and he's 5

What a fun and busy weekend! On Saturday we had Kason's friends' birthday party.  I think it went well and the kids had a lot of fun.  It is always hard for me to know who to invite because if I wanted to invite all our good friends who have kids around Kason's age that would be a huge group.  So I invited Kason's best buddies and some of his closest friends.  Of course, a lot of them have older siblings so we had to invite them and so we ended up with around 20 kids here ages 2-9 and some parents.  I had some cute games planned too but as usual, the kids got wild pretty soon after everyone got here and we managed to do 3 games before I lost them. :)  But in big groups that's how it is and it's ok because really, they just want to play with each other and run around and explore our yard, woods and stuff.  Before they all ran out though I was able to have all of their attention for a little science experiment as we made a "volcano" from playdough.  It was cute and the kids loved how it was bubbling up.  It was just baking soda in a bottle and after we made it look like a volcano I poured a colored vinegar in.  Very simple but it's funny how kids love hands-on projects like that.

Kason has been very much into Mario Kart racing lately and so the obvious choice for a cake was a Mario race track which worked well with number 5.   It is probably my 3rd race track as I did one for Kade's number 8 and Kason's number 4.  It is very easy to decorate it too so a win win.  Kason loved it and because of how many kids we had, there was only a tiny bit of cake left after the party, which is good because usually we have a ton of cake left.

On Sunday after church, it was a very exciting afternoon for the kids as Ehren got to work on setting up the trampoline.  I was going to wait longer to buy it but then it went on sale so it worked out great.  It was so nice out, the warm sun felt wonderful as we were out there.  We did make our project about twice as long because we messed up and had to redo all the strings. :)  But it still didn't take very long and before they knew it, all 3 kids were jumping, squealing and laughing on the trampoline.  It is so fun to watch their faces, how much they enjoy it and any kids for that matter.  Pretty much all of our kids' friends love trampolines and I'm excited to have them over this summer so they can play together.  Ehren and I jumped on it some too and it was fun feeling like a kid again.  But it wasn't the best thing for my sinus infection that I've had for a few days now because as I was jumping my nose started running like crazy. :)  We did all that before we had our couples' Bible study at 5:30.

So today was Kason's official birthday.  I can't believe our youngest is 5 years old already.  We are definitely moving into a new stage of life - having school aged kids.  In many ways it's exciting to see our kids grow and become their own persons and in many ways it gets so much more challenging and scary to parent them, to know what is ok for them to do and what is not.  How much activities/sports our kids should be involved in, how much stuff they could have, what they should and shouldn't be learning, reading, watching and the list goes on and on.  I just hope we have the wisdom to deal with all that's going to be thrown at us and that we keep our eyes on Jesus and let Him guide us because if we doing it alone we fail miserably.

We finished the day by having Kason's requested dinner - spaghetti  and going to the park with nana and papa and Kjell and Jess with their girls.  It was a great way to end the day even though I wasn't feeling very good.  It was just such a beautiful and warm day today and we really hope the warm weather is here to stay now. :)

this was on Saturday and on Sunday kids wanted to wear T shirts and shorts it was that much warmer :)

    

little kids' turn