Robot Party

We found out a few days before the party that the dentist the kids go to, and where Tyra works, does birthday parties. And since they have an awesome play set, an arcade, lots of seating, and NOT a swamp cooler like our house, we decided to have it there. It was a good decision. Cason LOVED it. I hardly saw him, he was having so much fun. Especially in the arcade, where I noticed lots of the guys gathering.
Cason had some help from Granny Bob too though.
The other kids were having the best time ever on the slides. Even the babies had fun.
I had a hard time deciding on a theme, because he goes back and forth with his obsessions, super heroes, Mario, robots, super heroes, mario, robots....

But when the time came to decide, he seemed to be most into robots. So that's what we went with. I found lots of cute ideas online, and threw some of them together, and Jess thought it should be black, red, and grey.
We used foil for a table runner, and threw some of Caso's plastic screws, nuts, bolts, etc. around the table. The kids helped me make little tin can robots last week, since I thought they'd be fun to make together and they could double as decorations. (and even hold the forks, knives, and spoons)
The party was pretty girl-heavy, as usual, but Caso didn't mind. Or notice, for that matter.
He had lots of people who love him.
He liked his robot cake.
He looked really happy when everyone sang to him.

He of course loved all the awesome gifts.
After we went home, he looked all happy and told me "Mama, I had a great party."

The Games Begin

Paige had her first soccer game Saturday morning. We got there at 8:00, for opening ceremonies, which were pretty short and lame, honestly. Ha. Oh well, we got to visit with Ronnie and Brooke for a while.
She did so well. At first she was nervous, we could tell, and was chewing her fingers, which seems to be her nervous habit.
At least she wasn't picking her nose like we thought at first. Haha. I love how huge their uniforms are.

She played like I did when I was little at first. Pretty timidly. But she started to get less nervous, and more into it as the game went on, and was getting in there more.
There's a girl on her team who is pretty good, but also sort of hogs the ball and can be a little pushy. So I guess at one point Paige got tired of being pushed and kind of threw her a little elbow, Jess said. I missed that one. Ha. I guess she might have a little of the older me in her too.

It was only 9:00 when their games started, but it was pretty dang hot and humid. Neely wouldn't keep this hat on, and she seems to run pretty hot anyway, so I ended up taking her over to the shade, where she fell asleep with Grampa.
When we left, we were telling Paige how she did a good job and we were proud of her for hustling, and she smiled but said "I didn't even score any goals." Haha. Join the club sister. I tried to explain how there are other ways to help your team, even if you don't score. She wasn't that interested.

Birthday Boy

Cason had a great birthday. Neely and I were up first, so I got her into her high chair with some snacks to keep her entertained while I got Cason's birthday breakfast ready.

Jess ran to the store the night before for me, and got a gigantic Thomas the Train balloon, chocolate muffins, and some other little treats. I got his chocolate muffin and some milk, his balloon, a card Paige illustrated for him,
his robot birthday crown, and his first present-a batman t shirt.

He was VERY pleased when he walked in.
Paige entertained him with a "Birthday balloon dance".
He mostly ignored her dance, inhaling his muffin.

Then we talked to Jess, and he said he'd sent an E-card for Caso. So I pulled that up.
It featured cats and mice dancing and playing maracas. Cason liked it and said "Daddy's silly."

He finished his chocolate muffin, and we moved outside to make mud ones.
Left those to bake, had a bath, and left to pick Jess up for lunch.
Cason practiced showing people how old he is on his fingers. Pretty frustrating, making that ring finger work separately from the pinky. There may have been a few tears, before he discovered he could do it this way:
We took him to his beloved Panda for a birthday lunch.
Caso THOROUGHLY enjoyed his meal. Neely played with her carrot.
And flirted with people eating near us.
After we took Jess back, I decided to brave the heat and take them to the park, since it was his birthday, after all.
It felt SO.DANG.HOT. and there was no shade. So I ended up sitting at the bottom of the big tube slide, with Neely inside it. She loved it, and climbed almost to the top a few times.
Then I made them all pose. Neely couldn't peel her adoring eyes off of her brother.
I gave them a quick push in the swings and we went home.
The birthday boy decided we'd play cowboys a while.
We ended the day with a trip to Sonic and then Kmart, where Caso picked a new Iron Man toy that walks and his eyes light up. He LOVES him. We were planning to only give him 1 or 2 small things on his birthday and save the rest for his party. But he ended up getting everything, big AND small. Including the remote control robot from Paige.
Which he LOVED. ( I also may have spotted them at Kmart, and am pretty much gonna have to get one so we can race them. I mentioned that there are more of them, and I heard him quietly tell his robot: "You'll have a friend soon.")

I saw The Robot Book somewhere online, and it looked fun, with moving parts, gears, etc. on the pages. He also LOVES a book called Robot Zot, that we got at the library a few weeks ago, and I found it in the bargain section at Hastings. Woohoo!
He said thank you to me so many times yesterday for everything, and was still thanking me today. Sweet boy.

He's Three

3 years ago, this boy came into our lives:
He's been SO happy and funny from the start.
And he keeps growing.
But he's still our cuddly, affectionate, joyful Caso. He makes everything better. He goes around the house, humming happy songs to himself. And plays video games, making his own sound effects.

He's always had the funniest mannerisms and expressions.
He gets SO frustrated when something is hard for him, and he's definitely our most sensitive child. As Jess says all the time, he has a tender heart.

He's SO grateful and happy all the time. If someone does something nice for him, he'll thank them repeatedly, on his own, even weeks later out of nowhere, when it pops into his head.
He likes everybody. He'll see a stranger, and ask me "Who's that guy?" I'll tell him "I don't know, I've never met him." or "That's the trash man." and he'll tell me "OH! I wike him!"

Jess says I got lucky with Cason, because I love to cuddle, and Cason's always up for it too.

I know it's my job to think so, but Cason really IS such a good, good boy. His heart is tender and golden. There's pretty much no way I could come close to describing him. He's sweet, smart, hilarious, and most of all joyful.

Happy birthday Caso. I love you SO MUCH.

Quotes and Uniforms

Tonight Cason hurt his finger, and was extra dramatic so he'd get a bandaid. He told Jess "I hurt my finger, I need a bandaid. I need two bandaids." Haha. Then he came in to show me the bandaid and said "I hurt my finger. Daddy did it on purpose." Jess started cracking up and said "I did NOT!". Caso just looked confused, so I'm not sure he really understands what "on purpose" means.

He was also throwing a toy in the car yesterday and I told him not to. He goes "Okay. Okay Mama Brandi." Haha.

Paige is resisting reading at bedtime lately. She wants us to just put on a movie and let them fall asleep watching it. She was having a snack tonight at the table and talking to Jess. She goes, "Don't you want to be nice? Well, you wanna be nice, so......can we watch a movie?"

Anyway, Paige had another x-ray yesterday, and got the official okay to play soccer. So she had practice last night. They got their uniforms-orange and black, which I was excited about. Halloween colors. They lined them up by height to see which kids needed the bigger uniforms. But they'll ALL be swimming in them I have a feeling.

Sneak

Paige wanted to pick out a gift for her to give to Cason for his birthday. She wanted to find a robot, so we searched Amazon, and found the cutest little remote control ones for like 10-12 dollars. She picked out a green one, but we also loved all of these(and more):

We made Cason leave the room, and he knew it was because we were picking out a surprise for him. A little while later, I was staring at the screen before placing my order, trying to decide if I should get one more for him, when Jess told me quietly, "Cason's right over there". I looked over to see him hiding under Neely's high chair, trying to spy and get a peek at what I was looking at. Haha. He realized he'd been discovered, and ran off before I could get Jess to take a picture of him.

Socca Playa

Most of the time anything that happens because our kids are getting older makes me sad. But soccer practice was too cute to be sad.

She picked out some new shorts for practice, and we got shin guards. She was technically not supposed to practice yet, until she gets the xray next Monday. But we thought we'd go and let her at least watch and listen to learn how the game works. But they were doing easy drills, and we ended up letting her do them. Like they stood across from a partner and just kicked the ball back and forth.
The girl she was partnered with was really uncoordinated, more so than the other kids. It was sort of sad. So Paige had to wait about 3 times as long as everyone else to get the ball each time. She came over for a drink and Jess asked her how she was doing. She said "Good! But one of them doesn't kick very hard." Ha.
She had a couple girls on her team that she already knows, so she wasn't quite as nervous once she saw them.
We sat in the shade and watched.
Cason also wrestled Neely.
Jess was watching Paige and out of nowhere said "She's her own person. She's at soccer practice right now." Ha.