More of Celebrating Gabriel

I love making my birthday child feel like their birthday is truly their special day.

We started out the day by having our traditional birthday breakfast...donuts!  Because planning ahead isn't my strong suit sometimes, I didn't have donuts ready at home in the morning, so we went right to the source and had a nice little breakfast at the donut shop, complete with singing Happy Birthday to our boy.

After working off the donut at the gym (actually I didn't even have one a donut, but the kids got some good playtime in at the indoor playground there in childcare), we met Chris at Chuck E Cheese for lunch and games.  The place was nearly empty, and all five kids had a great time.

Anna laughed the whole time this ride was in motion.  It was great.

The girls weren't too sure of this giant mouse (rat?) and luckily the animatronics never started up or I'm sure we'd have had some freaked out girls!

So after going home for a few hours for naps and school, we went out for Gabe's birthday dinner.  He initially chose Rainforest Cafe, but seeing how expensive that was when we went there for Matthew's birthday, we prompted him to choose his next favorite restaurant, Denny's and then head to the Rainforest Cafe afterward for birthday dessert (the only part that the kids care about there anyways).  Not as good of food as Rainforest Cafe, but it just happened that their 'free kids night' was the same night as Gabe's birthday, which is always nice on the pocketbook. 

So Gabe got this special light up cup and waited patiently for his birthday Volcano.

When they brought the dessert by, they wanted to sing Happy Birthday to him.  The birthday child gets to participate in the song by standing up and beating his chest like a gorilla.  Gabe was a good sport and was so cute doing it.

The VOLCANO!  Shared by everyone, and still some was leftover at the end!

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby boy!

A Lot of Fall Fun

I hope you like looking at pictures.  Because I have a lot for you!

We do the Halloween thing.  Chris and I both grew up doing the Halloween thing.  I've studied a bit about the origins of Halloween, and I don't like them.  But I admit, it's hard to know whether God is looking down on my family and frowning in sadness that we are having fun doing the same sort of thing that is against Him or laughing at the silliness of our kids dressing up in fun costumes, playing fun games, and having fun collecting candy.  We don't do the scary stuff, and we have talked with the older kids about why other people do the scary stuff and why we don't.  We say "Happy Halloween" instead of "Trick or Treat".  I don't know if that makes a difference and I totally get why some people don't participate at all.  That said, we still do the Halloween thing.

Chris does the pumpking carving thing with them.

Christopher wanted to have a seed counting contest.

On Halloween eve, our church had a "Trunk or Treat".  They had church members decorate their trunks and hand out candy.  There was a hay ride and hotdogs and jumpy castles.  And there was my kids, having a blast.

We went to the Ford Family Farm that weekend also.  More games, hay rack and tractor barrell rides, scare crow decortaing, pumpkin pictures, farm animals, haystack obstacle courses, and corn digging boxes.

I got crafty and made a Halloween dinner.  Pumpkin Meat Pie and Mac & Cheese Monsters.  I think I thought it was cooler than the boys did.  Just because they didn't want to eat the meat pie.

On Halloween evening, we went to another local church for games and candy.  It was so fun to watch four of our kids playing the games together!  Leah did a great job keeping up with her brothers.  The church had a fun Texas theme for their games.  A cowboy boot toss, riding blow-up cattle, lassoing steers, etc...

We went home with enough time for Chris to take the four older kids out to collect candy.  There weren't many other kids out anymore since it was a bit late, and the kids all got a lot of candy in the short amount of time they were out.

Later, in November, we drove past San Antonio to the Corn Maize park.  We went into the maze but ended up not being able to find our way out, and the boys were planning to go to the airshow on Lackland AFB that afternoon, so we had to find out way out back through the entrance. 

Christopher looking out over the maze couldn't even help us find our way to the exit!

The kids playing in a big tube slide.  Leah took forever to get up to the top of the stairs...sorry to all those kids behind her in line! 

Happy Fall!