Bay has a birthday and other news...

Bay turned 8 this past weekend. He is such a handsome boy and the smile you see on his face is a true reflection of his heart. He is a joy to our whole family.


We went bowling for his birthday. Bay and Leah shared their own lane with the bumpers down. They bowled 2 games...the adults bowled too, but we had more fun watching them drop, throw and push the ball down the lane!

Poor Leah could barely pick up the ball!

In other news...my dad recenly retired from working. It has been so much fun for the kids (and me too) to get to see more of him during the day and evenings. He loves to take them out to breakfast, come over for dinner sometimes, go fishing, or just lay on the couch and read a book to appease a hungry lion!

He also has more time to do some other things he enjoys (besides all of those projects waiting at the house) like go fishing with a friend of his. They brought back 7 HUGE rockfish...he shared his fish with us. I made fish tacos with some of the meat---delicious!

Lego Star Wars 6th Birthday Party

Bay turnedd 6 two weeks ago. He grew 1 1/2 inches in 4 months! He's getting ready to lose his first tooth. Just too much to take in. All of my babies are growing up :(

He requested a lego star wars party this year. It was 9 kids his age, plus many older siblings and Eric and Leah. It was controlled chaos!

The lego cake. Covered with square fondant lego bricks.
Lego tower building contest. We made iron-on yoda shirts for the boys and ahsoka shirts for the girls.

Lego playing at the lego table. we had a starfighter build session.

Knocking candy and legos out of the Death Star pinata

a hord of young jedis chasing after darth vader (aka Eric-he shed his vader mask very quickly since he couldn't see who he was up against!)

Cartwheels
I am always amazed at how different each of our children are. I guess I shouldn't be amazed any more, but it constantly takes me by surprise!
Another thing that is a challenge is to make sure that the middle child doesn't get sqeezed out by the other two in many areas. For instance, since Eric is the oldest, he tends to be involved in the most activities, just because of his age. On the converse, since Leah is the youngest, and also a girl amidst 2 boys, she tends to get attention pretty easily. Not that she is loved any more than the others, but if you have children, you know what I mean...she is the youngest so I think that is pretty self-explanatory! So, in Bay's case, he is the typical middle child. He easily switches between being the playmate to Eric or the playmate to Leah, depending on whatever is most convenient. He doesn't have a lot of things that are "his", he usually just does or likes whatever the other sibling is involved in.

Point being, it is really neat to have found something that is "just his", and that thing seems to be gymnastics. We are very fortunate to have found a local gymnastics center that is out of the way and not part of the overly crowded rec-and-parks deal. He has been taking a class once a week in the mornings now for a few years and it has been just him, a friend of mine's daughter, and the instructor's daughter. So 3 students who have been together for a couple of years 1 hour each week. It has worked out really well and he has really taken off with it--he enjoys it and does very well. It is something he strives at and can see improvement in himself and likes to see that improvement. Plus, my mom is the one who orchestrates the whole thing and takes him, so in addition, it is special time for them together.

So, she took the camera this week and got some good shots!

back bend-he can do this really well all by himself

the running trampoline is by far their favorite piece of equipment. here they are doing front handsprings off the end of the trampoline onto a big mat

front rolls down the trampoline


cartwheels

I'm tired!