Birthday Bowling Party

Here's singing Happy Birthday. 
Ares' Birthday Bowling Party was today.  He and Matthew shared a party so we didn't have to do two different parties in the same week, or two weeks in a row.  The day started out nice.  We were relaxing all morning, before we went to the store(s) to pick up paper plates for the cakes.   Target didn't have any, (weird), Giant Eagle didn't have any character ones (OH, AND THEY DIDN'T HAVE HIS CAKE EITHER!!!) so we ended up going to Walmart, and he got to pick out 7 different packages of plates (Dispicable Me2, Superman, Bat-Man, and Avengers).  Back to the cake, the place didn't have our cake order.  I am SOO glad we went to pick up plates, because otherwise I'd have waited until we were on the way to the party to pick up the cake, since the store is right on the way.   They had 1 hour to make it, and they did.  We picked it up on our way, only after I was completely stressed and the awful anxiety levels almost put me in tears.  (AND, it was completely ordered, because MY NAME and the wrong date were on the transformers package that came with the cake!).  I'm so glad we ended up getting it, because Ares, Eve, Connor and Davis' favorite part of the party?  All said the cake.  All for different reasons, I'm sure, but all liked the cake.  Crisis averted, only 2 years taken off of my life.

Transformers Cake - and one happy 5 year old.  

I'm not quite sure how many people showed up, to be honest, it was complete pandemonium.  For me, I was completely overwhelmed, all of the kids loved it though.  I didn't get to talk to as many of the parents as I wanted to, I met a few of them, but it was so crazy.  I'm guessing there were about 21 kids there.   At their age, we don't really put names on the bowling lanes, they just grab balls and throw them down the alley as there's an open lane (or not) haha.  My phone died as soon as I got there, because I had it with me overnight, since Adam went out late last night.  Thanks to Abby who took these photos (and the video above) for us.

Casey helping Matthew with his cake

I think this is Eric. I'm quite surprised that it was
 possible for only one kid to be in one spot.  

Adam's hiding around the corner with some of the other fathers.
 I kind of hated him for that, because the cake part was so hard to do alone. 

During the cake part, Atlas was sleeping, and getting passed around so I could cut. 

Every kid got to leave with a Star Wars Lego shirt.  You can see the rack of shirts
plus some of the kids already wearing theirs. 

This came out better than any of my photos.  Thanks to us forgetting our
camera's, and thanks to the strobe lights and darkness. 

...but man, the kids had a great time. 

We had a few people over the house afterwards, and then we went out to dinner with Davis and his family in Twin Lakes.  Ares and Davis shared their love of popcorn shrimp, while I had Snow Crab legs and Adam had broiled  Halibut.  ALL of the food was awesome. 

Would anyone believe that Ares hasn't opened his gifts up yet?  Only 3 of them.   He was "Ah-sausted" and went to bed almost as soon as we got home from the restaurant.

Adam and I bought him a bicycle for his birthday, and we CANNOT WAIT to give it to him tomorrow!  We're beyond psyched, but first, he needs to open the gifts from his friends. 

Ares K.W.Miller Age 5

Every year I ask Ares the same set of questions to see how his answers change. Here's last year's.   I realize these are very juvenile questions, and will have to change them as he gets older, but for right now, I'm happy with this, and his answers.  I'll probably say this in a whole bunch of posts, but MAN, this kid is so much fun.  He's very mature in his thoughts (not always his actions) but some answers really surprised me (for example, he wants to be a Scientist?!  Excellent!!)  I can't wait to see how his answers change next year!  

1. is your favorite color?  Red a little bit, and black a lot.  But black isn't in the rainbow.  I like blue and yellow too. I have a lot. 
2. What is your favorite toy?  Optimus (Prime)
3. What is your favorite fruit? Oranges
4. What is your favorite TV show? Justice League
5. What is your favorite movie? Frozen (He originally said The New Thor, but we watched Frozen last night, and he asked me if he could change his answer.  He REALLY liked the singing.)
6. What is your favorite thing to wear? This superman shirt I'm wearing right now
7. What is your favorite animal? Water Buffalo
8. What is your favorite song? "Rebels are We" Flogging Molly   (Actually called "Rebels of the Sacred Heart" - but he has the artist right!)
9. What is your favorite book? Superman
10. Who is your best friend?  Davis & Colt & Scarlett & Eric.  And don't forget Eve!!
11. What is your favorite food? Pizza
12. What is your favorite snack? fruit snacks
13. What is your favorite drink?  Juice (He has still never had pop, although, I'm surprised he didn't say 'milkshakes')
14. What is your favorite game? Shoots and Ladders
15. What do you like to do outside?  Ride my bike and play stomp rockets! 
16. What do you sleep with at night? Mousie!!!!!
17. What do you want to be when you grow up? I don't want to be a police officer because they get dead. I want to be a Scientist!!
18. What is your favorite sport? Soccer and Football.  Baseball and Basketball.
19. What is your favorite restaurant? Buffalo Wild Wings
20. What do you want for your birthday? Rescue Bots and anything they give me
21. What is your favorite thing to do with daddy? Play racecars. 
22. What is your favorite thing to do with mommy? Hug and kiss  (This MADE.MY.DAY)
23. What is your favorite thing to do with your brother?  Drive him around (Atlas goes into his walker, which looks like a Jeep, and Ares pushes him around the kitchen and hallway)
24. How do you know we love you? Because you always say
25. What kind of birthday party are you going to have?  Transformers bowling party!  (With Matthew)

March Catch Up

 

Wow, has it been two weeks?!?  Eeeks, sorry about that fam & friends!

Ares had his Kingergarten assessment last week.  He was SO excited about going, and when he got there he was all shy.  Dana told me he only played with Colt, and when Colt left for his individual assessment, he just stood there looking lost.  Poor kid.   Then he got his finger pinched somewhere on his way out, and it started bleeding. *insert DRAMA* haha.  This kid is all about the drama.  You'd have thought his thumb was cut off and missing.  

On the plus side, two days ago I got this note from his teacher.  It came on a day that I REALLY needed to hear something good..
 "Just have to tell you that Ares is doing so awesome with reading!!! We worked on a special word family game with shamrocks and gold coins, and he was sounding out the words with such ease! He was even going above and beyond by creating rhyming sentences with each word he read.  So proud of him *smiley face*"
He really is pronouncing words SO well.  We're currently working on him remembering words.   The book will read "Batman caught Catwoman.  CRASH!  Catwoman hit the car. CRASH! Batman grabs the gem from Catwoman."  Well, he has to pronounce all the letters in Batman, Catwoman and CRASH each time, even though it already appeared on the page a couple of times before that.   Ah well, I'm still impressed with his ability to get through an entire book (it takes a while), but he tries so hard.  And every time he reads a sight word (the, that, will, this, (there's like, 25 of them)) he gives me a high five.  HAHA!!  I get lots of high fives throughout a book, lol!


His birthday party is in a few days.  There will be 24 kids.  TWENTY FOUR.  He'll only know about 21 of them.  (He's having a joint bowling party with Matthew, one of his former classmates.)  Plus a few are siblings, but I'm estimating a very large number of gifts.  Eeeks!  I'm going to take video of him opening them, and then post them on a website.  I hope it works.  Our 'parting gift' for each of the kids is the Lego Star Wars shirts we made the boys.  I ended up going to Casey's house and we pumped out 20+ shirts.  I hope we have enough!  He opened up his gifts from his Grandma and Grandpa Doug already.  I took video, but I'm having a hard time uploading it anywhere.  WOW, was he SOOO excited with everything!   Atlas loved the gifts (of tissue paper) too!  It was like Christmas for both of them! 

(On a funny not - Grandma Karen, Ares wants me to return the Transformer bag to you so you can 'fill it up again'.  OMG my kid is spoiled.  I told him that you would fill it up again - in another year when he turns 6.)

We're SOO happy that the weather is getting nicer.  We got out to play a couple of times in the past few weeks.  Ares even got to ride his (MUCH too small bicycle) around the whole development once.  (After our neighbor Dave pumped up the tires for us.  I couldn't do it myself to save my life - or the evening.)  Atlas loved the walk.  I had him in his carrier because it was still a little cool out, but he's probably old enough now to go in the regular part of the stroller.

Atlas has been doing very well during the day.  He's so happy, loves to laugh (especially at his brother), he likes to be danced with, and for things to *bop* him on the head.   We get the best laughs right before bed

because he's totally punch happy, haha.   He's eating A TON now.  We give him 3-5 containers of baby food each day, PLUS have just moved his bottles from 4 oz to 6 oz (which he mostly finishes each time). The night times. Ohhhh the night times.  They're terribly exhausting.  He's digressed, and aside from last night, probably only slept 8 hours total all week.  ALL. WEEK.  Last night, I did something I swore I'd never do (and, for the record, I'll never do again).  I let him sleep in our bed.   He sleeps SO WELL when he lays on my stomach.  It works out when we sleep on the couch, and he slept great last night too, but I was very uncomfortable.  Back to the couch it is.  I don't mind.  Adam does.  

Adam started his new job.  I love it.  Oops, I mean he loves it.  Hell, we both love it!  I don't like how late he gets home from work.  But guess  what?!? He gets home from work, and *gasp* he doesn't work!  The computer stays in the car.  It's not on and being used from 8-9:30 PM.  whooohooo!!!

 

 

Kindergarten

Sorry for the post dump.  It's been a while, and I finally got a new (to me) computer errr, lablet that actually works online.  (My netbook didn't do so well, it was very slow.)  So I now have a fairly large tablet with an attachable keyboard.  It's about 13" big tablet, so bigger than an iPad, (those are 10") so this is pretty much a laptop computer.  We used our tax check, which was HUGE this year (of course, with two kids and $2K/month daycare bill, we're bound to get something back!) to finally bite the bullet and get something that I don't want to throw through the window during every use.   It's refurbished, and I love it.  We're also socking some of the tax money away for a new car for me (probably will need one within the next two years, since mine's coming up on 190,000 miles) and maybe a vacation.   Adam and I haven't ever taken Ares (or Atlas, duh) on a vacation.  Poor kid has only been to Pittsburgh, Louisville or Cincinnati.  He asked me what the ocean looked like, and if he can ever go on an airplane just last week.

Tonight I went to Ares' kindergarten informational meeting.  At one hand, it's so hard to believe he's almost 5 years old.  On the other hand, I'm so ready for him to be in kindergarten.  He's beyond excited, me too.  I wonder how much I'll save in tuition with him at school most of the day.  I'll still have before and after school care, but it's GOT to be cheaper than what it is now!

This past weekend, Ares had 'Traveling Teddy' and Teddy's for making supplies from his school.  Ares LOVED this.  The fort stayed up all weekend, and he even slept in it Saturday night.   That made me a bit nervous, as he was in his toy room, but he fell asleep immediately after laying down, and he didn't wake up until the next morning.  It may have been the benedryl we shot him up with.

Steak 'n' Shake decided that it was OK to mix a peanut butter shake (for Adam) and then not clean the machine and make Ares' shake (we're speculating).  Ares had an allergic reaction to his M&M milkshake and ended up throwing up on the floor of his bathroom before making it to the toilet.  He did a great job, but it was definitely one of the worst reactions we've had yet.  I probably came 30 seconds from stabbing him with the EPI pen, Adam swooped in to the rescue and pumped some Benedryl down his throat.  15 minutes later, all was good in the world and he enjoyed his bath before camping out in the fort.

He even added a garage for Atlas to play

Drawing with his letter game. 

So happy how these shirts came out! 

Matthew, Andrew and Casey came over Sunday, during the snow storm to pump out some totally awesome t-shirts.  I had a great time making these, and I think they turned out fabulous.  The Transformer one is a little crooked, OOPS.  But now Ares and Atlas have two matching shirts, plus Ares has a couple others that almost look professionally done.  I'm really proud of us for doing such a great job.  Oh, and he painted all of them himself, except for the front of the darth vader shirt, that was VERY hard to do.

7 Months!!

(Yes, there's a cape on his back.)  Based on the GI Specialist's measurement's, Atlas hasn't really grown too much.  He had a pretty bad cold with a fever a couple of weeks ago and decided he wasn't going to eat anything.  For days.  For two days he ended up only drinking gatorade and apple juice (both watered down by 75%).  Then, he would eat rice cereal, but nothing else.  He went three days with only having 6 oz of milk a day.  So between last month and this month he gained no weight, poor kid.

He just wanted held.  

Not so much the happy camper.  

Our First "Snowman"

We had a big snow a couple weeks ago.  BIG snow.  On a Monday night, into Tuesday.  Holy hell was traffic awful.  AWFUL.  I think we got a total of 10" though.   Would you believe that Ares had never built a snowman before?  Never?  Bad mommy.  

Before we went outside. 

It was pretty deep snow.  And it wasn't REALLY cold out, it was perfect to play in.   

 In fact, we played in the snow for almost an hour.  Daddy used the snow blower (OMG, that is the greatest winter invention ever, we can't thank you enough Grandma and Jim for that HUGE gift.  I really hope your neighbor has plowed your drive for you all winter, as I know you've had a crazy winter in Louisville this year too.)  anyhow, Adam used the snow blower to do our driveway, the sidewalks (so the kids can walk to the bus stop), our sidewalk, and the neighbor's driveway.  

Don't laugh, these are our snowmen.  Apparently I am awful at rolling the balls, they kept breaking on me. 

 So the entire East Coast got snow, even in North Carolina, Georgia, everywhere.  Everyone was posting their snowmen on Facebook, and these are our measly men.  (And woman.)  Actually, snow kids.  Ares is on the left, Davis in the middle, and Eve is on the right.

 When you put the 10" on top of the snow we've already had over the past couple of weeks (it's been in the single digits temperature wise, so the snow keeps adding up), it's REALLY  high.  Just look at the boys sitting on the sidewalk!

Ares playing as daddy blows.  It took him a long time because there was so.much.snow!

But daddy got to play eventually!  Yay!! 

We came back in for some stir-fry and hot chocolate.  Ares would only eat the stir fry with chop sticks.
I LOVE THIS KID! 

Photo Dump?

I dont' have too many pictures of all the boys together.  This one just shows how close they are.  At least at this point, they get along great!  Atlas follows Ares with his eyes.  Wherever Ares is, Atlas is watching.  Hopefully Ares can teach him how to roll over or crawl, or walk!

Digging a hole in the giant mountain the snow plow leaves in the center of the circle. 

***update - whoops, I already posted the pickle pictures, ah well, he still likes them!

Atlas trying to grab a pickle.  He LOVES them.  LOVES LOVES LOVES.  He's definitely our child!

I love this picture.  Ares is messing with Atlas' head, and Atlas is pushing him away.  True brotherhood, haha

Atlas is 6 months old!!

Our big guy has pretty much slowed down on his growth.  He was MUCH bigger than Ares was around the 2 month - 4 month ages, and now he's almost EXACTLY where Ares was at this age.  They're starting to look so similar now!

Isn't this picture awesome!?!  LOVE these boys so much! 

This kid is ALWAYS smiling!