Birthday Boy Alec

We had early morning present opening and celebrating as usual for Alec's 8th birthday. 

Gifts of rubber band bracelets from Trevor

   Pokemon is what Alec loves these days. I'm in the middle of planning a Pokemon party. We invited all the boys in his class. I know next to nothing about Pokemon, so this is a crash course for me. The Internet will save me. Thank you, Pinterest. Alec has never had a big party with friends, (in 8 years! I'm a little embarrassed about admitting this) so I am trying to make it up to him for his special eighth birthday. The next few days will be busy.

Traditional breakfast in bed

Alec requested bacon and cheese omelets, bagels, and grapefruit with an Orange/Strawberry Julius. 

Nice choice!

If he could only put Pokemon down and eat it...

  Before we went to church I asked him to smile for a few pictures so I could put one on his baptism invitation. He really struggles with giving nice smiles to the camera as you know. It wasn't that easy or fun- poor kid- I was torturing him with pictures on his birthday. Amazingly, a few treats from the treasure box made it all better, even with all the parade loot he still has in his own box in his room. I guess you can't have too much candy...

 This one is okay!

Oh, how Alec loves to wear a tie. 

Landon, showing Alec how it's done

I took one picture of Landon and it turned out nearly perfect- that easy.

I don't understand. 

This is what Alec did. 

He acts like that tie is strangling him. It's a clip-on!

Showing those nice new front teeth

  

 

I went to Geoff for help. 

He balanced Alec on the railing of the deck and held him there until he smiled. 

"Stop freaking out, Alec. I wouldn't let you fall on your birthday," I heard Geoff say.

(sounds kind of mean, huh? )

What do you know? It worked. Alec is adorable.

Love this one! The boy can take a normal picture after all! And such a good-looking kid!

I love Alec. He's such a good boy. We are excited for his baptism and that our family is coming from California to celebrate with us! 

Maren and Andrew

Maren and Andrew went to Homecoming a couple of weeks ago. Don't they look cute? 

(Andrew's mom took these pictures for me, since I couldn't be there.)

Maren's lamented that after 2 hours of curling her hair, the ringlets had practically fallen out by the time Andrew came for her. It still looks pretty to me.

     

Andrew and Maren play the French horn and mellophone together in the Lafayette Band.

We like Andrew's ginger hair, and he's a really nice kid too. :)

The Candy Parade (Homecoming)

This is our third year going to the Lafayette Homecoming Parade which the kids call "The Candy Parade." We were surprised the first year when the children were showing up with pillow cases. What are they going to do with those, I thought. They knew the drill. Basically you can get as much candy as you can carry at this parade. The children come prepared. It seems that every person who walks in the parade carries a bag of candy to distribute. The Barney and Kesner children were beyond excited.

Maren's band led the parade. I showed up a little early and parked our family right across from the band so I could get a few pictures. (not sure how Maren felt about that- oh well) She looked so good in her uniform and so happy with her band buddies. 

Annalisa got to hold the mellophone 

Maren and Andrew (Maren's date to the Homecoming Dance)

Waiting for the parade to start

 

   

Unfortunately they started to play after they passed us. But at least I saw Maren marching. 

Love that girl!

Here they come!

Adam brought an umbrella. He saw someone do this last year and thought it was a brilliant idea.

I thought it seemed so greedy to have such a large candy catcher, (I made him stand a little apart from the family) but everyone in the parade seemed to love it. I heard teenagers and adults commenting on the great idea. He stood by a tree and kids on the floats got to practice hitting the umbrella target. When the floats passed he quickly gathered up all the candy that didn't make it into the umbrella. When it got too heavy and nearly ready to break he emptied it and resumed his candy collection. I saw him dumping huge handfuls into children's bags and buckets. Typical Adam. He doesn't even really like candy that much. He gets a lot of satisfaction from giving it away though.

Alec, on the other hand, LOVES candy. He was in heaven.

 Each cheerleader/ football player/etc. dropped a piece into his bag until it got quite heavy.

There's that target practice I mentioned.

Some floats were very cute.

He can barely stand. Ridiculous.

 

Finally he had to sit. 

Andrea Moore dropped in a piece for the greedy little monster.

I hope she was giving Adam a bad time about the umbrella.

 

This was always my favorite part of Halloween- sorting the candy stash.

I did take a lot of this and stick it into the piano treasure chest. It's now full to the top. Thanks guys! (They didn't complain even once. They knew better.)