Bunny Buns and other fun

I love these two pictures because they tell a little story. In the first, the boys are having a great time. In the second, there's the realization that they should have thought this through. (I love McKay's face.)
Our most recent family photo: Christmas 2010.
Carter is on a baseball team for the first time this year, but there's not that much baseball. Mostly the games get rained out, as they did on this fateful day.
We have been getting the boys more involved in household chores. McKay has this strange desire to watch the Food Network at all hours, so we have an inexplicable urge to cook elaborate dishes for dinner each night. A few nights ago I asked Carter if he wanted to dredge the chicken, fully expecting him to say no. I was surprised to hear him say he wanted to help, but really more surprised by what a good job he did. (And when it was done he ATE it - Mr. Picky Eater himself...) You know how when Mothers' Day rolls around and kids ask "Why isn't there a Kids' Day?" and the standard answer is "Everyday is Kids' Day." Kind of true. Today is Mothers' Day and we spent the afternoon taking the kids to the park and working on a recipe that Carter found in April's issue of "The Friend": Bunny Buns. I let the boys do as much as was safe and they were really excited to decorate their bunny buns, even though all we had were Valentine's Day sprinkles.The globs at the bottom are tails, I think. I like McKay's best because it has red eyes and fangs. I wonder if that was on purpose. Anyway, as Carter said, "They are delicious!" Light and sweet with a hint of orange and a sugar glaze. The ears could have been longer.
Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

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.