Happy Birthday to our SEVEN year old, Caleb!

Caleb's 7-year-old birthday celebration started with a joint party at a magic house with his BFF Malin, whose birthday is the same day!  They had a great time with all their first grade buddies and got to bounce around on inflatables, enjoy a magic show, learn magic tricks and have treats:

Today, on his actual birthday, Carolyn and I went to the kids' elementary school to bring cupcakes and read a story.  Caleb picked out "Halloweenie," and ended up reading the whole book to his class, only needing help with a couple of words! 

Total Eclipse of the Pizza Party

On one of the very first days of school (Avery's in 5th grade now! And Caleb's a big 1st grader!), there was an exciting total solar eclipse!  I went to their school to watch the eclipse with them.  All the kids had made solar glasses and were very safe about not looking directly at the eclipse until there was complete coverage, and the sky got dark and we started hearing crickets chirping.  It was really cool.

A couple of weeks later, some camping plans that Caleb and I had fell through, so in order to still have a fun Friday night, we invited some kids over to make pizzas and watch the Captain Underpants movie.  It was a lot of fun! Even Ella from down the street came by to hang out with the little boys.  And our friend Melanie brought capes for the kids to wear to get into superhero mode while they watched the movie.  So fun!

Avery goes to sleepaway camp

We love Trout Lodge in Potosi and have gone several times for family weekend getaways.  When Avery asked us if he could go to Camp Lakewood there for overnight summer camp, we said yes, but were a bit nervous about him being away from home for the first time.  We shouldn't have worried -- he loved it and did great! Next year, he'll go for an entire week (this year's session was a mini 4-day
/3-night session for 1st-time campers).

Happy camper at pickup!

Santa Claus, Indiana

We had a 3-day weekend so decided to go somewhere new -- Santa Claus, Indiana! It's a cute town, but there's not a lot there except for the big amusement park, Holiday World.  But we had fun, as we always do! We stayed at the Santa Lodge motel, which had an indoor and outdoor pool, ziplines, paddle boats and a trampoline bounce.  We also went to the big Christmas store and bought some ornaments and even saw Santa, who asked the boys if they clean their rooms and eat their veggies. He let them sign their names on the "Nice" list!

WRTS Birthday Party

We had won a birthday party package at We Rock the Spectrum, an indoor gym designed for kids with autism, and it was great! We had the whole place to ourselves, and Avery and his Hudson pals had a great time.  The kids loved the zipline, the trampoline, the swings, and the food we brought! It was perfect:

And on Avery's actual birthday, we celebrated with Melanie, Chris, Gogo and Grandpa by having dinner all together at the Cheesecake Factory: