A Toothless Party

Cason will turn 6 tomorrow!  So crazy.  I've been working on his party for weeks, so for once I wasn't super stressed out the day of his party.  I started preparing almost TOO early, getting us all excited for the party but we still had weeks to wait.  They've had fun with some of the stuff though, like Cason's viking helmet.  :)

He originally wanted a party at the bowling alley, but changed his mind once he found out that at home he could get a bounce house and a pinata!  :)  So I looked up some ideas for the party online, and found a few things that looked fun.  One was a "feed the dragons" game.  I just had Jess buy a big foam board, and asked Cason which three dragons he wanted on it.  He told me Toothless of course, and a Whispering Death and a Monstrous Nightmare.  So I drew them on the board, had Jess cut out the mouths, and then painted it. 

We bought some little rubber fish for the kids to throw in the mouths to "feed" them. 

I worked on the pinata as much as possible on Friday, when Reed was busy playing.  (thought it was going to break apart really easily, but at the party I found out this was, in fact, way too much tape)  I only found a couple Toothless pinatas online, and both were too expensive, so I just made one and it was pretty easy, if not quite as good looking as the ones that inspired it.

The morning of his party was also the morning of opening ceremonies for soccer, and his first game. He was excited, and just like last year he played hard.  He was a little rusty, so no goals but a few close attempts.  :)  He hustled though and I saw him steal the ball from the other team quite a few times.  

After his game we hurried home to do some last minute stuff to get ready for the party.  Neely was SO happy to finally be allowed to get into the party favors.  She put on her party viking helmet and her beloved Ghostie had to have one too.  She was SO excited to see how cute he looked in it.

 The people ended up calling to ask if they could drop off the bounce house early, since they were already out delivering another.  Of course we said that was fine, and the kids were QUITE pleased to have it to themselves even longer than expected.

 Pretty soon people started to arrive.  We kept it fairly small, at least as small as you can with as much family as Cason has.  :)  It was a very nice party.  

I LOVE this picture of Neeliam.

 The "kids" had SO much fun with the bounce house. 

Eventually we got them to take a break for the "feed the dragons" game.

 It didn't go TOO smoothly, since we underestimated the difficulty in telling little people to throw from behind the line, and that they only get a certain number of attempts.  Jess was in charge and didn't have the heart to tell the littlest ones, so they just stood where they pleased and threw as many fish as they wanted.  Jess would make a terrible carnival worker.  Haha.  The winners claimed their prizes and went back to bouncing.

After a while I heard a knock at the door and realized I'd have to break all the kids' hearts and tell them the people were here to take down the bounce house.  There were only a few tears, and thankfully we had the pinata to distract them with.  Jess took down the swings and we hung it from the swingset. 

I always hated when I was little and the first couple kids got to take like a million swings and ended up breaking the pinata so nobody else got to try.  So we ended up limiting them to about three swings.  

The birthday boy went first, and then we went from youngest to oldest(tried to anyway).

 

 

 

 

 

Paige was obviously a big cheater, peeking under the blindfold, but still couldn't break it.

 Colin's attempts were adorable.

Pinatas make me nervous, so Dan held Reed for me so I could hang out near the kids in case a bat went flying.  Ha.

 

 Apparently I made a pretty heavy duty pinata, so the kids all went through the line about three times, and were destroying it very gradually.  I think in the end Paige finally punched a hole in it.

 Neely and Liam had lost interest when it took a long time, so they were a tad late to the candy collecting.  This picture cracks me up-Neely sulking about not getting much, and Liam finding out the problem is.

We did cake next.  We got sandwiches and the cake from the Walmart deli/bakery, and Cason loved the cake.  Paige even got to eat it since it was peanut free.  She is always so happy when she gets to have the same cake as everyone else.

 Of course gifts were next.  

Cason gets pretty shy when he's in the spotlight, but I could tell he loved everything.  

He opens everything pretty slowly and carefully.  Most of the kids lost interest and ran off to play while he opened them.

The party wound down after that.

This morning Reed and I woke up first I thought, and I went out to the living room with him, planning to let Jess sleep in.  Cason was already up though, enjoying some of his new toys.  :)

 He suddenly remembered the dragon egg from the Cassons, that he'd put in water overnight.  He ran to the bathroom to see if it was hatched yet.  It was super soft but not opened up, so he just tore it open.  He was so happy to see he got his favorite.  It was really tiny and REALLY cute.  

We may have to go back for a few eggs with some of his gift money, so some of his other dragons can have babies too.  :)

He had a great party and told us he "loved it so much".  This morning he told me "It miiiiiight have been the best party EVER."  Haha.

A Kindergartener and a Second Grader

Cason has been ready for school to start for weeks.  He was excited for all of it, but especially meeting some other boys.  He's within a few lessons of the end of the reading book he and Jess are working on, so he's reading really well.  I'll ask him what something says, he'll tell me "I don't know, I can't read!"  I tell him "Yes, you can.  Try it."  Usually he immediately reads it, no problem, and then kind of laughs, like "Oh yeah!"  It's like he thinks the lessons they're doing are just some kind of intro to reading, but it won't translate into real life or something.  So funny.

Here's a sample of a lesson from a few weeks ago.

He's been drawing more dragons, and Jess and I keep them all together, and Jess will take them to work to staple them into a book every so often.  Cason made a cover page the other day.

 So cute.   

A weekend or two ago, we worked on getting the school supplies from their lists.  They had a lot of fun picking stuff out, and Cason was getting really excited, as that made it feel more real.  

 

He kept asking me how many more days.  LAST Monday we got to go check the lists, and we were all excited to see they got the teachers we hoped for.  On Wednesday we got to meet them.  Cason was so cute, sitting in his seat and listening attentively.  Mrs. Arnold got out her harmonica once and busted out a little tune.  I could tell from the way Cason's posture changed that he was impressed, and sure enough after she finished he turned around and mouthed "That was cool" to me with the cutest smile-the one he does when he's excited but kind of embarrassed to show it, so he's trying to suppress his smile and it just kind of squishes over to one side.  Haha. 

 He checked out the classroom, and noticed he recognized a classmate from last year's soccer team, which made him happy. 

 He was just as excited, and a little less nervous after the Meet the Teacher.  He kept counting down the days, and I started getting a little sad, but not too bad actually.  I kept focusing on all we needed to do, and how excited he was.  Last night we got everybody bathed and into pajamas, and read books.  We started with The Night Before Kindergarten, and Paige and Cason were both kind of giddy.  When Jess finished reading to them he took Reed so I could get lunches ready.  I've been wanting to make them cute bento lunches, but of course didn't practice at all leading up to it, so I made a VERY mediocre panda lunch.  Neither of them even knew the eggs were supposed to be pandas.  Can't blame them.  I figured I could just slice the nori into whatever shapes I needed, but apparently the tools people use for cutting shapes ARE, in fact, pretty necessary.  Haha!  That's okay, they seemed to like them, whether they knew what animal they were or not.

 

I was still handling it pretty well, and then I went to check on them one last time and when I looked at Cason  sleeping, it hit me.  My days with him home with me all the time are over.  I feel sad and even pretty regretful, because I only get that time with them for a while, and I know I could've done so much better.  Jess was feeling the same way, and he even went out on the back porch after I was asleep apparently, for his own sad time.  :(  But first he made me feel a LITTLE better, reminding me that even if we haven't maximized every moment with him, he's such a happy and good boy, and really the years he will remember are just beginning.  So hopefully we will do better from here.  I'm also a little sad to lose the feeling he brings into our home, while he's gone during the day.  He just adds such a peace and sweetness when he's here.  

I managed to fall asleep though, and in the morning I got up before everyone else to start breakfast.  Like always, Cason SHOT out of bed and Paige needed a bit to wake up.  They were both happy and excited, though, and happy to see pumpkin muffins as part of their breakfast.  :)  

Neely and Reed were NOT too excited this morning.

I don't mean to leave Paige out of this post, just more of a milestone for Cason, since Paige has been there and done that.  She is as excited as ever for school though, and LOVES her teacher, Mrs. Harnisch.

Neely brightened up by the time we were ready to go, and put on her panda backpack, which had "a toy for Reed in case he cries."

When we got there, Cason clearly had butterflies in his stomach but was not a bit sad.  He found his backpack hook,

put his lunch in his cubby,

 

and said goodbye and hugged us with the cutest smile, while Reed slept through it all.

I started to tear up a bit but held it together.

During all this Paige had run off to her class, and we were going to meet her over there.  Apparently we'd lingered because they were almost ready to start when we got there.  She met us in the hall, and we walked her back in for a quick goodbye.  Same as Cason-liiiiittle nervous but mostly happy and excited.

THEN we may have peeked back in at Cason one more time before leaving.  He was playing with some other boys and clearly chatting with them.  :)

Reed slept through the whole dropoff, and finally woke up on our way out.  We had lovely heavenly sunbeams, but he wasn't that into it yet.

Jess knows me well and took the day off today.  I did pretty well until I finished buckling Reed in and went to get in and saw Jess waiting by my side of the car.  I started crying before he even hugged me, and couldn't stop for a couple of minutes.  

After that I did okay again.  The day was actually really good.  We got home and Reed finally woke up enough to enjoy the breakfast he slept through earlier.

Before long he was ready for more sleep though, which didn't bother Jess.

Neely and I had some nice playtime while they slept.  She's hilarious.  Lately our Lego people have to have powers.  One of hers today had "sparkle power", so of course the bad guys get sparkles in their mouths when she uses it.  Haha.  

She did really well today, and played with us and Reed and didn't seem upset about Cason being gone so far.  We shall see though.  He's her best pal, the one who always plays with her and rarely gets mad at her, even when anyone else would.  The other day he actually didn't give in to some demand of hers and she got upset, telling him "We used to be best buddies, but now we're NOT."  (She stole that from a song in Frozen-but I don't think that's how it was meant to be used. Ha!)  Cason didn't even look up from what he was doing, and calmly told her  "Yes we are.  We always have been and we always will be."  Haha.  Best brother ever.

Anyway, before we knew it it was time to pick them up.  Paige had asked us to get her first, so she could say hi to Mrs. Arnold and be a part of picking Cason up after his first day.  So we grabbed her, she hugged her teacher and we went to find Cason.  He looked so happy and said goodbye to his teacher and came to hug us.  We asked if their teachers were mean and they laughed and said "OF COURSE NOT!"

 

We got an after school pic, which Neely had to jump into.  :)

 Reed very obviously missed them.  I didn't notice until I took this that Cason changed his outfits like 2-3 times after school.  Haha.

 I made banana chocolate almond butter smoothies for their afterschool snack, and they got right to their homework.  I snagged a little How to Train Your Dragon coloring book today and gave it to him after school, so he devoted some time to that too.  :)

 They told us about their first days.  Both had great days of course, if you don't count the times Cason's new friend, name to be determined, but for now referred to as "the first one" cut in front of him in line for the slide.  Haha.  For this reason, the friend he calls "the second one" is his favorite friend so far.

He told me "I'm lucky it wasn't just a dream that I had school today.  I LOVE it."  Makes us so happy.

 We went out back to watch the rain, but it stopped right then, so instead we watched them play crazy games on the swingset. 

It's funny to see how the whole dynamic has changed now that they're both school kids.  Ha.