Summer Catch-Up

School started this week. Summer ends too quickly! The climax of our summer happened last week when we went to Utah for Lyndsay's college graduation, but I wanted to get in a post of how we filled our time up until that blessed event.

Puzzles. Lots of puzzles. It seems we always had one going, and I'll tell you, it was pretty nice. We kept two tables set up in the living room, one for pieces, and one for the puzzle. Having that project to work on kept the television off more often, and it allowed for some really lovely talks late into the night with my children.

When we finished that one above, we wanted a bigger challenge, so we ordered a 2000 piece puzzle. Holy cow! None of us had ever tried one that big and it took a LONG time, but what a great feeling when it was finally completed!

I  finally stuck to my goal of teaching Conor Latin. We started right at the beginning of summer and did two lessons each day on most days. He is learning so quickly! I also taught him to write in cursive, because somehow that got left out of the curriculum and it was important to me that he have that skill. So, most every day he did two lessons in Latin, two pages in cursive, and read for one hour. Mean mom, I know.

Blessed surprise! Dylan moved back home the first week in July. It was sudden and unexpected, but so wonderful to have him home. I had some anxiety about the transition, but really, it's been a delight. I want to write more about this, and about him. But I can tell you now that I am so proud of this boy, what he's come through, who he is becoming, and where he and I are in our relationship now.

Conor played in an All-Stars league. They were younger and less experienced than every other team and lost every game, but it was a great opportunity for them and they had a lot of fun. Conor got the only hit (a double) in the last game, and even got to pitch for the first time.

He was awarded the Game Ball for that last championship game. So proud of him!

Lyndsay drove home from Provo for a week and a half visit, and stopped at the hospital to see me on her way home.

A few days later, we went back to the airport to pick up Aiden, who returned from his six week visit with his dad in Arizona.

Which means. . . All my chickens were home!

Lots of board games were played.

We had a beach day.

So good to see my oldest son engaged and having such a good time with his little brother. Man, it was good to be together.

Lots of late night laughs and fun sibling rivalry. Just like the old days.

We threw together a quick birthday/graduation party for Lyndsay.

Her friend, Aisha, came home from her mission in Uruguay that same day, so we celebrated her as well. Aisha was Lyndsay's first room mate at BYU.

Happy 21st birthday! How time flies!

The next day we made a return trip out to Long Beach to go kayaking.

(We brought a friend along with us.)

And then the following day we had to say goodbye to Lyndsay and send her back up to Utah to finish up her last week or so in Provo before graduation. School was finished for her back in June, but she had to study and take the GRE (Grad school entrance exam), get some more work done in the research lab, and pack up her apartment.

Not too sad of a goodbye this time, since we knew we'd be up there shortly to celebrate all her hard work. Love this girl!

Conor's Plants vs. Zombies Party

It's been zombies in my head for the last several weeks. I decided to let Conor have his first "friends" party for his birthday this year and he asked for a Plants vs. Zombies theme (which, if you don't know, is a wildly popular video game.)

Once I started searching for ideas, I got a little crazy in the details. I wanted everything to be memorable for him and I wanted his friends to have a great time.

I had some zombie images blown up and printed for decoration.

And I found this perfect sign for the front door.

Thanks to Etsy, I was able to get ready-made digital images that I had printed at Kinko's. Then I just had to spend several hours cutting and glueing.

I struggled with the cake. I had a different vision initially, but things just weren't working out, so I had to revamp and go with a simpler idea. I made the figures from gum paste a few days before, did the fondant work the night before the party, and then assembled everything that morning. There was just no way I could make a fondant zombie, so to get around it and yet still have the zombie touch on the cake, I just went for a hand reaching out of the ground. Much easier.

For decorations I bought a set of small traffic cones.

Our first game as guests arrived was Zombie Bingo. The kids loved it.

Then we played Musical Zombie Chairs. We had downloaded the Plants vs. Zombies theme song onto a CD and we played that while the kids had to walk around the chairs zombie-style.

Then we played Zombie Bowling.

Everyone thinks it's going to be so easy, but it's not! We gave each child three tennis balls to try and knock all the cans down. Only one child got them all down with the first ball, and only two were able to get them all down with three balls. They loved this game!

Next up was Pin the Eye on the Zombie.

(I got this guy a little too dizzy!)

I ordered five of these zombie stuffed toys from China (cheap!) to use as first prizes for each of the games. The kids loved that!

Then I had a terra cotta pot filled with smaller action figure type zombies that served as second and third prizes.

The last game was a Zombie Shooting game. I printed out images of zombie heads and laminated them and hung bells from the bottoms. Aiden built the frame for me and spray painted it.

He also built me all the marshmallow shooters. (Love that boy!)

This was an outside game. The kids got ten marshmallows chances to hit the zombies.

Then it was inside for food. I had the party from 2-4pm, so I didn't need to serve lunch. But I had snacks, which the kids actually munched on throughout the whole party. We had a little "brain snack" after a few of the games and the little zombies ate their jello brain.

Plants for the little zombies!

And then it was cake time!

I can't believe this boy is turning 8!

I made one of the traffic cones into a party hat for Conor (and clipped a tie on him like a zombie too, which you can't see here).

And then they demolished my hard work!

Cards and gifts at the end.

And before they went home, they each got a party favor. I wrapped candy bars with these cute wrappers (Etsy again!)

and put them inside flower pots along with a pack of trading cards, bubbles, and a pack of sunflower seeds to grow in their pots. There were supposed to be eyeball gum balls too, but something happened to my order. Oh well, nobody knew. And hopefully parents were happy that the kids didn't come home laden with sugar.

Conor was incredibly thrilled with the way his party turned out. Parents have been telling me how much fun all the kids had. All of the games were a success. The kids would always ask to play them again when we finished. It was a ton of work getting everything ready, but all worth it!