Luke and MacKenna's 5th Birthday

Last night we had the big party - I just talked to Jenny and her house is still in one piece. This is the first time Luke has had a big theme birthday party. Luke loves dinosaurs, so the challenge was finding a way to incorporate dinosaurs in a way that was appealing to MacKenna. We decided to use a treasure hunt theme so we could look for buried treasure, fossils, and plan 5 year old - friendly adventures. Jenny was much more inspired to plan than I was:

• a search for gems in a pasta filled treasure chest


• treasure hunt in the yard - photo clue cards leading kids through 10 stops. This was my own personal disaster - I realized after putting out all of the cards that I didn't plan well, so I had to collect all of the cards, change strategies, put all of the cards back, and not yell at anyone while I figured out how to fix my goof quickly. Each teenager took a group and they all won a prize (giant gummy dinosaurs) at the end


• treasure map on dinosaur island - blindfolded kids putting stickers on the map, kind of like pin the tail on the donkey


• egg hunt, for Easter Eggs filled with gemstone bouncy balls, candy, and miniature dinosaur skeletons


• dinner - BBQ beef, mac & cheese, dino shaped spaghettios, hot dogs, spinach salad, veggie salad, fruit salad


• a pinata - yikes!!!!


• presents....Luke could hardly wait!! He received a Magnetix dinosaur from MacKenna, a car carrier from Connor, a set of John Deere tractors from Eisa, dinosaur books and magnets from us, and a human body book from his grandma and grandpa. Robin felt bad because her kids played out in the yard with her present for Luke - like Luke wouldn't have done the same?

Robin left the party early - contractions at 8 minutes apart. Baby girl Weiss was born at home about 5 hours ago; 10 pounds 2 ounces and everyone healthy!

The party was so much fun, and the kids were running and sweaty all evening. My dad said his favorite part of the party was when Ada looked up at him in the middle of all of the activities and asked, "Can you carry people?"

All of the photos are on the album to the right.

Officially Five

We completed the legal part of Raha's placement this afternoon - Rich had to go get him from football practice because we didn't know he was supposed to be here. Raha very pragmatic about signing his part of the stack of paperwork. For the next month we are knee deep in weekly therapy sessions, weekly visits from his foster placement specialist, and then a monthly treatment team meeting. After that things should settle down a bit.

Deep Sleep

I just went downstairs to make my end of the night check on all of the boys....all three snoring and sprawled so wildly across their beds that I had to adjust little bodies and cover each of them again with their blankets. They were so beautiful and peaceful.

Football at Christian Academy

Raha started on the JV team for the first time - a plus. They lost - a minus. It made for a sore AND cranky AND tired kid tonight.

Words!!!!

When I came home, Meaghan told me that Aaron is clearly saying "UP!" He said it right away for me and 3 or 4 more times. With Austin at speech he said "Please" four times clearly, asking me for a drink of Sprite. He's saying "MO" for more and "MY" for mine.......huge progress!! He's funny because he knows how excited we are, makes sweet funny smiles after saying a word, and is totally not willing to do it on command. He just came out with "DUH" when Austin said, "Say All Done Aaron." Apparently today is the day for new words!

Had to come back to this post - just said, "GO" to start running!

Aaron's drawing

Aaron spent part of the morning on my lap while I piddled around on my computer. I gave him a handful of markers to keep his fingers away from the keyboard. It took a lot of convincing to get him to make a drawing -- shouldn't I have known that the most fascinating part of the artistic process is taking off the marker lids and putting them back on?

Dirty Rhymes

Meaghan goofed! She asked Luke what rhymes with truck and Luke came up with a good one.