Ben is 17

Ben is ::gulp:: seven-TEEN. While he isn't our youngest, somehow I still get a gut punch with these continuing milestones for Ben, formally known as my ninja snuggle bunny. A name which he deeply wishes I would forget or, at the very least, never mention again.

Ha!

Anyway, it is very tough to shop for Ben. I don't know what he wants, Jason doesn't know what he wants, and Ben doesn't know what he himself wants. When you are 17 and can't decide, you get the best card EVER (no cap!) and gift cards to your favorite food places (Chipotle, McDonald's, and Dairy Queen).

Oh, and a LOT of balloons.

Ideally, I would have put a cap on this process because 17 balloons is a lot. But still fun. Happy birthday to my most favorite Ben in the whole world.

Josh/Michael Family Birthday Party

This year the birthday/end of school insanity is especially epic. Today was the best day to celebrate Michael and Josh's birthday with family. For dinner we had brisket, ribs, and stuffed shells with cheesecake and brownies for dessert - an ideal mash-up of the boys' food preferences. Then gifts!

Josh is 21

What's more fun than getting up early to decorate the car of an officially an adult in every way child young man? Nothing! And when you get a partner in crime to help, the decorating goes more quickly.

The abettor even let me take her picture.

We did this to the back and sides of his car.

I buckled in his Mtn Dew so it would be safe.

And then stuck a car wash gift card in the phone slot in case he did not find the decorations as amusing as we did.

This was his response. And I shamelessly threw Mutti/Nana under the bus!

But he did apparently enjoy the soda.

Happy 21st to our oldest minion! It is so wonderful to watch him excel, develop his interests, and explore the world.

Ben is SIXTEEN

Whether you call him Ben or BenBen or NinjaSnuggleBunny or Minion3, this child is 16 years old and well on the road to driving (ha, pun intended). It seemed only fitting to add some gummies to make walking through the balloons more exciting.

Due to the complications of (my) cold-of-the-month and an upcoming trip to NYC (Michael and Ben), he was forced to eat chocolate cream pie on the 26th and 30th. 

Ben loves gummies, chocolate, McDonald's, and ice cream. He enjoys calculus, cello, swimming, and Forza. We're excited to see how this year goes for him.

Isaac Friend Party

It's an even year for Isaac's birthday this year so that means FRIEND PARTY! Of course, the issue is always that his birthday coincides with weather not conducive to outdoor activity so the number of kids he can invite is limited to the number of kids I can handle having in the house. My genius idea this year had to do with the fact that his birthday and the Sonic 3 movie were not too far apart so he got to invite three friends for movie at the theatre and pizza at the house.

Jason took one for the team and took Isaac, Maggie, Murphee, and Harley to the movie.

After the movie they came home to eat Domino's pizza and open presents. Isaac got some pretty fun stuff.

They had some energy to burn and we had a bit of time to kill before the other kids' parents arrived so there was a balloon battle - everyone for themself!

Then we sugared them up right before they went home!

Isaac has a crazy lovely bunch of friends and they definitely made this fun birthday.

Isaac is 10

Double digits! Things are getting serious now!

Isaac was lucky enough to have his birthday land on the weekend this year. While that did mean he was more resistant to doing his chores than normal, it did mean that he got to spend a significant part of the day playing his new Kirby videogame. 

As requested, large pancake with his age in chocolate chips. Lucky he wanted chocolate chip pancakes for dinner as well so that made food prep for the day easy for me.

Sadly, the candles were too heavy for just one cupcake so he had to suffer his way through TWO cupcakes this evening. What a rough day for this kid!

More birthday fun to come next weekend with friend and family parties. 

Michael is 18 Party

18 is a ridiculous number of balloons to blow up. A banner is a much better/easier option. A snarky banner is the best option. 

Happy birthday to our newest adult! Or "adult"! Quotes or no quotes - depends on who you ask. In any case, he did himself proud and ate 18 stuffed shells even though his competition is 3000 miles away. We found out this year that the key to actually having left overs from this meal is to triple the recipe.  

We took a break from eating to play a game where "Michael's soul", "Doug's face", and "moist caterpillar" were popular answers. After Angela beat everyone, we celebrated Michael's (today) and Cody's (coming soon) birthdays with ice cream cake and mocha cheesecake, respectively.

Big smiles with Angela!

Josh is 20 Party

It is bonkers to think that Josh is already TWENTY. But here we are on the twentieth anniversary of his due date and only one day before the big 2-0. We celebrated with two of his favorite foods: meat and Oreos. Pulled pork, pulled chicken, beef brisket and 7 kinds of Oreos.

Josh still struggles with the forced/fake smile, but add his girlfriend Holly and we get a genuine smile on his face.

Ben is 15

This is a child who, after FIFTEEN YEARS of having birthdays, is pretending to be surprised that is mother is frustrated that he blew out the candles when she and her camera were not ready.

Luckily for posterity, that picture was taken before his actual birthday and at his family birthday party we had the weekend before. While we enjoyed spending time with everyone, it was truly a dry run for the the big day.

As per tradition, the big day started with balloons. I learned later that he hadn't counted them which sort of defeats the time I spent the night before blowing them up in my closet in secret. So maybe not 16 balloons next year - just a bunch of them. This was not my best work. I heard his alarm clock going off while I was taping them to the wall and panicked. But the effect was the same. 

Ben lucked out and his birthday was a half-day for the public schools. He had soccer practice and then the rest of the day was his to take a nap and talk to family on the phone. Josh popped on by to give him the one, true sword....I mean, the master sword from the Legend of Zelda. 

After a burrito bowl from Chipotle, Ben finished off his birthday dinner posing nicely with an ice cream sandwich so I could get my picture. (Note: the ratio of candles to years is 1:15)

It's been a year of new experiences, challenging himself, denying that he has curly hair, and frustration at how easy trigonometry is. We're excited to see what this next year brings.

Isaac is 9

December is a great month for this kid. His birthday and Christmas are within 10 days of each other. Since this is an odd numbered birthday, this is not a friend party year. I was still planning on inviting a couple of his friends over for the dinner and movie night since his birthday was on a Friday. Sadly, he came down with a cold with nasty cough. So, no friends but he also didn't have to go to school. 

He ate chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast after sleeping in until 9am. 

He opened some of his presents that evening. The hand-directed drone was a hit! But not literally because it has sensors and so doesn't hit the walls.

 Family birthday celebration was this evening so we got to put candles in a doughnut.

He added the sprinkles after blowing out the candles and he was quite thorough about it.

His birthday gift from our WA family is a yearlong subscription to Crunch Lab - a service that delivers a STEM-related kit to your door once a month. It was difficult to drag him away from the kit to eat dessert, but he got his fill of sugar and then returned to finish the kit. This month is a disc launcher and is thrilled! It should be a great year!

Kayaking for Rachel's 40th

We're a little late, but this morning we went on an adventure to celebrate Rachel's birthday. Siblings and spouses conspired to enjoy some fall weather and the tiniest bit of changing of the leaves. And a great big thank you to the weather gods because IT DID NOT RAIN!

Poor Rachel. We actually didn't tell her what we were doing. I emailed her a packing list and we picked her up at 6:45am. To soften the blow of the early hour we did come bearing Starbucks hot chocolate. 

And then drove an hour and a half into the mountains. The drive was definitely worth it as our destination was a very calm river with water that was often so still it created a perfect mirror. The area was scenic and we had the river to ourselves. We opted to let the nice people at REI bring the kayaks and the gear so our responsibilities involved arriving and putting on our lifejackets.  

The rest of us have kayaked before, but this was Cody's first time kayaking and he was a machine. Doug and Cody may be the proud owners of kayaks in the near future. I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

It was a lovely morning and a lovely way to celebrate a birthday.