Squid Cake, Oh My!

Calvin had a fun birthday party.  He had a few friends over for his Octonaut themed party.  The invitations said to come help rescue the giant squid.  Calvin can change his mind frequently for what he wants for a cake, but when he settled on a squid a few weeks out from the birthday party, I told him there was no changing it.  He was super happy with his cake and party.

The cake!

 Creature Report - Learning about giant squids

 Bday boy and daddy.

Rescuing creatures from a bucket of sensory beads...fun!

Happy 5th Birthday, Calvin!

Dearest Sonshine!

Has it been five years already?!  It seems like just yesterday you were putting everything in your mouth and crawling around on the floor.  Now you only put things that "taste" good  in your mouth.  One of these days you will figure out that green veggies do "taste" good.  Ha!

You've sprouted up this year and have gained 3 inches in height!  Still not quite 40 pounds, you are a thriving, healthy 5 year old!  You've started kindergarten and love doing school at home with mom.  You can read and do math already, but do not like to write properly.  :)  We've got all year to work on it.

You are passionate about so many things, but your favorites are dinosaurs, rocks, sea life and octonauts.  You especially love whales and sharks, octopuses and squids.  In fact, you know quite a bit more about these things than I do!  That's how much of a learner you are.

You are a loving, kind brother most of the time.  And you love God so much that it makes our hearts burst with joy.  We love your inquisitive spirit and hope that you will always be this passionate about life.

Five is going to be a great year!  We love you with our whole heart pumpkin!!

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Family

We got to spend a little bit of time with family this past weekend as Aunt Goose came to visit.  Goose, aka Laura, is Brad's sister and she came down to celebrate her birthday with her mom.  They had some girl time earlier in the week and over the weekend we got to have some treasured family time.  The kids love spending time with their aunts and uncles and especially when they dress up and play fun games with them!  Costume hide and seek was a favorite this weekend.  Everyone was super sad to see her go, but so thankful for the time we got together! 

Great Grandpa

The kids' Great Grandpa Bob visited us last week from Florida.  He spent part of the time in LA with family down there and then part of the time up here with us.  All the family on this end got together each Saturday to do some fun things together.  This past Saturday we ended up down in Ventura, near the harbor.  We had a picnic lunch and then spent time at a small visitor's center near the harbor.  The kids enjoyed running around in the sun and as always, time went way too quickly. 

Half Birthday Photos

Here are a few photos from Sunday, Asher's half birthday. 

And Nana and Great Grandpa!

And four generations of boys...

Family Fun

Yesterday we drove up to Tehachapi for the day.  We were meeting Brad's Grandpa, Uncle and cousins from LA.  We had lunch up there at a fun German bakery and then headed to their small train museum.  Brad's Grandpa worked with trains all his life and they are one of his loves, so this was a fun time for him.  The kids love the trains too, so it was a fun time for them...win win!  What's not to love about trains?

After checking out the trains we headed to an ostrich farm.  We had a little tour and learned more about ostriches than we ever thought we could know.  We met a very famous ostrich, but his name is escaping me now...so maybe he's not that famous?  He's been in a few videos because he is so tame and doesn't bite at people...he also loves to get his picture taken, so he will stand very still when someone is doing that.  A perfect fit for a famous ostrich...if only I could remember his name. 

Afterward we drove home, but took a brief stop at the Tehachapi loop...the only place in the United States where you can see a train on top of itself when it is on the tracks.  There was just a tiny stretch that was too steep to go directly up, so they tunneled and wrapped around the mountain.  We only wish we had actually seen a train on the loop that day.  Next time. 

Today is Asher's 1/2 birthday!  We are going to celebrate a little bit tonight and hopefully in the next few days I can get some more pictures up on the blog.