Saturday, November 13, 2010

Star Wars Birthday Party = Escalating chaos

The boys' birthdays are not today. Carter's Birthday was last week, McKay's birthday is next week. I wanted to give them seperate birthdays, but they wanted a Star Wars party, so we decided to give them a combined party. And time-wise we just split the difference.

We prepared for this party for over a month. We sewed little Jedi robes for all of their friends, we made lightsabers from pipe insulation, we planned activities, set up a skit (wrote a script, got a costume), and constructed a Death Star pinata (how do you add the ~?). By today, Suzanne and I were SICK of Star Wars - we wish we could just force it all out of our brains. Ugh!



Kind of last minute, we built a small obstacle course - a cardboard box tunnel, a bench to crawl over, spots on the floor to run on, and balloons to beat the children at the end. I named it "The Kessel Run" (the Millenium Falcon made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, according to Han Solo, even though a parsec is a measure of distance and not time) and assigned a spacey name to each part. I narrated as each child ran it - "Out of the hangar, over the mountains, down the hyperspace corridor, and through the asteroid field!" To our surprise, it was the hit of the party. The kids LOVED getting beat up by the punch ball balloons at the end!

We trained the kids then to fight with a lightsaber, which was a lucky thing, because Darth Vader himself tried to crash the party. (Movie below - click the play button)


The kids made short work of him and he left behind a clue to the location of the Death Star. The kids went on a treasure hunt to find the Death Star and quickly blew it up.

Then it was time for cake and ice cream then back for more of the Kessel Run (at the kids' request) until the box tunnel fell to pieces and the adults were too tired to hit anybody with another balloon. The boys opened their presents...
After that, there were no plans. I don't know how things went to complete anarchy so quickly. The kids hit each other with balloon punch balls and lightsabers and there was no controlling them. The paint came off the lightsabers, glitter from the Death Star was tracked everywhere, and the noise level and energy level got higher and higher. We were very glad when the party ended. We said goodbye to the last guest, and we were exhausted but still had to clean up. I think everyone had a lot of fun and I hope the boys will remember it.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween pictures 2010

Halloween! Personally one of my favorite holidays. I don't really know what we're celebrating - things that make you afraid? Whatever. It's fun to dress up like a weirdo and all anyone says is "Great costume!" Here's one of the boys with some glasses they got from Aunt Sherene. I pretend to scream everytime they wear them. So they wear them a lot.Carter and McKay have been obsessed with Lego Star Wars for the Wii for MONTHS. This is McKay with a toy golf club (which he tore apart to make a sword) showing off his Jedi fearsomeness. So it was only natural that they become little Jedi for Halloween. Costumes weren't really that hard, and you might see them again around birthday time... can't say more right now.
Ready for the Halloween party!
Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Not summer yet, but we'll take it!

First, some clean-up - or pictures that don't fit the title that we still wanted to post. McKay insists this is the only way to eat a tortilla. Reminds me of the old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercials: "How do you do that, Rog?"Then 2 pictures of Easter. The first was at our house. It was cold and we found slugs on some of our plastic eggs.The second at Great Grandpa Phillips' house in Redding. It was about a week later, if I remember right. I love the puzzled look on their faces. I think I had just said, "You missed one right around here..."

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On to the 'Not summer yet' pictures! We spent a warm Sunday afternoon at Fogarty Creek (10 miles north). We had a great time. Here's me taking advantage of the first warm beach we've seen in many months.

Suzanne loves this beach, so we go there a lot. I think it's because the waves crash on the rocks and you can sit close to the waves and never have to run from them.Carter on the bridge over Fogarty Creek on the way back from the car.Carter's soccer team was the Lions. He was the oldest kid on his team and was the one they trusted most to get the ball up the field. Here we are at one of his practices. The coach wasn't there so the parents got into the drills. We're going faster than we look... really! McKay got bored at practices and found interesting ways to entertain himself. "For you, Mommy!"Carter's last game was the first game we remembered to bring the camera. After warming up he was sent off the field to wait until it was his turn to play. "It's not fair! I want to play first."He did get to play - here's a corner kick that he learned from the Karate Kid. (Not really)End-of-season party at one of the other kid's houses. Awesome treehouse with a shaky ladder. Here he's asking for help getting down.The medal for finishing the season. He had a lot of fun.Here's me paragliding. Just kidding. This guy was floating over our own Nye Beach. Suzanne said it looked boring but I want to try it.We actually went to Nye Beach to get rid of some stale bread. We stood near the drainage ditch and fed the seagulls. It looks like they're flying past us but they're not. They're flying into the wind and hovering right there - right over my head. I didn't see him.Now I do. "AAAAH! Shoo! Go away!"Nice catch, bird! The birds that hovered and caught mid-air got a lot more bread than those on the ground or in the drainage ditch behind us.We went to the bayfront later and this was the first time we've seen the capture cage. One sea lion had a chronic injury - a loop of twine wrapped around his neck and cut deep into his flesh. They couldn't risk a tranquilizer dart until he was trapped in this cage so he wouldn't escape into the water, lose consciousness, and drown. Once he was trapped, they darted him then the local vet and a couple of marine biologists cut the twine. They intended the cage for intermittent use but as you can see the sea lions love it! There are only 7 or 8 on the dock. The guy next to us on the overlook counted 23 in the cage. We laughed really hard when the big one nearest the gate climbed in on top of all the others. They all got mad and barked and shifted for a couple of minutes, then they all went right back to sleep. Lazy brutes.My beautiful sweetie and handsome boys in front of the sea lion overlook. McKay and me seated on the same iron chain.
Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Another post

Where to begin? Oh yeah, excuses. Sorry I don't update this page as often as I should. I wish I had good reason, but really I don't. I usually spend my free time doing stupid stuff and some important things end up falling by the wayside. Like Carter's tooth.Sunset at South Beach just before...A couple of weeks ago we had a bonfire on the beach with some friends. Good thing it was on the beach and there was nothing nearby to burn because that fire was a lot higher than we expected (like 10 feet high). Maybe it was the gasoline. Yeah, I brought the marshmallows, the other guy was in charge of the fire. We had visits from Grandma Carter and Gramma and Papa Phillips within about a week of each other. Somehow we didn't get pictures of any of them, but the boys were in photo shoots the whole week - like them climbing on this turtle at the aquarium with Grama and Papa Phillips...... and this hike with Grandma CarterThe hike is the Mike Miller trail in South Beach which ends at this little bridge over a pond. Suzanne couldn't wait for me to see it because last time she was there she saw tons of newts in the water. They swam up to the surface, curious to see what was causing that shadow.This time they were not so curious. We were lucky to get this picture. I could have lied and said it was the Loch Ness monster.We had an Easter egg hunt today (Saturday) in the primary room at church. I tried to take pictures of the actually hunting but all the camera was able to capture was a series of blurs and not-so-cute, ferocious-hunter glares from the boys. But here's a picture once they'd returned to normal. The search party after the mayhem had calmed down.
Before you look at the next picture I want to be perfectly clear: We are NOT announcing anything. We are not pregnant. We have no intentions to become pregnant. The following picture reflects Carter's wishes and do not reveal anything about our family. Ok, that out of the way, Carter brought this home from kindergarten. His teacher wrote the caption. We thought it was adorable because Carter is CONSTANTLY talking about wanting a baby. Now he talks about it at school. The caption is "My family I want it to be like" then he wrote "Dad Mom McKay Carer (Carter) Baby"
Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Carter can ride!

Winter may finally be coming to an end here on the Oregon coast. Two weeks ago I had five days off in a row! Sadly it rained everyday and McKay was sick, so I got to paint some walls and play the Wii. Ho-hum. But the sun has been out and the days have been beautiful and I have four days off this week! Sadly it's supposed to rain everyday again.
In the meantime I've been stealing an hour here and a half-hour there to teach Carter to ride a bike with no training wheels. We haven't had a chance because of the rain until now, but Carter is making up for lost time. A few days ago we got him a bigger bike (because he hasn't really fit on his 12 incher for over a year) and took him to a grassy park. I ran along holding the seat and it only took him a couple of tries to ride all by himself. Today we took him to a different park and he had a harder time because the grass was so thick - he couldn't get moving.
There's an asphalt jogging track at that park, so we moved over to that and I hovered closer, sure Carter would fall and skin something. Instead he took off like a bullet. You all know I like to run, but Carter gave me a good workout. I think he was moving at a good 6.5-7 mph - I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to keep up!
I couldn't just let him ride for a couple of reasons:
1. He gets confused when it's time to stop. I had to save him from running into a closed gate about 4 times today. (Look 100 yards ahead of Carter in the above picture)
2. When he finally does stop, he has trouble catching himself and he and the bike collapse to the ground in a little boy/metal & rubber pretzel.
We're working on that, but I can't let him go alone yet. So, here's me (below), running about as fast as I can without sprinting, my jacket now in my hand, flapping behind me. Suzanne thinks it's funny to see me pluck him off the bike when he's headed for a bad fall. The bike tips, he goes down... but OverProtective Dad swoops in to save the day.
Here's our little guy, too pooped to party anymore. He wore the helmet and protective gear in the car the whole way home. McKay is not ready to go without training wheels. He's still working on learning to pedal instead of scooting along Fred Flintstone style. (On Carter's old bike)

I think by the end of the summer they'll both be pros. Carter already has plans to ride to school. We'll see.