My inspiration for this record of my days:

“The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less” -Anna Quindlen

Monday, January 17, 2011

Better late than never

Caleb’s birthday comes at a very busy time of year.  It’s right around Thanksgiving.  And then it’s December… and Christmas… and New Year’s… and back to school.  So that is my excuse for just barely getting around to throwing him a birthday party.

He wanted high adventure, and I think that’s exactly what he got.

Here’s how it went: 

-friends arrive, get their hand “scanned” (with the copy machine) to determine their clearance

-obstacle course to determine physical capabilities

-present opening.  Robin, Conner, Eric, Wyatt

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- The last gift was an envelope that had 3 pieces of paper in it.  The first said “Your mission, should you choose to accept it: decode the clues. follow clues to diffuse the bomb. don’t get killed by snipers.  The second paper was a bunch of nonsense letters.  Unreadable without a decoder.  The third paper looked blank, but was really the code key written in lemon juice.  They had to heat the paper to learn how to translate the clues.

-Jeff helped everyone get suited up and armed them with air soft guns.

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-The “team” had to follow clues and decode them, while being shot at by 2 teenage snipers who took their job seriously!  The boys strategized, covered each other, and got the job done.  It took longer than I anticipated, which means I did a good job!

-Finally they made it to the “bomb",” which was a round cake with a sparkler in the top.  As Jeff was lighting it, he slipped a couple of fireworks in it too, so the bomb actually exploded, blowing the top off the cake!

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-Of course I had another cake in the kitchen, but all the boys wanted a piece of the blown up one.

-The rest was free time for just shooting, shooting, shooting and more shooting.

The girls couldn’t figure out why in the world anybody would want people to shoot at them for their birthday?  All I could tell them is that boys are a bit of a mystery in that way.  Everyone seemed to have a great time!

Happy Birthday Caleb!

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2 comments:

  1. JeffJanuary 18, 2011 at 8:10 AM

    It was a sweet party! You did well. Maybe we can do it again for my birthday ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. MAKING PLANSJanuary 20, 2011 at 8:43 AM

    I think that sounds like a great time! He is such a cute little one, but growing up fast. Such a fun party!

    ReplyDelete

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