Just Keep Swimming: Happy 9th Birthday to Archie!

Yeah, I know...this happened at the BEGINNING of November. What can I say? Life is busy with three kids and one who fancies herself an adult.

I struggled with what to do for Archie's birthday again. First of all, we've been having a battle of the 'stuff' around here. Too much of it. I've been on a cleaning kick for over a month now, and after several trips to Goodwill and probably many unhappy garbage men, I can honestly say that it's hard to fit six people, one cat and one guinea pig and all of their things into a 1300 square feet living space.

So part of my reluctance of doing a big 'to do' with lots of kids was having all the chaos in the house. And the stuff they brought with them. We thought about doing laser tag, but I was a bit worried about the price tag that goes with it. So at the last minute (for me anyway...the MONDAY before the party on Saturday) I asked the powers that be at the church if I could use the gymnasium space. And they said yes! Happy Day! So for the day OF his birthday on Friday, we had a family gathering. Dinner of his choice was Chinese buffet. He made his own birthday cake (the orange dreamsicle cake) so we did dinner, then came home for gifts and cake. It was a very nice evening.

The next evening was the party at the church gymnasium. It couldn't have worked out more splendidly! We were able to use all the church gym games--hula hoops, basket balls, kick balls, corn hole set, hockey sticks..plus one of the kids brought foam light sabers.

That's another thing I was super pleased about...the kids who came! It was so nice that our other homeschool friends were supportive of Archie and came to his party. The only thing that didn't work out so well was the cake. Since we made the family party cake, I decided to have Kroger make the kid party cake. Archie picked out a Batman Cupcake cake. It looked fine, but it tasted horrible! How hard is it to make cupcakes at a bakery??? Geez!

Archie said that it was the best Cincinnati Birthday ever! So score for us!

Here are some pictures from both parties:

We used the ole relighting candles on his cake. They made LOTS of smoke.

Archie had his bike stolen in the summer. Reemie & Bumpa got him a new one for his birthday! He was very surprised. We saved it til last, but Lawrence kept saying "bike! bike!" over and over again while Archie was opening the other gifts. Fortunately, he was too distracted by everything else to pay too much attention to Lawrence!

Here is a snippet of Archie opening gifts. If you watch Lawrence closely, you will see him pick up a gift, and carry it off into the kitchen while he thinks no one is watching. He is very sneaky, that Lawrence of mine!

My Uncle Chris has been back in the US for a couple of months. It was really nice to have him at Archie's birthday party!

I included these so you could see what Lydia and Lawrence look like. Little kids and babies change so quickly. Lawrence had just pushed her backward and she was trying to re-set herself. She looks rather annoyed, doesn't she?