Gentle Years

Today we celebrated Aidan's fifth birthday, though that date (estimated) is still three days away.  The party was early-10:30 to 12:30-to accomodate all of the guests' naptimes.  The kids played outside in our unseasonably beautiful weather, had lunch, played some more, opened presents, then had cake and ice cream.  Since it was time for our social worker to make her six month visit, she came to the party as well.  This gave her a chance to meet Aidan's friends, see him with his whole family (big brother and big sister and their families), and meet his daycare director (her daughter was a guest) as well as some of his playmates' parents.

After our nap, we did it all again.  LB turns eighteen tomorrow, so the evening party was a cook-out but I cooked in.  She doesn't like hot dogs or hamburgers so I roasted a pork loin and we had that with the usual salads, chips, watermelon, etc.

Some of the pictures are here, some are under LB's page (click on her name on the home page for that link), and some are under photos.

Here he is with his favorite playmates from daycare.  One highlight of the day for me, though, was when it was time to eat lunch and he insisted that he sit beside RB to eat.

Below he is sitting on "the bike" that he wanted.  He loves Diego, and wanted a bike, so fortunately they came together.  Then he is blowing out the candles on the cake I made-notice the Spider Man theme to everything.

Here is a short video of Aidan, between parties and before his nap, playing with the party favors from his sistr's party-we broke them out early.

We have been on vacation this week and it has been mostly cold, rainy, and depressing.  Aidan had two appointments-the first was for a well child  checkup and shots.  Since he was sick last weekend and had a rash at the appointment, the shots were postponed.  Good thing.  It turned out that he had strep throat.  So he is on penicillin (the yucky, syrupy kind vs. the creamy pink amoxicillin).  He went one day to daycare to play, and he went yesterday to have an ultrasound on his kidneys-just a follow-up to a urinary tract infection that my doctor said actually came back negative-to make sure that everything looks normal.  Here are some highlights of the week so far:

Aidan is quite taken with cowboys, so here he is with his cap guns, and here is a photo from the equestrian meet we went to last weekend.

As always, there was a lot of playing with relatives during vacation.

Here is Aidan at the elementary school playground with his brother and his brother's family:

I have been unable to post any pictures for a while, so here is a lot of stuff for lost time.  We've been busy with the dentist (Aidan managed one filling but couldn't sit for a novacaine shot so the second one will have to be done with laughing gas), planning a birthday party (his first at five years old and LB's big 18th), watching my brothers move and spread the cow manure now that it has melted, and celebrating Easter.

Eating cookies at the saphouse

I had trouble again after this picture loaded, so I just threw a bunch together here.  They are Aidan and LB at the Easter egg hunt, the boys checking out the manure pile, visiting the cow pastures with their cousins, my youngest sister's first child at her spring concert, random relatives at the Sunrise Service, cakes that my nephew's fiancee made, and the boys again at the Easter egg hunt.  I'm going to try to post some more pics under Photos and under GB and LB's pages.

My service has been updating their screens, and I haven't been able to post any pictures-just text-so I keep checking every couple of days to see whether or not I can "get back on".  Apparently not yet.

So I'll just tell you that we're busy planning Aidan's first birthday party-five years old-and LB's big birthday party-18 years old.  It will be a crazy weekend.

Aidan's guest list includes all his best friends from daycare and a few young relatives plus the little girl he was adopted with.  So the party will be from 10:30 to 12:30 so that all of the guests can still take their naps in the afternoon-why do people always make little kid parties right in the middle of naptime?

The invitations are Spider Man; he wants me to send one to him as well.