The Kassel Family Project Life 365

Grandma Marilyn arrived at our house tonight and the kids are very excited!  Andy and I leave tomorrow for a float trip with a group of adults and Grandma will stay with the kids this weekend.  It should be fun times!

Andy practicing his trumpet is a regular thing in our house these days.  He’s practicing to play at a church service at some point.  John loves to watch and listen while Andy plays.  I think we have a future trumpet player in the house.

Today, our great truck rolled over the 100,000 mile point.  Unfortunately, it is now out of warranty.  🙁  We also happen to still be making payments on it, but we only have approximately three payments left.  It’s a great truck and Andy and I love it, so we will not be replacing it anytime soon!  I’m sure that shocks you all given that we’ve had the Alero for ten years now…

I have a super-talented son.  At the ripe old age of four, he enjoys making himself burp and then laughing hysterically at himself.  I must admit that it’s cute, but I can’t tell him that because that would be encouraging him.  Little boys are soooooo different from little girls.  This morning, Laura told John, “Stop making yourself burp!  That is just yucky!  Grow up Johnny.”  John’s response?  He made himself burp again, causing Laura to stomp out of the room in disgust.

Despite it being John’s actual fourth birthday, today was largely a recovery day that we all needed.  Andy got stuck working and trying to fix a problem on a server most of the day.  Laura and John played with their new toys and then played with Chloe and Claire for the entire afternoon.  I read a book for a while and then did a bit of cleaning, laundry, and straightening up of the house.  The big highlight of our day was when Andy and John went to The Home Depot to buy some new flooring for two areas in our downstairs!  Hey, we were all tired….sometimes recovery days are exactly what you need.

We had John’s fourth birthday party at Little Mate’s Cove today.  There were nine kids there for swimming fun, cupcakes and ice cream, and presents.  John was so excited and loved his party!  He was so delighted at everything and laughed a whole lot.  First, he was excited at getting to blow out the “4” candle on his cupcake and then eat both the cupcake and ice cream.

Then, he was excited about opening all his presents.  This one is a sprinkler ball from Tamara and Kyler.  Tamara also made the beach bag from real CapriSun Wild Cherry juice boxes.  John wasn’t so excited about the bag, but *I* was!

Lastly, John was excited to swim with all his great friends!

Thanks to all of John’s friends who came to the party and for all the great presents!  He had a great time and was very worn out afterwards.  He fell asleep on the way home and slept for two hours.  I think it was a successful day!

Laura had her first big sleepover today to celebrate her sixth birthday.  We invited eight girls and all of them were able to attend along with another friend.  The girls arrived at 6 pm and the fun and craziness ensued!  It was a GREAT evening and the girls were all awesome.  It was a fun night of playing, pizza, presents, cupcakes and ice cream, Wuggle Pets, glow sticks, and movies.  There was a little bit of sleep in there too!  Andy had originally said he was going to take John and go out for the night, but he ended up staying and helping me.  I was very thankful and John had a lot of fun too.  The absolute best part of the evening was watching and listening to Laura have the time of her life!  She was so happy and it was worth every minute of that time.  Now on to pictures!

All the girls…

We got Wuggle Pets for all the girls.  This is them standing in line waiting to make their pets (I took this picture and then helped Andy make them.)

One of the girls brought glow sticks to the party.  After all the girls were in their pajamas, they had a fantastic time running around the driveway!  They were sword fighting and having “team” meetings based on the color of the glow stick.  It was good times!

After all the excitement, it was time to settle in for a movie or two.  First up was “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl.”  This is all the girls ready to watch movie #1.

After the second movie, I turned out the lights.  It was about 12:30 and five of the girls were still awake.  Yes, Laura was one of those girls.  I woke up about 6:30 am and quietly wandered downstairs to a pile of sleeping girls.

I think all the girls (and two parents!) were tired on Saturday morning, but I know that they all had a lot of fun.  I think we’ll be doing this again next year!