Birthday Thank-Yous!

With three of the boys’ birthdays in the months September and October, it can get a little busy around here. The boys just wanted to thank their grandparents and great grandparents who sent them birthday money, and share what they chose to get with it:

Camden used his birthday money to get his monkey costume and wings – he was so excited to pick out his own costume for Halloween this year and to be a “winged monkey” to go along with the Wizard of Oz theme with his brothers. Then he also used the rest of his money to get a stuffed horse, which he named Penny, and two more plastic animals to add to his set: a killer whale and a raccoon. (We had just finished listening to our latest library audio book in the car – the American Girl books about Felicity, and so Camden originally named his horse Felicity, but after a few days he changed the name to Penny, which was the name of Felicity’s horse in the stories). Camden has been sleeping with Penny since then.

Isaac was excited when Mommy suggested we get him training wheels, a pump, and a cute little bell so we could fix up the little bike that’s been sitting in the garage for a few months so he could ride it. Then, when we were heading out of the store, he found these two winter hats that he insisted on getting with his remaining birthday money. (Even though the hats are pretty big for him, they’re still adorable on him, and I guess that just means he’ll have plenty of room to grow). Unfortunately, after Mommy and Daddy spent about half an hour that night putting on the stubborn training wheels and bell, we then realized that the bike was in worse condition than we had realized (not only did the back tire refuse to hold air when it was pumped up, but we failed to notice that the bike had no chain). So, we’ll be returning the bike items and letting him choose something else, but he still has those cute hats that he likes to wear.

(Thanks to Camden, for helping model Isaac’s hat for the photo).

 And Kolby had a lot of fun choosing what to use his birthday money for.  I had the idea to go to Michaels, and he and I went together one night (it was actually really fun to just casually walk around the store without lots of little hands grabbing at things on the shelves and poking their brothers – thanks, Michael, for keeping the other boys at home so Kolby and I could do that together).  Kolby told me he was really excited to get some things for painting, and I took a deep breath and said that would be alright (that’s a pretty big thing for me – the mommy who doesn’t allow markers or paints in the house).  So, I told Kolby we could walk around the store and he could put things in the cart that he was interested in and then at the end he could choose what he was going to get.  We were there for 2 hours, and it was lots of fun.  So, at the end of the night Kolby got about 4 paint-by-numbers kits with paint and brushes, three sets of these cool things where you can use a little etching tool to scrape off the top layer of a black paper to expose the shiny foil paper underneath as you etch pictures, about 8 ceramic Christmas ornaments and a set of glittery paint in reds, greens, and whites to paint them with, a book of word searches, a set of different sized paint brushes, a box with origami papers and an instruction book, a plastic bin to put all of his art into, and a little flashlight with characters from the Disney “Cars” movie.  It was fun for me to see what art projects he was interested in (and I did veto a few, such as the wood-burning kit), and how frugal he was with spending his birthday money so that he could get the most items for his money.  But it was also good for me to see what he was excited about, (and how inexpensive some of these little painting projects are, so that’s great for the future too).  So, here are a couple of pictures of Kolby when he used his art box for the first time yesterday – he’s wearing one of Daddy’s big shirts as an art smock, and he started with the origami, did a little bit of the etching, and moved on to start one of the paint-by-numbers before little brothers started waking up from naps.  Oh, and it was pretty cute:  One of Michael’s sisters called to wish Kolby and happy birthday and he told her about his new art box.  So, she asked Kolby if he was going to be an artist someday like Uncle Al (Michael’s brother, Alan, is an animator), and Kolby said, “I already am.”

Thank you!