For Aidan's birthday, he requested a Star Wars cake, so I told him we'd see what we could find. I checked the Wilton site, which provided directions for all the old Star Wars pans, but none of the actual pans, which are from the 80s. I checked eBay, which had listings for all of the Darth Vader, R2-D2, and C-3P0 pans - but they were really expensive! So we decided to get one of those several-purpose ball-shaped pan sets, and make our own Death Star. Aidan wanted a chocolate Death Star, so that's why it's brown!
Truly grateful for his new Star Wars toys, Aidan spent the better part of a whole day with his dad, unboxing them and setting them all up.
Aidan Malcolm Lowry, age exactly eight years old, watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade before bed on his birthday.
He wanted us to get a picture without his glasses.
All of us Glander Girls! - Marcia, Juanita, Wanda, Geraldine, Esme & Wendy.
Me and my Boy.
Esme showing off her new haircut! So much cooler and super cute, too.
We got haircuts together and then Daddy took our picture.
This is Aidan's ant colony! It only has about 10 ants in it right now, but we will find more! They aren't too busy in the daytime, but they must be in the night, because there is always plenty of evidence of their activity when we check on them in the morning. Thanks again, Danielle!
Esme painted her piggy bank with flowers - so she has a very fancy piggy! Big thanks to Danielle for such thoughtful gifts for the kids' birthdays.
This is a picture from our vacation last month - the kids' first touch of the Atlantic Ocean, at UConn Avery Point in Connecticut.
And this is the helicopter that we took from New York City to the airport in Newark, New Jersey! Can you believe I rode on that thing?
The Fortunas came over a couple of weeks ago to spend the day and did we have fun!!! Jim took the boys over to the zoo just to go ziplining and they sure had a terrific time.
And here's a picture of Aidan's birthday cake again - "May the force be with you."
Those candles all bunched together made quite a flame - so big that Aidan had a little trouble blowing it out!!! But you see, those were the Death Star's lasers, so they had to be all right together...right?
We've had a great week this week, too - and hopefully I will get some photos out of the camera before they're too outdated. Sunday we took the kids over to Dad and Mom's for a night of camping in their yard - and then we came home! We all had a great time.
Aidan and Esme didn't just camp, either. It just happened that a hot-air balloon was taking off from the wheat field behind Papa's woods - so they got to see it!!! Then Papa made a three-step treasure hunt in the woods for them, and when they were done with that one, Aidan requested a fifty-step treasure hunt - he wanted it to last longer! They compromised on twenty and found the treasure in the bean field. After they got ready for bed they were allowed to catch lightning bugs in a jar. They helped with the cooking and dishes like real campers, too. Papa reports that while Aidan went to sleep at a relatively decent hour, Esme resisted it for a looooong time. Both kids were reading by a night-light at the other end of the camper for a while, and then Esme performed gymnastics in her bed until after midnight. They had an excellent campout.
Jim and I came home and went out geocaching! We had finally solved the puzzles for our local "Dharma Initiative," so we went out after them Sunday night - many of them looked (and really were) too hard for the kids to tackle. We started with the one furthest northwest and worked our way southeast. We crawled through swamps, waded through weeds and picker-bushes taller than ourselves, poked through forests... and finally stumbled out of the woods at 9:45, five hours after we started. But we stumbled out victorious!!!! We found all nine stages. Congratulations to us. We haven't been out caching since, we're still recovering!
We spent a perfect day in Indiana Thursday. We visited Great-Grandma and had a terrific chat with her. Then we went to Uncle Dave and Aunt Vonda's house, where we ate a bunch of really great food (meat off the grill and fresh veggies from the garden, among other things!) and enjoyed each other's company a lot! Samantha (9), Aidan (8), Annah (7), Sylvia (5), Esme (4), and Caeden (3) had a wonderful time playing outside, swimming in the pool, watching a movie, and generally running around together. When you don't have a lot of cousins, it's sure great to have a good bunch of second cousins! Aidan is doing so well at swimming now and can swim under water the width of Dave and Vonda's pool...and Annah is doing just as well, after only a couple of days of practice!
Today we spent the day at Michigan's Adventure with our friends the Dennies. Whoo-hoo, it was a great time! The kids rode kiddie rides in the amusement park part and then greatly enjoyed the water park pleasures for several hours. I made four trips to the bathroom with Esme, and one trip to the first aid station with Aidan, who got a little carried away swimming under water and scraped his nose and forehead on the bottom of the pool. Esme got so thoroughly worn out that when it was time to get changed and head out, she started crying and crying and wanted her blanket. Once she got dressed and sat down for a few minutes, though, she was better. Aidan, Livi and Esme spent a large part of the afternoon going down waterslides and heaving themselves through the wave pool. No wonder they're tired out!
On the way home we stopped at The Fresh Market and got ingredients for a picnic at the airport. Sandwiches, blueberries, cookies and drinks...and Jim had sushi. Yum. That hit the spot.