birthday boy

This guy turned 12 the other day.  Old fart.

For his birthday, he wanted to stay home from school.  Because we are the most awesome parents in the world (some would think that we are absolutely the worst for this…..), we let him do just that.  Crazy rebellious mom and dad, we are.  He was a happy camper.  Eric took him to the video place, rented Star Wars 1, 2 and 3 - He has never seen any of the Star Wars movies before - and MarioKart for the Wii and he had an epic day.

For dinner he wanted German apple pancake.  Pretty much if you ever ask Cade what he wants for dinner it will be crepes, pancakes, waffles or french toast.  So this request wasn't too surprising.  What was surprising was that after the meal, he said he felt sick and later asked if maybe we could make it a little healthier next time.  It was awfully sugary!  Kind of ridiculously so.  I will fully take advantage of a request from my child to make a more healthy version of anything!

For his birthday we gave him an old microscope that I found at a garage sale.  I thought it was super cool - it came with a full kit of tools for dissecting and everything!  He also got a game/puzzle called "Rush Hour" that I thought he would like.  He was pretty thrilled with both gifts although now, six days later, I'm pretty sure he hasn't played with or used either of them at all.

That evening I made some cupcakes for him to take to school because after all, he still needed to have the best of both worlds - skipping school the one day but still being able to celebrate with his friends the next.  Glenda gave me this handy-dandy cupcake carrying case thing for my birthday - perfect for sending these treasures to school!

One Friday night, the 16th, we had his party.  Not surprisingly, he wanted a family party.  So we invited all the family and figured we'd see who would show up.  The plan was for night sledding, followed by chocolate fondue and cake at home afterward.  We were pretty excited because the forecast was great - nice and mild…. something like -5.  Except that we neglected to see what the windchill was supposed to be.  That was a killer.  It was -25 with the wind howling at us on top of that hill.  Being the hardy Canadians we now are, we stuck it out.  

The three girl Loewen cousins and the two youngest Giesbrecht cousins showed up along with my sister (mother...) and brother (father…. of the aforementioned cousins).  I frustratingly tried to take some pictures and got a few even though I forgot batteries for my flash.  And did a little sledding myself.  I was pretty excited to got sledding with the headlamps that Kim gave us last year.  But I forgot the batteries for those too.  Sheesh.

Eric and Brent pushed the kids down the hill to keep themselves warm (and Brent ran up and down it a few times as well).  And Kim?  Well, she just went off and about got herself lost.  Don't ask how this is even possible.  We're not sure.  Eric, Brent and I were watching her on the top of the hill wondering what on earth she was doing, walking in completely the wrong direction, until Brent finally decided he should rescue her from herself.  He's so nice.  Well, to her.  I kind of wanted to keep watching to see when she might realize the error of her ways.  I thought it would be much more entertaining (she is going to read this and then hurt me….)

Once we got home, we called in the reinforcements (aka: Grandparents) to let them know we were at home ready to party, so they all joined us.  It was time for an abundance of chocolatey treats.  I attempted to get some pictures of the birthday-singing, cake and candle-blowing festivities, but my camera was a little numb and fogged up from the cold.  For a long time.  As you can see.  It actually looks pretty cool...

So I had to bust out the iPhone - only after it also warmed up.  It literally froze for a while.

After some eating, there was a lot of energy to burn, so the kids headed downstairs for some Just Dance mania.  Actually, that is how they also warmed up before the sugar-fest was ready.  There were 10 kids (Mia had two friends over as well) all dancing (or watching the dancing) and having a fabulous time.  It was so fun to watch them all and here them all singing like mad people.  Apparently my dad got into the groove too but I don't have anything to prove it.  My guess is that he purposely avoided the lens.  

Even before this evening I had decided that a friendly dance-off night was going to be necessary.  The enjoyment of the evening just confirmed it.  A Just Dance night is in the works and what a party that will be!

A few more gifts...

Have you ever seen anyone so excited over sour straws?  I never even knew he liked them that much!

It was a fantastic, very low key, low planning and executing time.  Just my style.  Not much work with great people and lots of fun.

surprise!

So Alex, one of my darling nieces, and some other friends, had a surprise party for Maddy.  (It was on my birthday - which they asked first if it was okay - which I thought was sweet and thoughtful…..It was rather  kind of lovely way to spend my birthday…. knowing Maddy was going to have the poop scared out of her, being a little bit a part of the festivities - I fried fish for fish tacos, although they were awful - and I even had 16 teenagers sing Happy Birthday to me.)

The plan was that we were "invited over for dinner" at the Giesbrechts.  I made the batter for the fish and made white sauce in secret and stuck it in the car.  When it was time to go, Alex texted and asked if we could stall a little.  So we stalled.  Then we left and dropped Lucy off at Grandma's for night.  Then Alex texted again and asked to stall more.  Thankfully we were low on gas, so we went and filled up.  Alex also texted that we needed to come a certain way to their house so that Maddy wouldn't notice all of the cars.  I didn't bother to tell her that Maddy isn't really the time to be aware of her surrounds at the best of times, so it wasn't necessary….. but we didn't take any chances.  Maddy, by the way, was getting a little frustrated with all of the delays.  Perhaps frustrated isn't the word… maybe just weirded out by her parents.  Then we drive along and Eric "forgets" to take the proper turn, so we have to take the long way around.

(everyone hiding):

 We finally get to the Giesbrecht's after delays, errands, slow driving and missed turns to perfectly have Maddy dive out of the car as fast as possible and canter in to the house to avoid the cold.  The rest of us hardly even had to delay our getting to the door.  It was quiet for a little while and then we heard the chorused "surprise" and a bit of a freak out from Maddy.  She was completely and utterly shocked.  My only regret about the whole thing is not being able to see her reaction.  Apparently it was a good one!  I think having it on my birthday was the most perfect cover up - she had absolutely no clue, even with the strange actions of her parents.

 (Maddy is in there, somewhere….):

 Alex had friends bring different foods for having tacos - that was dinner, obviously.  And some brought dessert.  They also had chocolate fondue.  They also had a bunch of tea - since Maddy is the tea fanatic.  She seems to be turning Alex into one too!

I stayed a little while after I failed fried the fish and hung out with Glenda.  But soon I crashed and left the partying to the rest of them

They are a great bunch of kids.  I've been so impressed and blessed by how they have embraced Maddy into their well established circle of friends - friends who have mostly known each other from bitty childhood and grown up together.  They have taken her in and made her "part of the family" with ease.  It makes a big difference…huge... that Alex was willing to "share" her friends.  That is not a common thing here in this very well established town - many people could learn something from these guys.  Myself included.

the wall

The other day Cole was over for night (he actually is again tonight, come to think of it!).  It was quite wonderful to see both Cole and Cade, just sitting together on the couch, reading.  They did for a long time.  They didn't ask to go on the computer or play Wii - they just read.  I was fabulous (I meant to write "It"….. but as you know, both are true.)

Mia painted a wall in her room the other day.  We are going to do a cool little project on it, but I'll show you that when we're done!  She decided that paint was good for her skin.

Cade has become reimpassioned with his little hideout loft space.  He kind of left it for a while but now it is his regular spot.  He even brought my new Christmas dust buster up there to vacuum.  We've put a foam pad up there for him.  He usually brings up his pillow and blanket each day and it is his space.

Cade and I have discussed various tools or structures we could implement to make access to this space a little easier - not that he hasn't mastered getting up and down with easy…. as you will see later. He had already asked for a ladder for Christmas and I was all in favour of a cool looking library type ladder.  I've actually wanted a full wall of book shelves with a library ladder for years and years.  Then Cade thought of a fire pole.  We got pretty excited about that and had basically planned on cutting a hole in the floor and extending the pole all the way to the basement as well.  But then Eric came in the room.  Mr. Voice of Reason (aka: stick-in-the-mud) thought it would be too expensive and it would come down right through the centre of major duct work.  Poop.  

So then I suggested a velcro wall.  We could put industrial strength velcro on the whole left portion of the wall by the computer desk and make special gloves and shoes for Cade to use the velcro to climb up and down.  And we could make whole velcro suits and charge admission and have kids play till their hearts content throwing themselves up on the velcro wall to see if they would stick.  Party Pooper had something to say about that too - something ridiculous about holes in the walls and personal injury liability garbage.  Whatever.

So for now Cade will stick with his quick shimmy up the door frame.

Oh, and he made himself a little carrying messenger bag (box, in this case) type thing.  He made a duct tape strap on a box that he puts stuff in like his books or tablet or what-have-you in order to carry stuff up there.

I've been up there a few times myself this week.  Three in fact.  I painted that dark grey wall.  

I actually liked the colour of the wall - it is pretty much the same colour that I painted our bedroom in Fairfield way back when.  But it was so dark for a family room - I like these family and kitchen type rooms to be bright, cheering, light and airy.  Then when we got World's Largest Sofa Sectional Ever (I never did blog about that, now that I think of it….), also dark grey, it really was too much darkness for me.  So I finally got at painting it.  The end result will be shown soon - I just need to get some stuff on the walls and make it look fun and homey first.

I'm still quite seriously considering a library ladder or a fire pole - within the confines of the main floor, of course.  Who wouldn't want a fire pole in their house?  Especially now that I've painted the wall white (yes - white…. why is that so weird?  People think I am weird when I tell them that - well, at least they sort of look at me like I'm weird).  The white wall is not Cade-climbing-up-the-wall-with-his-apparently-now-obviously-dirty-bare-feet friendly.  With in one day - yes, 24 hours - the foot and a half of white wall above the door frame looks filthy.

Actually the latest - and this was thought of by none other than Mr. Voice of Party Poopness and Reason Himself - is cutting a whole in the wall up there and building a tunnel in the attic space that goes through to Cade's room.  That way he could go back and forth between his room and that space.  Pretty cool idea coming from That Guy.  Problem is, Cade will still have to find some method of getting up the the hole in his ceiling in his room.  Hmmmm.  Who's full of wisdom now??