Sunday, October 9, 2022

September Photos

 September was a month full of fun and adventure as sweet Max turned TEN years old! What a fun decade it's been with him in our lives.

Once we finished all the planned festivities for Max's birthday party, he and his friends weren't ready to leave, so we all walked over to the playground area and the kids played for another two hours!



Max had a Greek mythology themed birthday party, and we made "Medusa" dirt cups for the birthday dessert (pudding, crushed Oreo, and cool whip parfaits).





Giving instructions for the Zeus lightening bolt throwing contest!

Silly photo after Pin the Eye on the Cyclops!


The Pin the Eye on the Cylops blindfold!

Icarus Files Too Close to the Sun game!


Playing with Saskia at her grandparents house!

Part of Max's birthday present was to go on a family road trip! One stop was at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.


Another road trip stop was the Parthenon in Nashville. The statue of Athena was INCREDIBLE!!







Waiting for a (delicious!) barbecue lunch in Nashville!


Another road trip stop was Cumberland Caverns in Tennessee! We all really enjoyed our tour of the cave, and our guide was really fun!








More birthday party fun! There were two Zeus lightning bolt throwing contests - one for distance and one for accuracy (getting it inside the ring of cones).



































Once all the planned party games were over, the boys turned the pool noodle "lightning bolts" in to swords. All the parents were laughing that there's really no need to plan games, etc. when we probably could have just gotten a bunch of pool noodles and snacks and let the kids whack each other!


Stealing gummy worms while Mom puts the final touches on the Medusa dessert.












Photo by Max!

The statue of Nike in Athena's hand is as tall as this stick! (Over six feet tall!)











Very excited about a birthday present he really wanted!!







Driveway pool noodle battle!



Annual photo of the exact time Max was born! Officially 10 years old at 7:04AM!


Excited after opening all the gifts from his friends!



Gifts from friends!






Best friends from YMCA camp, Xander and Michael!







Rohan turned his Medusa into a cyclops with a moustache!












Escape the Minotaur! The kids had to run from one set of cones to the other without being tagged by the Minotaurs (aka Ben and Rob!).








For the Curse of Tantalus game, the kids had to eat a donut dangling from a string with no hands! (It was so funny!)









Medusa freeze tag!














Max participated in the player development program for baseball this fall!





Celebrating Max's birthday in Hiawassee!

Birthday buddies!




Celebrating Aman's birthday with zip lining!





Fun little photo collage of the birthday buddies over the years!







Max's teacher sent a few photos from school!




Field trip to the grocery store! Lots of activities with weight, money, determining how to buy supplies to make a meal with a certain budget, etc.




Max and Saskia tapping into their inner animal eating barbecue ribs!



Monday, September 12, 2022

Birthday Interview: 10 Years Old



Favorite Food: Spaghetti 

Favorite Song: "Believer" by Imagine Dragons

Favorite Color: Any color of the ocean

Favorite Animal: Gray Wolf

Favorite Toy: Sphero Sprk+

Favorite Book / Book Series: Any book by Rick Riordan or "Rick Riordan Presents"

Favorite thing to do with Dad: Watch "Spiderman"

Favorite thing to do with Mom: Read

Favorite thing to play inside: Minecraft

Favorite thing to play outside: Biking

Favorite place to visit: Hiawassee

What do you want to be when you grow up? Wolf Biologist 


Past Birthday Interviews:







August Photos

We have a fourth grader in the house!!







Milkshakes with Grammie!



We got to dogsit Lucy for a week! She was an excellent guest. :-)





Check out the size of this preying mantis that Max and I saw! My hand is in the photo for scale -- it must have been at least four inches long.







Lucy slept on Max's bed every night - so sweet!


Max originally wanted to be Poseidon for Halloween, but I found this blow-up dinosaur costume at a consignment sale for $15 -- needless to say, he is going as a dino instead. Watching Max walk around in this thing is hilarious!



Ziplining at his friend Aman's birthday party!



The kids got to decorate their own cupcake at the birthday party. There is some cake somewhere beneath that mountain of frosting and sprinkles!







Ben and I were laughing that this is a peek at Max's future! He looked so grown up doing research on the computer for part of his homework. 


Out for a run with Saskia!


Max's friend William came over to play one afternoon before school started! (Note Miss Lucy supervising in the background - ha!)


 

Thursday, August 18, 2022

July Photos

 Celebrating Max's friend Xander's birthday!

Max with his "camp best friend," Michael. These two have been peas in a pod at summer camp since the summer after kindergarten!

I caught Max mid-blink in this photo, but he had fun picking up and petting Xander's cat!



Family Day at summer camp! Max is in the green shirt.

Fishing at Family Day at summer camp!

Max and his friend from school, Aman, attended a few weeks of camp together! They live nearby so we carpooled for camp pick-up.


Loving on Charlie (who is looking very sporty in his thunder coat!).


Sparklers!


Celebrating Independence Day by getting to ride on the boat to watch fireworks!


Blurry because it was dark outside, but having fun watching fireworks from the boat!




Max and Olivia had a lot of fun putting a puzzle together one afternoon!



Ben downloaded an app that let us have a pet dragon! It's pretty fun because it looks like the dragon is walking around our house, our yard, etc. We all enjoyed having our photo taken with him! ;-)