Seth and Sam's Birthday Weekend

The benefit of being born on Memorial Day Weekend, is that your "birthday" extends to an entire weekend of fun. This is the second time that we celebrated down at my parent's house in Lakeview, and this time Katie and her family came down as well. It was such a fun, special weekend spent making memories with the whole family!

We got to eat two dinners with everyone. Katie and I were especially so grateful for excellent meals that we did not have to cook!

The whole crew eating tacos with homemade tortillas (there were even gluten free ones! My mom is amazing!)

Clara, Sam, Miriam, Seth, and Aidah (When I asked the boys what they wanted to do for their birthday, their number one priority was to be with the Plato girls...so special!)

 

I wish I could have recorded the look on Seth's face when Ben told them that they were going to get to shoot Papa's BB gun. They were so excited and are now big hunters.

 Seth

 Sam

 

They are also big fishermen...Papa took them fishing and they even caught some!

 

 Lakeview landscape is so different than the Willamette, but so beautiful in it's own way!

 

Getting ready to watch the Aristocrats

 Ben is usually surrounded by the five oldest, wanting him to wrestle and chase--to which he usually indulges. He's such a good, patient daddy and uncle!

 

 Edmund and Josh are fondly known as the "babies" and are adorable in party hats (and are nothing but trouble)!

 

My big six year olds! (Seth in gray, Sam in red)

  Attempt at a family picture.

The boys read some book about a birthday party with a piñata, so they REALLY wanted one for their party. My parents obliged and it was so much fun! 

 

 

 The babies even got a swing

 

 Getting the spoils!

 A rare mommy picture (with Seth)

 The boys also requested ice cream cake and a construction theme. This seriously was the easiest cake to decorate! Thanks pinterest!

  

 

So the party was going great and Josh was happily playing independently on the steps...moments after noticing this, and commenting about it to my brother-in-law, the inevitable scream came: he fell and bonked his head. Of course I didn't see it, or know what was hurt, but he sure was screaming! In fact, he cried so hard, and had what apparently was such a full belly, that he emptied the entire contents of it all down the front of me. Yes, he puked in front of everyone. Bummer.

 Thankfully it wasn't too bad of an injury and vomit washes off.

 

 I was such a proud mama of the boys while they were opening gifts. They patiently read each card, enjoying especially the ones that each girl had made them. They said thank you and gave hugs. They were calm and not greedy. I love these two and their kind, steady hearts!

 Check out the banner my mom made!

 I asked Seth to take a picture with his new gift. He didn't realize I wanted to see his face too :)

 New basketball shoes!

 Sam is such a quirky kid. He wore two hats to make "ears" for most the evening.

 The biggest hit of the night were the huge floater plans that Uncle Tom and Aunt Julie got the boys. They are awesome!

 Sam thanking Uncle Tom pictured below

 

So the boys' actual birthday was on Tuesday, the day we traveled the 7 hour trip home. But the boys didn't complain and we all had such great memories of a fun party the night before! We stopped in Bend for a pizza lunch and a trip to a toy store and candy store. We also stopped at Detroit Dam to walk around and got to see a helicopter transferring logs with a huge hook. It was amazing!

 

I hope to do a good "Six Year Old Update" post soon! Remember to sign up for email updates, because after I post this one, I'm signing off facebook!

 

Fort Vancouver

A quick note: I'm planning on taking a break from facebook, so if you want to know when I write a new blog post, please sign up for email notification.

Running errands with kids really stinks. Now that we're "out in the country" (i.e. not 5 minutes from every store in Beaverton), we tack on a 30 minute drive each way, and errands stink even more. And because we don't want to frequently make that drive, it means we now have marathon errand days, mapping out stores that are close together and combining as many errands as possible. Yes, perfect storm of screaming and chaotic kids in stores.

So Ben and I got this crazy idea for our errand day this weekend: shop some, do something fun, shop some more. And it worked! We went furniture shopping, made a return at Lowes (where the kids got to ride on the tractors), had a picnic lunch and explored Fort Vancouver, then headed back to a bit more shopping at the end. Josh may have cried himself to sleep on the way home, but he didn't scream in the store. Victory!

Fort Vancouver was an amazing place to explore. I liked it much better than the End of the Oregon Trail Museum. The entire complex was huge and we only explored one aspect (the Fort). There is also an air museum (that's free), tons of walking trails, and an amazing play structure/park at the light at the entrance. We definitely want to return--with a stroller and more time!

The fort entrance

That long stick is the well, and the white building is the bakery. They had really cool wood fire ovens to see.

The boys checking out the outhouse



This was the coolest part of our visit: they had actual blacksmiths working! The boys got to watch them stoke the fire and work the metal. As you can imagine, we've been doing a lot of blacksmith work now at home with sticks, and have even make a blacksmith shop out of legos.



The fort had a lot of different furs to feel ranging from foxes to beavers to wolves to bears. It was very hands on and there was a volunteer in almost every building to answer questions. It really was wonderful!

The fur trading post. I love this picture because in it, Seth is explaining to Josh about the wooden wagon wheel. The big boys are so patient with him!

All the boys in the look out tower. The tower was really cool, but kind of petrifying with a toddler who's obsessed with stairs. I made Ben keep a firm grip on Josh.

I just had to take a picture of Josh's massive fit in the car on the way home. He was soooo tired and we were so thankful that we didn't try to pack in one more store, or else this break down wouldn't have been as funny!

Field Trip!

I have to start this post by saying that I LOVE that my sister now lives only an hour away from me. Last year, when she lived in southern Oregon, it was so hard! Now we get to see each other a lot and can plan fun field trips!

 

It's also so wonderful that we are both homeschooling our children using the same program (Classical Conversations). This years' program focus was American History, so a visit to the End of the Oregon Trail Museum in Oregon City was a must! The museum overall was ok, but the time with family was priceless!

Dressed up like pioneers (Sam, Seth, Clara, Aidah, Miriam, and Edmund)

Watching a very long-worded slideshow on the first Oregon settlers

The Oregon Trail!

A real covered wagon

Edmund teaching Josh to go down the stairs forward

A pretend school session, with teacher Miriam

The babies spent the day in power struggles with one another over various items. This is Edmund sharing the school bell string with Josh. Good sharing buddy!

Making their own candles was definitely a highlight of the day!

Miriam and Aidah

Sammy

 

Here is my brief opinion of the museum: the check-in process was very slow, and it seemed that they were more used to school groups checking in than individual families. It was only after wandering around for a bit that we acquired a "guide" that took us to the various sections of the museum. She was very nice and informative. She also worked with us to avoid the school field trip groups, which was nice (tip if you did want to avoid school groups all together: go in the afternoon around 2 o'clock, when all the groups have gone--the entire museum was empty except us and one other family). The museum was geared towards kids probably 7-12...a lot of reading, and not much for the really young ones. There were some fun hands on things such as providing pioneer dress-up clothes, loading a wagon base with pretend sacks, making their own candles, and the mock school room. A couple hours is plenty to tour the whole museum.