FAMILY BLOG: Daniel's Family Birthday Party, the Staypuff Marshmallow Girl, and the "Brother Hitter"

Again I must add we will probably not be getting our rental deposit back. I found Noah's handiwork just a few days ago. He has decided teething rings are for sissies--blinds are the best things to teeth on. We have bite marks on all over our blinds at about Noah height. Don't they look lovely?

Anyway, this week is Red Ribbon week at Josh and Daniel's elementary school. To celebrate it they have different fun things for the kids to do every day. Yesterday was crazy hair day. Josh wanted me to shave him bald, but we ran out of time. Instead they both got their hair spiked up everywhere. When Sarah saw me taking their picture, she insisted on being in it as well. She had a serious case of bed head so she fit right in with crazy hair day.

As difficult and strong willed as Sarah can be, she sure does look like an angel when she is asleep. I am just going to come back and look at this picture next time we are in the middle of a full blown tantrum to remind myself she can be a sweet girl. That is when she is asleep and not screaming...

They finally broke ground for our new house on Monday. They were supposed to pour the footings on Tuesday, but it ended up being quite stormy. Unfortunately, it will continue to be stormy the rest of the week so who knows when they can pour any cement. Hopefully soon because all this close family togetherness in our small rental house is wearing on everyone's nerves!!!

Daniel's birthday was last Friday, but we didn't have our family party for him until Saturday because he went to a friend's birthday party at the zoo all day Friday. To celebrate Daniel's birthday we went to Cornbelly's Corn Maze Saturday morning. Afterward we headed over to Dairy Keen to have our usual heart attack on a bun and then on up to the cabin. We didn't let Daniel open his presents or have his birthday cake until we got up to the cabin. By the time we finally made it up to the cabin Daniel was very anxious to open his presents. In his haste to get to his presents, he knocked over his cake and of course it landed frosting side down on the floor. Luckily the cake pan did have a lid on it so it wasn't a huge mess, it just massacred my frosting masterpiece :(. I try to decorate the kids' birthday cakes with a theme or hint of what they are getting for their birthday. Daniel was getting a Wii Mario soccer game for his birthday so I decorated it with a Mario Mushroom that was supposed to look like this:

But it instead ended up looking like this after Daniel knocked it over:

After mourning the loss of all my hard work on his cake he finally got to open his presents. He got a football, transformer, a Wii game and a Nerf toy in the shape of Thor's Hammer.

I had to laugh when I saw the warnings on the Nerf version of Thor's Hammer:

Do not hit or swing at people or animals, Use away from breakable objects, and TO AVOID INJURY: Discontinue use if core is exposed. Really what fun would that be if you followed the rules? Right out of the box we nicknamed it The Brother Hitter. He had fun with it, however when he set it down Noah got a hold of it. Noah thought it might be a good teething object like the blinds and bit a chunk off the handle.

Daniel was not happy about that when he saw what Noah had done. Well so much for following the rules. Daniel has hit people with it (and animals too if you count his siblings), and has also broke stuff with it as well as played with it when the core of it has been exposed--thanks to Noah. Who needs the rules anyway? The Brother Hitter is still alive and well, but for now it has been put out of Noah's reach, though. That's ok, Noah has gone back to teething on the blinds anyway.

While we were at the cabin the kids were swinging on the tree swing. They like Aaron to pull them high so they can reach the leaves of the tree on the other side of the swing. It was Josh's turn when Aaron swung him super high. Josh reached for the leaves and grabbed a branch of the Aspen tree on the other side. Josh held on so tight he ended up pulling the whole Aspen tree over roots and all. Afterward Josh kept telling us about how strong he really is. It didn't take any convincing for him to pose for this strong arm pose in front of the tree he pulled over:

While at the cabin we roasted some marshmallows. Sarah LOVES them. In fact Sarah loves anything. I have yet to find a food she does not like. Anyway, she ate quite a few marshmallows. I don't know how much she really ended up eating versus how much got smeared all over her face, hands, hair, shirt and pants. She started resembling the Stay puff Marshmallow man by the time we were done roasting "smarshmallows" as the kids call them. When we were done roasting marshmallows she was so sticky she had to take a shower.

While we were up at the cabin we did listen to Conference...that is if you can call this listening:

Matthew fell asleep next to Grandpa T. and they were both just a snoring away during the session.

Noah had lots of fun roaming around the cabin, playing and biting chunks out of Daniel's Brother Hitter.