and we pretty much just stayed there for the next two days.

We got a one bedroom suite which worked out great. The bedroom had two queen sized beds, and we gave one to the girls and one to the boys. The kids had their own TV in there, so they were happy to hang out in "their" room. Jeff and I opted for the murphy bed in the living room, which also meant we had access to the kitchen and balcony at night. There was a Food Lion just down the street, and we made daily trips there to pick up stuff for meals so that we only had to eat out once a day. I think we ended up making 5 trips to the hotel's water park over the 2.5 days we were there. The hotel was on the beach, and we even snuck in the first beach trip of the year. We spent one morning checking out more of Myrtle Beach, but other than that, we just relaxed and played. Overall, it was a pretty amazing first vacation. Good enough, in fact, that Natalia has declared that when she grows up she is going to live in Myrtle Beach. (And be a hair dresser.)

Caring Kids and Pups

It's not that unusual for kids to be afraid of dogs, but we have a dog who is afraid of kids. Max is, and has always been, terrified of our kids. Thankfully, he mostly manages this well by simply running away from them, and he has a bed in the living room and a bed in our bedroom that are his safe places to "hide" from the kids.

Despite his fear of the kids, he still takes good care of them. A few weeks ago, the kids all came down with a stomach bug. Leon seemed to have a particularly nasty case, and he spent most of one night running to the bathroom. On the bright side, Leon is now big enough that he runs straight to the bathroom when he's not feeling well, and he doesn't come get me first. Knowing this, I slept on the couch that night, so I could run in and take care of him if I heard him get up. Unfortunately, this had been going on with the other kids for several days, and I was pretty groggy and slow moving. That didn't stop Max though. Every time Leon got up, Max ran to the bathroom and stood guard in the doorway, protecting Leon until I got there.

Last Sunday night, Max woke me up in the middle of the night. I figured he wanted to go outside because the backyard squirrel brigade was planning another uprising, or some other matter of importance to a dog at 1am. No, that wasn't it. Then (I was groggy again), I realized that Mike was having a nightmare and talking really loudly in his sleep. Max wanted me to go take care of Mike. Max waited dutifully by the boys' bedroom door while I calmed down Mike, and it was an exhausted Max that slumped back onto his bed when I left the boys' room.

My kids, both the biological children and the adopted furry children, are all pretty good at taking care of each other. I definitely saw it in the human kids this weekend. For years, Ree had no interest in her siblings, especially her little sister who steals her toys and hogs Mom and keeps her up all night. But lately, Ree has had a lot more patience for Natalia, and I've even seen them playing together. On Saturday, I took the girls to the fall festival at the big kids' school. Ree played one game just because the prize was a bracelet she already had. She wanted to win another one (which she did) to give to Natalia so they could have matching bracelets to wear.

While the girls were at the fall festival, the boys were at a birthday party at a place like Chuck E. Cheese with all sorts of games that you can play and win tickets. Leon is the luckiest kid ever. The first time he went there for a party, he won the jackpot on one of the games. Something like 500 tickets. Saturday was his second trip there, and he won another jackpot. But Leon never even considered what he wanted. He just turned to Mike and began negotiating what they would get.

Adding to Leon's crazy luck, on Sunday, the boys happened to go there AGAIN for another birthday party. We typically go to about 3 birthday parties a year, so that was kinda nuts anyway. While he was there, Leon won a 1,000 ticket jackpot on a game. The next game he went to, he scored some points, and then won another jackpot. He got good prizes to share with his brother that day!

Halloween

Back when we lived in Athens, and way before we had children, we used to host an annual New Year's party. It was the one time of year one group of our friends all got together. Most of our guests came from out of town and stayed at our house, and the party usually lasted until at least January 2nd. These days things are much tamer and kiddo centered. Yet, despite that, there are many aspects of our annual trick or treat party that are rather similar to the old New Year's parties.

We start by just inviting a few good friends. There are many great things about good friends, and one of them is they never care that our house looks like real life.These are the kind of friends who will step over the giant dog fur balls that pile up and who will happily cart the huge pile of clean laundry from the couch to our bedroom so they have a place to sit. So we could completely get away with not cleaning. But the irony is this is the one group of friends that we actually want to clean the house for. For our old New Year's parties, we were often in the middle of a last minute power-clean when the guests started arriving, and I have distinct memories of the vacuum being the focal point of our living room for the first hour of our party one year. This year's Halloween gathering was no different. Despite having to leave for the boys' soccer game at 10:00, I still managed to sweep and mop most of the house on Saturday morning before we went. (And I folded and put away the several loads of laundry that were on the couch and even cleaned up the dishes in the kitchen from dinner the night before and from breakfast. Who said nothing good came out of the kids getting me up at 5:30 every day?)

We were always at the store at the last minute buying food and drinks for our New Year's parties. This year was no different, and after the soccer game the whole family made a trip to Costco to stock up on food. We came home, I put that away, and then I headed back to Walmart to get a few more things. And oddly, the food is about the same. For the trick-or-treat party, I served a fancy menu of chicken nuggets and french fries. I usually prepared about the same for drunk people.

On New Year's Eve we would stay at our house until midnight and then head uptown to the bars. Because of this, the women, at least, would dress up for the occasion. (No comments on the male attire!) Of course, Halloween is no different. You gotta dress up! Even the grown ups dress up to take the kids out. This year Ree was a girl from the 80s, Leon was Luigi from Super Mario Brothers, Michael was Michelangelo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Natalia was Anna from Frozen.

Finally, on New Year's Eve, after all that fun, somewhat always passed out in a crazy place. This year Halloween was no different.