The Kassel Family Project Life 365

If you see this guy today, make sure to wish him a Happy 45th Birthday!  We love you Andy!

We joined Jeremy, Chaley, and Jeremy’s Mom at Ruby Tuesday for dinner this evening.  It was a good time with great friends!  Of course, besides getting to see Jeremy’s Mom, the kids (and Andy) were super excited to see birthday presents from Uncle Jeremy and Chaley.  Andy got a gift card to Craft Beer Cellar.  John got five packages of Pokémon cards.  He just wanted to get home to open them!  By the way, he now has a whole lot of Pokémon cards.  His storage tin is very full!

Laura was very excited to open a package of eight 9 inch X 12 inch painting canvases.  She got all squeaky!  She was more excited to discover that Uncle Jeremy had even *more* painting canvases in his car – a package of two 16 inch X 20 inch and a package of ten 8 inch X 10 inch.  I see lots of painting in the very near future!  Anyone want a picture?  Laura is taking orders!

Laura painted a picture for a friend tonight, and it got me thinking.  I told Laura at dinner that I would love for her to paint a picture of the front of our house.  We will soon be putting our house on the market because we need more space.  She told me that she would because it would be a great memory and then said, “It’s the house that built our family.” I love that kid.

John put together one of the LEGO sets that he got for his birthday tonight all by himself.  This is the first time he has built a set all on his own.  Andy and I were both very happy to watch him and John was very proud of himself.  Great job, John!

Well, it got worse.  I finally decided to go to Mizzou Quick Care about 2 pm today.  The sting did not hurt, but was incredibly itchy.  The Nurse Practitioner measured the redness and it was 17 centimeters long by 11 centimeters wide.  She prescribed one of the strongest topical steroids available and also suggested an allergy medicine like Allegra.  After the first application, the redness started to recede, but it is going to be a few days before it is really better.  It appears that I, like my Mom, am allergic to hornet, wasp, and bee stings.  Since I have only ever been stung twice in my life, I have not yet encountered breathing problems.  Let’s hope that I never get stung again and I never have to deal with this again!

Today is the big birthday party at Lake of the Woods pool.  We began the day with a quick trip to Hy-Vee to pick up the birthday cakes.  Laura’s cake was full of “Flip-Flop Fun” (the flip flops are magnets).

John’s cake was military tank robot cake.  Yes, the tank does turn into a robot *and* it takes up most of the cake!

The morning was overcast and it rained a bit.  After some deliberation, we decided to go to the pool anyway.  It sprinkled just a bit once we got there, but it actually turned out to be near perfect weather because of the clouds.  It wasn’t too hot, but definitely warm enough to enjoy the pool.  We had about 40 people between kids and adults and everyone had a great time!  Not too long after arriving at the pool, John finally decided to take his first turn *ever* on the slide.

Once he figured out that he could go down the slide and get to the side all by himself, there was absolutely no stopping him!  Laura had a great time swimming with all her friends.  She was all smiles the entire time.

We stopped about halfway through the party to enjoy some cake.  Unfortunately, I managed to remember everything except the candles.  Oh well, we sang “Happy Birthday” without them.  It worked out because it got a bit windy right as we were getting ready to sing and the candles would not have stayed lit anyway.

After cake, the kids opened the mound of presents.  And, yes, I mean the mound…

We spent most of the rest of the afternoon in the pool with us finally leaving about 4:15.  It was a great party with great friends!  The only downside to the day was the fact that I got stung by a wasp before the party got started.  The sting area is swollen and it hurts.  Really hurts.  Let’s hope it doesn’t get worse…

Meanwhile, Laura is going strong.  I suspect her crash is coming soon…