Mardi Gras

So Fat Tuesday fell on Craiger's birthday this year. . . February 28th, so after his birthday dinner, we got to eat a king cake which was totally fun.

Every year I make a king cake for Mardi Gras & every year I put a little plastic baby into the cake.  Whomever gets the baby in their slice of cake, has to make the cake the next year.  Last year Craiger got the cake so he helped me make it (on his birthday).  It was a fun project to do together.  And he did a great job with the green, yellow, & gold sprinkles.

After dinner we sliced the cake, put on our masks, & necklaces & enjoyed it.

Lorien found the baby in her cake this year so she gets to help me make it next year.  She's pretty excited since she's never helped make it before.

Happy Mardi Gras everybody.

Craiger's 6th Birthday

Happy 6th Birthday to this cute kid.  I can't believe my Craiger man is 6 years old.  He's been SO excited about his birthday for weeks now, & his little smile on his special day was precious.

For his birthday breakfast he wanted his favorite breakfast foods:

Breakfast Burritos

Sausage

Oranges

& a Chocolate Covered Twinkie

He was very excited about his breakfast & ate every bite.

And he was happy to get his 6 fingered picture taken with his siblings.  He loves them so much.

Craiger got so many wonderful things from his grandparents, aunts & uncles, cousins, & my friend Nancy.  Thank you all for the wonderful gifts you sent.  He loved them all.

Trek & I got him a new bike since the girls got one.  It's about time he had one without training wheels so we'll see how that goes.  He's pretty excited.

Since Craiger is still in elementary school, I actually got to go celebrate with him & his class.  His teacher doesn't allow birthday treats, but I did get to bring in his favorite book "The Monster At The End Of This Book" & we read it to his classmates. 

And then I got to eat lunch with him in the lunchroom at a special table just for us.  It was so special & sweet.  I brought him a lunchable & he was just so happy.  I swear that kid is what happiness is made of.

 For his birthday dinner, Craiger chose pepperoni pizza & french fries which was a totally easy dinner to make.  Yay.

He loved it.

Now we're gearing up for his big Angry Birds birthday party on Saturday.  It's going to be a BLAST.

Happy birthday my happy little snuggle man.  I love you.

Winter Break Day 6 - History & Science

We finished up our Winter Break with a really fun day celebrating Egyptian History & Astronomy by going to the Rosecrutian Egyptian Museum & Planetarium in San Jose.

The museum itself is really pretty.  It reminded me of the temple of Amon at Karnak (somewhere I've never been but always wanted to go.)  Auntie Marc was able to go with us too which was fun.

We ended up getting a family membership (it was only $5 more than it would have cost us to buy each ticket individually) for $60 so we can go back as many times as we want this year.  When you buy a family membership, you also get to be part of the Jr. Archaeology program, so my kids get to come back anytime they want & participate in the 8 archaeology courses they offer.  Once they complete 5 of the 8 classes & fill out their museum passports, they get to go to a graduation ceremony at a sleepover IN THE MUSEUM.  How cool is that?

First we headed over to the Planetarium to watch the movie about Stars.  Bladen especially loved it.  He's always been fascinated with stars.

After the movie, we went back into the museum for the tomb tour.  This museum actually dug out the ground under the museum & made it look like a real tomb in Egypt.  They have a sarcophogus down there as well as some amazing wall hieroglyphs.  The kids were a little scared of it at first, but it turned out to be pretty amazing.

It's dark down in the tomb, but the guide had a flashlight & told us all the interesting facts about burial & tombs.

My favorite room was the burial chamber.  I used to study hieroglyphs my 1st year of college so it brought back a ton of memories.  I loved "reading" the story written on the walls of the tomb.  It makes me want to go to Egypt.

The rest of the museum is great.  There are some great artifacts & tons of history.  And it's huge.  We didn't have time to see it all before it closed, but now that we have a year pass we'll be back.

 

My kids' favorite part of the museum were the 4 mummies inside.  I have to admit, I kind of loved them too.  SO COOL.

After we left, we wandered around the grounds of the museum.  There was a beautiful fountain perfect for "wishing," a garden, a pond, & a small temple.  I can't wait to explore more.

This was my favorite day of the entire week.  I love history.  And I think the kids enjoyed themselves too.  Now we just need to plan ahead for the Jr. Archaeologist classes.  Fun fun fun.

Winter Break Day 5 - PE & Electives

Friday was a fun family day.

For PE class we spent a LOT of time outside together.  We packed up a picnic lunch & ate it on the trampoline.  Then the kids jumped on the trampoline for a while.

After lunch we had a family bike ride which was awesome with the girls' new bikes.  It was such a beautiful day which was amazing after all the crazy gloomy rain we've had lately.  (Although the rain is much needed here in CA, it was just nice to see some sun)

For the rest of the day I let the kids work on "Electives."  The older girls practiced their German on Duolingo, while the boys practiced their skills on their videos games.  Canyon & I sculpted using play doh & everyone played their instruments & read a little bit.  It was great.

Winter Break Day 4 - Music & Wilderness Survival

A good chunk of every Thursday at our house revolves around music.  All the kids have their music lessons that day so our morning was dedicated to music.

First we did all the kids' piano lessons which is always fun.  I could seriously listen to my kids play piano all day long.

I also worked with Lorien on her cello, introducing the F Major scale & a few new songs in F Major that she will enjoy practicing.

And Cadence & I hammered out the insane counting in her Symphonic Orchestra song Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony (all 50 minutes of it).  She's getting really good at it on her oboe.

I let the kids go find their friends for the afternoon.  Some of them came back from vacation so they had some fun.

Then once it got dark, we built a camp out back for Wilderness Survival.  We couldn't set up the tent like we had planned because of all the rain we've been getting.  Our yard is a swamp right now. . . but we did break out the sleeping bags & pillows on the trampoline & let them sleep there for the night.  We also watched Alice Through The Loooking Glass on our laptop on the trampoline.  It actully turned out to be a total blast.  We need to do that more often.