Happy Birthday, Lane!

Yesterday was Lane's 15th birthday! I am just not old enough to have a child that's 15, but there it is. After school/work, we all met up at Red Lobster as Lane is a HUGE shrimp fan and, conveniently for his birthday, they are having their Endless Shrimp promotion. Mmmmmmm.....

Maren was less than thrilled, as she is NOT a seafood fan, but hey, when it's her birthday in six months, she can pick the place and have chicken strips, just like she did last night. Even Reed joined in and had the child's plate of popcorn shrimp. Mmmmmm....shrimp. (Can you tell I like shrimp, too?)


After dinner, we came home and had homemade birthday cake. It was hard to fit 15 candles on it, but we managed.


Then Lane opened the multitude of presents he had from family and we sat down to watch Survivor which had been TiVo'd earlier. (No Project Runway for us, Bob!)


This is what 15 year old boys like (and get) for their birthdays:

2 Hollister t-shirts
Watch
Target gift card
2 latest books from the Cirque du Freak series
Money for Napster downloads
PS2 video game

Happy 15th Birthday, Lane!

Mixed-Up Songs, Part II

Reed apparently really likes the B -I-N-G-O song. Today, outside of church, he sang it again, but with a new twist.

There was a farmer had a dog
And Reed was his name-o
R-E-E-D-O, R-E-E-D-O, R-E-E-D-O
And Reed was his name-o.

We're making progress...

Did you know...

At the dinner table tonight, with a perfectly straight face, Reed said:

"You know, if you get food in your eye, then your head will blow up. (Long pause)
Then you will lose your head."

Social Butterfly

by Lorna

A good majority of the reason that Tim & I are Busy Frizzies (see a previous post) is because of our daughter, Maren, also known in family circles as our social butterfly. If there is any sort of social event happening, she's there. And being 11 years old and therefore, not of driving age, Tim & I are the ones to tote her around to all these events. Take this weekend for example.

Saturday:

Maren had a football game to cheer at and it was an away game which was about 45 minutes from our house. She also has to arrive at all games 45 minutes ahead of time. Tim & I decided to "divide and conquer" so we could accomplish more in our limited weekend time. So Tim went to this game and I stayed home. Tim & Maren stopped by the mall on the way home to buy a birthday present for the next event of the day: her best friend's birthday party/sleepover!

Sunday:

While the rest of us went to church, Maren was still snoozing at her friend's house. She arrived home about noon. At 2:30, we left to take her to an entertainment complex as the football players had invited the cheerleaders to go bowling with them. At 4:30, I picked her up, came home for 15 minutes and then took both her and Lane to church for youth group.

In the midst of all Maren's activities, we also managed to do all the laundry, get one child a haircut, clean out our closet, sort stuff for an upcoming garage sale and make ahead a pot of soup and a casserole for the week.

Busy frizzies, indeed!

We spend lots of time, money and energy on Maren and her "events," but it's usually worth it for our sanity. A busy Maren is a happy Maren.

The Toothless Wonder

by Lorna

Okay, I've been a mom for almost 15 years now and have three children, but this is a new one for me. Not an unheard of event among children, but new for me. Reed's preschool called me at work today during lunchtime to tell me that he had managed to knock out one of his top front teeth. He was leaving the bathroom area in his room and apparently did not look where he was going and walked smack into the wall. He completely knocked out the tooth, root and all. It would take something major happening to my children to really get me worked up, and it WAS one of his baby teeth, so I wasn't all that upset about it. I called the dentist and they wanted to see him, so I picked him up and took him over there. They said there wasn't much to be done about it; he was just going to look a little more "mature" (read: about 6 years old) for a couple of years until the permanent tooth came in. I talked to Reed about what exactly had happened. He said:

"I went potty after lunch. I was in the middle. I turned around to look at Trevor and then I bounced off the wall and my tooth came out."

I took him back to school after the dentist because he wasn't in any pain and seemed generally unperturbed about it all. However, this evening, he does seem concerned. Apparently, another child told him he was scary so he's now worried that he looks funny. However, on the brighter side of things, he has now been made aware of the Tooth Fairy's existence and thinks that's pretty cool. Money for a tooth. What a concept!

This was Reed a couple of months ago:
















This is Reed now: