The Captain turns 6

The Captain's birthday was on a Sunday this year, just like his actual birth day.  There were lots of flashbacks, believe me.  

He wanted a party, and I didn't want a hassle, so we compromised by inviting his school and church friends to the park on Saturday.  The weather was nice enough to cooperate with us.

 We ate cake and snacks in the pavilion.

 A Lego cake, of course.

 All his friends sat at one table . . . 

 And he sat alone at another.

Instead of goodie bags, we had a piñata. 

 These days they just have strings for you to pull instead of punching everyone's lights out with a stick. Smart.

 There was much grabbing and everyone got plenty of candy.

 Then everyone played at the park as long as they wanted.  Totally the easiest birthday I've done in awhile.

 Saturday night was Women's Conference and afterwards the Stake had a snack of mini pancakes, Nutella, strawberries and whipping cream.  They had plenty, so I brought some home with me.  It made the perfect birthday breakfast.

 Because I'm mean, I made The Captain wait until Sunday after church to open all his presents, including his party ones.

We have some generous friends, so he got some great stuff.  We gave him a guitar to help him with his musical education.

Learning with Daddy

Rocking out

He also got a sleeve tattoo for his birthday.  It went great with
the rock star look.

March

In March Johnny had his first international trip of the year and was gone for a week.  During that week, The Captain had a parents' night at his school.  We got to go explore the classrooms and see what the teachers are doing.  The kids' favorite room was The Captain's home room where they study science and math.  We played some great math games, and built stuff.

Spring break we had some nice weather, but multiple people were sick so we didn't get to do anything.  So on Saturday, we took Johnny and the kids to the madhouse that was the science museum on Spring Break weekend.  

I had to keep reminding the children that we have memberships so we'll come back when no one is there and they can play all the games they want.  They did not find it immediately comforting.

As I recall, the weather in March was not always the great.  So on the nice days, we tried to get out and do something fun, like feed the ducks at the library.

March started what has become the monsoon season in Texas.  We've had rain steadily for two months now.  It turned our grass into a jungle.

Miss Lee is 9 months

Okay, technically these were taken when Lee was 10 months, but still, this happened in February.

 I made some angel wings as a photography prop.  Luckily I had a cute model who was too young to protest.

 Her 9 month stats are 18 lbs. 27.6" Just above average, except her head, which is small.  

 A lot of people ask me if she is really that happy all the time.  And although she is much happier with a crowd of people and lots of things going on, generally, yes, she is this happy.

February

It was a beautiful February.  The temperature was mild.  The trees were blooming, then snow hit us.

So I sent the kids out to shovel.

They did not enjoy it.

It was much more fun when Daddy joined them to build a snowman.

And they got to play.

Sadly, there were multiple snow storms, so we spent a lot of time indoors rocking out.

We also got a membership to the science museum, so we spent some of our time there, and have often since.

January

Johnny had a birthday in January, like he does every year.

I made him a cake and took him to an awesome dinner.  After knowing him for 20 years, I've finally figured out how to celebrate his birthday successfully. 

We found out they had family operas for $5/ticket, so we took the family to the opera house.

They had coloring and crafts before hand.

We recognized the Opera House the minute we got outside because we had been there almost six years earlier when The Captain was a baby.  So we tried to recreate that moment.

Here's him at 7 months and almost 6 years.
And for comparison, Lee at 7 months.  (And of course Miss Joy needed in on the action.)

Some Catch up . . . finally

Over Christmas, we travelled back to Utah to see the folks.  We drove straight through the night, which for some reason I expected to take longer.  We got to my parent's house about 12 hours before I planned.  We got lucky to avoid snow storms and not have too many grumpy children stops.  Miss Lee did much better than I thought she would.  And in return, she got some serious grandparent time.

We decided to do back to back vacations and headed to San Diego after we were done with Utah.  We stopped off to see my grandma first, which required a walk around the temple.

We spent some time at the beach - as one does

cousins

rock cave

shaking sand on rocks

seal cove

We went to Legoland

building

driving

boat ride

 And Disneyland.  Sorry so few pictures, we were off having fun.

And the Zoo

Sleeping hippos

In case you're curious, or worried for our sanity, it's the same amount of time to drive from San Diego to Dallas as from Dallas to Salt Lake.  So we made a big triangle.  Plus we got to stop off at my sister's in Phoenix on my way home and ran into my aunt, uncle and cousins while we were there.  We had a great time.  More to come.