Happy Birthday Anna!

Anna is 10 years old today... double digits!  Sorry for a double post today - I had to at least post about Caleb's birthday party before we move on to Anna.  She's having her party on Saturday so today was pretty low-key.  I went to lunch with her at school.  And as an added bonus, Blake even came to lunch and surprised both of us.  We brought her a balloon and she carried it all over the school and home on the bus and loved all the attention she got.  She picked tomato pizza as her birthday dinner (a frozen version from Costco).  

I can't believe she's 10.  What an amazing 10 years it has been watching her grow up.  I still remember back in Draper when she was just tiny and the whole family would gather around her with Anna in the center entertaining the whole room.  She was so cute and loved all the attention.  And nothing has really changed.  lol.  Everyone loves Anna.  And with good reason because Anna loves everyone.  She's so happy and enthusiastic.  She has a true love for people and wants to make everyone happy.  She also has a love of life.  She loves trying new things and gets excited over everything.  Her happiness bubbles over and is contagious.  No wonder everyone wants to be around her.  She's extremely sensitive and very loving.  She has a HUGE heart.   The world is a better place with Anna around. 

Happy Birthday my sweet Anna!  We love you!

Caleb's Birthday Party

Remind me not to have kids who have birthdays close together.  CRAZY!  I've been working on Anna's party all week and haven't been able to post about Caleb's party that was last week.  His birthday was August 30 and we had his party on Sept. 4th.  It was a very fun, LOW-STRESS party for even mom.  We need to do more like this. We all thoroughly enjoyed being together and had fun watching Caleb have so much fun.

Caleb has loved semi-trucks since he was VERY little.  So I was planning on just making him a semi-truck cake and calling it his birthday.  But a few weeks ago, he really started liking trains.  So I got the brilliant idea to have a train birthday. 

I got another brilliant idea to make him a train cake.  Sounds easy enough right?  Well Nathan, being the brilliant son of his brilliant mom (how many times can I use the word "brilliant" in a paragraph?) suggested that I make a little car for each member of the family... yes a train with 9 cars.  That sounded FUN so I went with the idea.  Half way through this project I was ready to throw it out the window.  But I finally got everything to work and it turned out pretty cute.  After it was all made and done, THEN I liked it.  But wow, it took a long time!  Now I remember why I usually just buy a cake from Costco.  While I was making the cake Michael said, "I remember when you used to make birthday cakes and we used to talk to you while you put them together and frosted them."  Yeah, now I remember why I stopped doing them!  Anyway, Elizabeth and Caleb had a really fun time "helping" me make a train cake while the big kids were in school.

"Yay for the train cake!"

"Ooooh, the train cake is cooking!"

Finally finished!

And the big kids got home just in time to eat the left-over frosting.  They thought they were in heaven when I said they could have frosting for their snack.  I told them "pick a color and eat it"  and they said, "Really?!" like they didn't believe me.  At this point I was so annoyed with the cake that I didn't care if they had only frosting for a snack.

So the next day we went to Union Station where they happened to have a free exhibit full of all kinds and sizes of model trains.  They also have a ton of other things, but they all cost a bazillion dollars so we opted to just see the trains.  They did have some cool dinosaurs and tanks on display that we walked by first.

All the kids seeing the tanks:

And the big T-Rex:

And a picture of all of them:

Before we saw the trains, we went to a place for lunch where they serve your food on a little train.  They have tracks all the way around the restaurant and the train delivers your food.  Caleb LOVED it!

Waiting for a table foreeeever and sitting in a "train" while we waited:

 Caleb's reaction to the trains.  This is the stillest and calmest he's ever been in a restaurant!

Saying "chu chu!"

I'm very sad this picture is blurry, but I'm posting it anyway because it's a good smile (minus the blur):

A few more blurry ones, but still funny.

They give out paper engineer hats and Blake put one on and hugged Michael.  It's really fun to bug teenagers!

 The kids making "snakes" with their straw wrappers while we waited for our food:

 After lunch we went to see the model train exhibit.  Very fun!

They have little cities set up around the tracks.  All the kids said Ijust HAD to take a picture of this one for Grandma Kathi and her friend Carrie.  (They'll know what it's about.)

They had a little place for the kids where you could make a "rubbing" of different trains.

They had a separate track with only Thomas the train on it.  Caleb watched Thomas foreeeeever.  He's never been a Thomas fan - has only ever watched it twice in his life - but as this picture shows, he's now obsessed with Thomas.  (Great. Roll my eyes.)  The entire family got tired and sat down on a bench close by and Caleb stayed to watch Thomas. (That's a dinosaur on his head in the reflection.  Weird how this pic turned out, but you can see how enthralled he was.)


After he was finally done, we went to see the real trains.  This was my favorite part!  We went out on a bridge that ran across 4 railroad lines.  There you can see trains about every 10-15 minutes (at least we saw 2 in the 15 minutes we were there so they're pretty active tracks).  The trains were literally like 15 feet below us.  So cool!   (And loud, and they smell like diesel exhaust which is a bonus for me because I love that stuff.)

Here comes the train!

I love these expressions:

We headed home for pizza and cake.

Caleb picked a purple car with marsh mellows.  (Oh and did I mention this cake was entirely peanut-free? Quite a feat, I'll tell ya!)
Caleb kept telling us how much he liked his "train birt-day" and how much he loved eating a purple car and how much he LOVED the "crunchy wheels" (mini oreos).  In fact he asked the next day if he could have "crunchy wheel" cake for lunch.

Opening presents.  He got a Chuck and Friends garbage truck:

You can see in this picture that he's making a garbage truck noise.  Definitely a boy thing.

We also bought him 3 trains at the Union Station gift shop since he didn't have ANY trains prior to this day.  Yes, they had a gift shop and yes, I had to go in and yes, I bought stuff. Have I mentioned that I have a gift shop weakness?

And a train obsession is born.  Seriously he's now a train freak.

Everyone left and he was still here, playing trains.

 Caleb would probably say that was the best day of his life.  He still talks about his "train birt-day" all the time.

Katie got her glasses

And she LOVES them!  She put them on and hasn't taken them off since (except to sleep, of course).  Yesterday when I woke her up for school (and btw she's NOT a morning person), she got out of bed and could barely walk because she was half asleep, then she stumbled over to put her glasses on.  So cute!  Then she told me, "I watch a show with my glasses?"  (Nice try kid.  Not before school!)  When she got home, "I play a game and try my new glasses for a game?"

Doesn't she look cute in them?

And they call themselves, "Glasses Buddies"