About a Boy

Sometimes (usually) Sam-o wants to play a game with me.  Sometimes (usually), he chooses the classic game of War, and sometimes (usually) he totally cheats to win.  He slyly selects certain cards to play at certain times.  He refuses to give up certain cards when I beat him.  He will even go so far as to look through my discard pile and blatantly steal my "lucky cards."  I'm usually okay with anything that will speed up the War process.  :)

Sometimes (usually) he wears accessories, if not full costumes.  He loves wearing this Nerf bullet bandolier.  All the time.

On this particular day, he scurried to get into this "Animal Power Suit" before going to pick up the brothers from school.  He needed a plain white shirt WITH A POCKET, black pants, the bandolier, and Ellis' moose jacket that is a few sizes too big, and of course, the helmet and scooter!  The brothers were thoroughly impressed.

Sometimes Sam-o will ask for a taco at 10:30 in the morning and will announce that we can go ahead with our coloring because he'll eat it while we color.  After every few squiggles with the marker, he will pause, set the marker down, pick up the taco for a few bites, and say, "I'm just in it for the taco breaks."  True story!

Sometimes Sam and Ellis will go all-out on the costume requirement for the Blue and Gold banquet, such that there are no costume items left for Cub Scout Henry (who doesn't seem to mind).  Worth it, because have you ever seen two cuter cowboys?

Latergrams: in which February melts our hearts . . . and the sun melts our snow

Birthday lunch with my love. 33 seems like a good number!

And cupcakes with these three for after school snack because we have a crazy Wednesday night. This is also my subtle way of getting two cupcakes: one with the boys now, one with Ben later. #becauseican#birthdaygirl

Found this gem in President Monson's biography. It was Pres. McKay's remarks in Conference on the day Pres. Monson was made an apostle. #livingprophet#reallife #wordsofwisdom #ibelieve

Practicing his lines (and everyone else's) first thing in the morning after waking up. This boy could not be more excited about being in his first play!!! #ellisdebut#broadwaybound #shrekjunior

Found this Valentine Selfie on my phone. #xoxo

Celebrating our birthdays together, like the good old days. The three of us went out for dinner last night, and then tonight Jacob watched our kids while Ben and I had a very romantic date at Stake Conference.#goodtimes

The trading room is open for the morning. #luckycharms #rarepurplehorseshoes #happypresidentsday

Celebrating Ben's first publication in a top journal (finally!). Hoping for a few more of these in the next year (please???). #journaloffinancialeconomics #celebrationdinner

"Mom, it's either we get extra screen time, a treat, or no jobs tomorrow! Those are the options." #ultimatum #ellisandsam

Hoping this will cure many leg aches, knee aches, elbow pains, and many other excuses to come! Used 1 cup water, 1.5 cups sugar, 1/4 cup corn syrup, 2 packets Propel grape drink flavoring. Boiled 15 minutes and cooled. I will add that it tastes delicious! #placeboeffect #faketylenol #shhhhh

Costco and grocery store trips done, all without leaving my house. I could get used to this - especially the part where I don't have to do that whole Costco thing. #instacart #chicagoperk

Desperate to play outside, now that it's finally 37 degrees! #boys #needingspring

Our next door neighbors were intrigued by the idea of Mormon food, so we had them over for Sunday dinner. BBQ spare ribs, funeral potatoes, Lion House rolls, and Sarah's salad. We spared them the Jell-o and did a strawberry pie with Danish Dessert! Other than Jerry being afraid he would die from the funeral potatoes, I think they enjoyed it. #mormoncooking #sundaydinner

52 degrees is cause for celebration! #swingforspring

If only Henry had a cooler mom, his life dreams would be fulfilled, and he would get to play in these puddles for at least 45 minutes both before and after school. Every day. #dreams #springthaw #midwestliving

I just learned that this boy, who will never look at the camera, will pose perfectly if I flip the camera around to selfie mode! Apparently his own face is much more fun to look at than the back of my phone.  #saycheese #cameratrick

Happy to have warmer weather to enjoy this Chicago tradition! #chicagorivergoesgreen #saintpatricksday

Plus donuts, bagpipes, and the green bodysuit dude.#citylife #glazedandinfused #saintpatschicago

Glad to know we're raising boys who know how to jump through the hoops required to get their screen time (and completely defeat the purpose of hanging up a shirt). #boys

A Birthday Fit for a Knight

If you know Sam very well, you know that his favorite thing of all time is his birthday.  He thinks about it, dreams about it, and talks about it for about 364 days before the big day finally comes!  He has been scheming about his birthday for months and months, trying to come up with the perfect theme for his cake and party.  These are some of the theme ideas he came up with:

Cheese party

Mummy party

Beaver party

Thanksgiving party

Skunk party

Balloon party

Clipboard party

Hair party

Show party

Wii party

Snack party

Lego party

Pirate party

Bad guy party

Alien party

Bug party

Food fight party

After discussing in detail with Henry and Ellis, however, Sam realized that the party theme may heavily influence the type of gifts people might bring.  This made it easy to decide.  If he wanted people to bring him Knight & Castle Legos, he should have a KNIGHT PARTY.

Since nothing is more fun than getting ready for a birthday party, Sam chose to spend three hours of his birthday helping/supervising me with the cake.  Yes, there were specifications to be met.  During lulls between frosting tasting and sprinkle rolling, he checked the iPad to see which "guy" we were listening to at the moment (he requested the Bach station on Pandora and was totally intrigued by which musician came up next).

Like I said, specifications.  Sam made pretty much every decision about this cake - starting with the four Pinterest pictures we fused together and ending with chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate!  This might be the most time I have ever spent on a birthday cake...but he was there with me for every detail, and I couldn't go with less-than-perfect for my knight's castle cake!

We got to take a few breaks during the day to do other important birthday things.

We had presents and cupcakes with the brothers on the night of Sam's birthday.  His party was the next day.

Okay, so the castle cake totally leaned backwards.  But who cares, right?

I prepared this sword in the stone the night before . . . totally underestimating the amount of corn starch (and drying time) I would need for the air dry clay.  Meh, Sam didn't care!

Table decorations, picked out by Sam exactly 6 weeks prior to the big day

All of the lucky knights and princesses eating their evening meal.  We regretted that we don't have room in our dining room for a giant round table!

Um, they pulled out the sword and broke the stone on the first try.  

But they all had fun pretending to keep trying to get the sword out while Ben held it together!

Andrew was pretty happy about it.

The kids decorated their own shields.  They also had sword training and catapult practice with Ben.  It was really pretty low key, since I was still recovering from the PTA event.  All of it went according to Sam's plans though, and that made him happy.

And I'm going to post all four of these pictures of my boy, because they all capture different aspects of his adorable personality.  

My baby is four years old.  I can't believe it!  I love him so much.

Family Game Night

For most of January and February, I was lost to the world while my mind focused on two things: keeping my family alive and planning Lincolnwood School's Family Game Night.  I am learning that at our school, if you are any sort of involved parent at all, you're going to end up with some kind of PTA job.  I've decided that planning an event is a good job for me.  It's big; it's fun; it consumes my life; and then it's over, and I can get on with my life.  I have done my duty!  

Last year, I helped with the food for the "Wizard of Oz" themed event.  This year, they asked me to be the chairperson in charge of the same "Family Night" event, but this year they wanted it to be a game night.  Like last year, I enjoyed taking on a temporary career (it's fun to play pretend).  I got to be an event planner, a graphic designer, and a dictator.  I must say that all of those roles play to my interests as well as my strengths.  :)  This was the flyer/logo that we based everything on.

I created these "Sticker boards" that the kids could complete throughout the event by participating in games and activities.  When completed, it looked like a Twister board!  I can't tell you how giddy I was the night I realized that those colored circle labels come in the exact colors of Twister!

I was horrible at taking pictures at the event.  But this was the welcome area.

And the welcome table with our balloon smile (opposite of arch).  

The gym, center of food and games.

We served pizza, fruit, veggies, water bottles, and cookies.  Free dinner for the family!

Kids wore the sticker boards around their necks.  When they finished their boards, they got a cool keepsake button as a prize. 

(I love our PTA president who got giddy about buying a button maker!!!)

We had all sorts of games around the perimeter of the gym.  This was Candy Land...

Basically a cake walk, but they got candy as prizes!

Giant Twister

Cornhole

Life Size Angry Birds

Giant Boggle

Name that Tune

Tic Tac Toe

Giant Bowling

Telephone game

Memory with the teacher's faces

While games were going on throughout the school, we had a school-themed Family Feud game show in the auditorium.

Welcome table for the game show

One of our dads was an awesome host while Ben ran the questions on the projector.

The kids had a lot of fun answering questions

And Ellis was delighted to be a contestant!

Overall, it ended up being a really fun night!  It was a great thing for our school families to do right in the dead of winter.  The school felt warm and bright and happy.  I had fun planning the event and working with other parents.  It took at least 80 parent volunteers to make the night happen, and so many people were wonderful to help out.  We really love our school community and feel lucky to be a part of it.