Theo's Birthday and Baptism

 Theo had a Bloons Tower Defense themed 8th birthday party and it was great. We had a big turnout at my parent's house in the backyard.

I'm so glad to have my Theo. He is so loving and he is interested in so many things. He loves math and reading. He recently read the first Alcatraz Vs. the Evil Librarian's book, which is pretty long and aimed at middle school kids. He loves building things and doing puzzles and Wordles and Boggle (online called Squaredle). He treats his sisters so well and while he can get annoyed at them, he also loves to involve them in whatever he is doing, even though they are half his age and at a different level. He finds ways to get them involved in his fun.

He has started jiu-jitsu this September and works hard at it and has lots of fun. I remember that in High School my brother Will was called "Smiles" or "Smiley" or something on the wrestling team because he was always smiling and happy. I love to watch Theo smile even as he is rolling with someone else in a match. The other kids like to partner with him for his good attitude.

As a side note about the party, I wanted to include one girl's requests about the cake, "Please get me the cake because the cupcakes all have strawberries on them and I don't like strawberries. Give me a piece without a strawberry on it."

"Well, it's actually a strawberry cake inside, just so you know."

"Oh, that's great!" the girl told me, "I LOVE strawberry flavored things." Then she happily ate her strawberry cake.

We are so glad the my in-laws came for the baptism. 

When Tache and Jay watched Theo's jiu-jitsu class, another parent pointed at the three and said, "There's no question of paternity!"
Grandpa, dad, and grandson

Last year's pinata was too hard and this year's was too easy, but everyone still had fun.

The popping balloons with darts was the favorite game.

Rachel's birthday party :)

Wendy loves to show off that she can ride her pedal bike with no training wheels. Miri can do it too-- she did it better first because she's taller and can better get started. But Wendy loves to show people her talent.

See the second bowl of dough behind the first? I used 10 cups of flour in the rolls, which I made with my great grandma's recipe, I think. The recipe wasn't super well labeled, so I could be wrong. The rolls all got eaten as well as the 2 cherry pies, within 24 hours of Thanksgiving. Yay!