Almost a Double Digit Dude!

How is it possible that I will have not one, but TWO children in double digits this time next year??? Isaac celebrated his 9th birthday last weekend which means the dreadful exciting 10 year old sleepover will happen next year.  I actually proposed the sleepover this year since his birthday landed on a Saturday, but he insisted we wait until his 10th just like Karson. 

 

 Isaac is a habitual eater and his current favorite (aside from Chick Fil A) is Zaxby's.  When I asked him where he wanted to have his birthday, (without hesitation) he said ZAXBY'S.  I thought, huh, how am I going to pull that off?  Zaxby's are small and don't offer birthday party options (not that that has stopped us before--CFA two years in a row).  Why not just order food to go and have it at your house, you ask?  The answer - because I know better.  Zaxby's food is only good when eaten fresh. Fortunately, there is a Zaxby's within about 3 miles of our house.  I figured...why not have a mobile party which starts in one location but ends in another.  Since I normally make all my own invitations, I came up with a plan, and a birthday party was born.  After I printed out all of my invitations and affixed them to colorful stock paper, I decided to take my "hot off the press" invite over to my in-laws house before sending them out.  My sweet mother-in-law took a look at the invitations and said, "Tiffany, am I missing something, or is the date not on here?"  I snatched it out of her hand and carefully inspected the invite.  Nope, no date.  THUS, the giant permanent marker, hand-written date at the top of the invite--not typically my style, but I wasn't about to print 15 full color invitations all over again.  Whatever works, right!

Isaac and Jack enjoying a sugar-high (and Harry Potter).

If you remember Isaac's birthday post last year, we actually got OUT of school on his birthday for snow which was awesome because we were celebrating in Nashville at The Aquarium.  This year, however, we were out of school every single day BUT his birthday (or birthday-eve).  The weather was crazy last week, and we ended up missing almost the entire week of school.  We returned to school on Friday, and I had already planned my traditional donuts and milk celebration with his class.  YEAH--Hostess donuts back in the house.  I had to do a cookie cake last year since Hostess had gone belly-up. Matt got to leave SWHS a little bit early and joined us at his class party on Friday afternoon.

I have a good feeling the cookie cakes will be Isaac's birthday treat of choice yearly.  I am totally okay with that too because they are delicious and rather inexpensive.  We went with a Star Wars theme this year. I scored some really cool dry-erase boards at Target in the dollar aisle for party favors.  I'm not sure if 9 is too old for that kind of thing, but our kids like dry-erase boards so it didn't seem to juvenile.  

Getting ready for the big PARTY at Zaxby's! I was sure to call ahead and give the manager a heads up about the 30+ guests that would be occupying the restaurant that evening.

 13 kids + 13 kids meals = Indescribable GOODness!                 I had to limit the amount of kids we could invite with it being a mobile party. Isaac is at an age where drop-off parties are the norm., and I wanted to have enough space in our cars to bring everyone back to our house. I told Isaac we had to cap his party at 11 guests (including the fab 5--him, Karson, Miles, Evan and Elizabeth).  We narrowed down to a friend from Richpond and 5 friends from school (two of which live in our actual neighborhood--literally right around the corner).

Here is the birthday crew.  I wonder exactly how many pictures it would've taken to get all of them looking in the general direction of the camera and better yet, smiling normal?  I think Matt snapped about five, and this was the best one we got =).  Boys can only stand still for so long, you know!

Simply put, the night was perfect.  We have managed to accumulate a load of cap guns through the years.  The boys played cops and spies most of the time.  I knew it would be a noisy night, and it was. Fortunately, no one was injured and everyone had a good time.  Next year's sleepover won't be quite the size of this party--we'll have to whittle the numbers down significantly.

Elizabeth was completely unfazed by the fact she was the only girl in the mix of all these 8/9-year olds.  She looks quite villainous with her mustache, gun and handcuffs.

Once the party starting winding down and parents started arriving to pick up their kids, Evan, Miles and Isaac succumbed to my bedroom with their dry-erase boards and watched Monsters University. We finally got them in bed around 10:30 and crashed ourselves.  Happy 9th Birthday Isaac, the world is a whole lot funnier with you in it!

Bring It On March 1

not to be confused with SKyPAC's upcoming Broadway production of

I titled this post Bring It On March 1 because the winter chapter in our lives will close.  I know as a parent, it is a faux pas to mention anything with regards to wishing time away with your little ones.  However, when your little one is involved in everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, under the sun during the winter months, you look forward to spring.  I'll give you one guess as to which child keeps us running around??  Anyone? Anyone?  You got it, Ms. Karson Ann.  This girl is a machine when it come to school.  She displays a great amount of leadership and wants to participate in as much as she can.  You should see this kids academic resume at the age of 11.  It's quite extensive along with her GPA, progress reports, test scores and everything she qualifies to participate in.  Yes, I'm bragging.  It is my blog, ya know =).  I've said it before and will say it again (probably her entire life) but we are very proud of her. However with all this academic success, comes a load of responsibility.  Her talent allows her access to many programs at Plano.  The areas she has chosen to focus on this year are the Robotics team, quick recall and language arts assessments for Academic team and the student Lighthouse team.

Here is a typical week for my girl.

This calendar remains on her closet door and is our go-to for every event she is to be a part of during the school week.  Unfortunately, she decided to drop out of piano for a while (maybe indefinitely).  Part of me wishes she'd continue on with her studies, but the other part screams thank goodness there is nothing else to squeeze into this schedule.  Robotics and Academic team unbeknownst to me run parallel to each other.  Karson's current practice schedule is Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at 7:30 a.m., Tuesday and Thursday afternoons until 4:30.  That, coupled with 212 Academy on Wednesdays, basketball practices, quick recall matches, church and student lighthouse team meetings means we have NO after school life until the week of March 1 which is Governor's Cup.  Karson also qualified for the math portion of academic team which was to meet on Monday mornings at 7:30.  However, I had to tell that team teacher that Karson is simply over-extended and cannot have that many practices weekly.  Whew!  Matt is also in the thrush of bowling season which means he is completely out of pocket on Mondays and Thursdays as well.  On top of that, he is continuing with his 6th graduate class which keeps him occupied on Tuesdays.  I guess I should attribute Karson's desire to learn to her father who is working on his 3rd Master's Degree which is in Education (the first two were from Lipscomb).  He also has three undergraduate degrees as well.  I live with two over-achievers.  

Plano's FINEST

A Very Rare Saturday

It is a RARE treat when I get to hang out at the house ALONE on a Saturday with only one child.  I was blessed today to spend that one-on-one time with my middle son, Isaac.  It's always disheartening when you have to miss one child's ballgame to attend another child's ballgame.  Thankfully we have such a wonderful support system that both of our basketball players get lots of fans at each game.  I was sad to miss Isaac's basketball this morning which was a nail biter.  His team lost 22-21.  Karson's team on the other hand was beating their opponent by 25-0 at the half, our league commissioner asked the score keepers to turn the scoreboard off.  It was a lopsided kind of morning basketball-wise.  Karson and Miles both had playdates today, and Matt decided to head down to Nashville for the UK/Vandy game which left me and Isaac flying solo.  I decided to get him some Chick Fil A before heading home after Karson's game.  We've had an eventful afternoon building forts, playing cards, working puzzles, eating M&M's, & watching for Zombies.  

Is that not the cutest lil' melon popping out of our fort?