Thomas Turns 8

Thomas's birthday is only a month after Charles's, so school starts and we are quickly planning a celebration for Thomas. He decided he wanted to skate again this year, but we chose to roller skate instead of ice skate this time.

We started the morning off with our traditional donuts on the birthday plate. We have done this for so many years now, the kids really look forward to waking up to presents from the family waiting and seeing how mom shaped donuts into their number. Eight was an easy one...It was just two Krispy Kremes from Kroger plopped down onto the plate.



Next Thomas opened Charles's present (a Tony Romo Cowboys jersey) and mom and dads present (a spark scooter). Joshua was still at a friends house from a sleepover the night before. When he got home later, he gave Thomas a set of Bendaroos.

The spark scooter turned out to be pretty cool. It is just a regular razor scooter that has a pad on the back that when pushed down with your foot makes sparks fly. Of course the pad wears down very quickly...something to spend allowance money on, but it's fun while it lasts!

Here is Charles checking Thomas out in front of the house. Working on the best technique.









Sparks are flying!












Later that afternoon we were off to SkateTown for the party. All the kids really did have fun!!

Thomas did pretty well. He only fell a few times.




Here are some of Thomas's buddies that were at the party:



These are Thomas's good friends Jessie and Olivia.


Check out Charles...he started off using one of the cool wheeled frame things to help him, but soon found he did better without it. He was so cute!


Charles's best friend, James, and his mom wheeled around for almost the entire party with the help of this cool little frame.

Even Steve reluctantly strapped on some skates and got out there for a little bit. And of course Joshua had fun racing around, faster each time!

After an hour or so of skating, we moved to the party area where they had hot dogs and chips and were able to cool off a little bit.




Then they played the ice cream game





And ate cake (yes, a cookie cake again. The Kall children are not fond of regular cake). It was a Cowboys cake...kind of.




We opened presents at home so the kids could have more time to skate. It was a really fun afternoon and a great birthday!!

Happy 5th Birthday Charles

Charles is finally 5! He is so thrilled to be 5. Five is that age that is officially no longer a baby. It's off to kindergarten. It's riding a bike without training wheels and big boy stuff.

So we celebrated our baby not being a baby anymore with a party at the house. Since we already celebrated at Sea World in San Antonio with his cousins, this was supposed to just be a little "get together" swimming in the backyard with a few buddies. I planned to have a cake and some balloons and that was it. However, Charles kept saying things like "where are we going to hang the pinata?" Oh darn...I guess I need to get a pinata. Then he said, "lets play the games in the backyard". I asked him "what games" and he said "pin the tail on the donkey of course". So off I went to get that game. He was so cute. I was not going to get away with just swimming and some balloons. We were having a real deal party!!!

Of course we started off the morning with our traditional "donuts in the shape of a 5" and presents from the family. Joshua got Charles the game "perfection"



Thomas got him a blue light saber, and Steve and I got Charles a digital camera. Charles spends hours (and lots of battery life) taking pictures with my phone. He loves it so much, we thought he would enjoy having his own camera. This turned out to be lots of fun for Charles. Seems the apple doesn't fall far from the photography tree.



The party started later that afternoon. The boys swam and then broke open the pinata. It turns out that after only two kids, the Darth Vader head broke in half. Oh well, less time to wait for Candy.




Then we headed in to eat cake (cookie cake again). Our theme this time around was star wars and I was given strict orders to request a cake with very little icing. So the cake was kinda plain. But yummy!




Presents were next...the part Charles couldn't wait for. He got lots of great toys.


This was a really cool star wars blaster from his best friend James.





It's official, there are no more little kids at the Kall house!

Summer Wrap-up

It seems that summer is over. Not officially, I guess. I think that happens in September sometime. But today, is August 31st, the temperature here is only getting into the high 80s, the kids are in school, fall is in the air. So, I have decided to post one final, summer wrap-up. I take lots of pictures. Everyone knows that. It seems that I am more of a photojournalist than a photographer. I get a kick out of telling stories with photos, so here is our summer story.


First on our stop of outings and adventures, was a trip up I-35 about 30 minutes to a little blackberry farm for some picking. We made the trip with our neighbors (and Charles's best friend). We packed a picnic dinner, and after spending at least an hour picking berries, we had a seat under a big old oak tree. It was hot and sticky, and tons of fun!



Thomas actually enjoyed this little outing. I wasn't sure if he would when we set out. He tends to get bored quickly and easily with something like this. This time was different though. He got really excited when he would spot an exceptionally big, fat, juicy and dark purple blackberry. He thought it was funny to eat the not-ripe red ones that were VERY sour too.









I knew Joshua would enjoy this because it is right up his alley. He likes to eat blackberries for one, and when put on a task he is all business. He probably single handedly picked more than half of all the berries we brought home.

And then there was Charles (with buddy James). He LOVES blackberries, so it was an easy sell. He ate as many as made it into the bucket, got really hot, and had to fight off some ants, but boy did he have fun.

Next on our "to-do list" for the summer was to buy a cat. Why, you say? Well, it turns out the boys have been asking for a pet for years, specifically a kitten. Thomas asked me when Charles was 1 year old, and I told him "no". I said when Charles was older. Thomas pressed further, "like when he is 4 1/2?" And I said "yes" Guess how old Charles is? He is five, but at the time of this story he was 4 1/2. And I am one to keep my word. Steve was not thrilled, but he gave in, especially since I promised. So after many trips to Petsmart, much correspondence with the humane society, and meeting many kittens we finally picked two. Yes two. We couldn't get just one, we had to get two. These kinds of things just happen sometimes. The kittens were litter mates (brother and sister), one black and one gray tabby. We named them Tori and Tony. We actually adopted them in late June and had to wait THREE LONG WEEKS to bring them home. The boys were thrilled and they all really love the kittens. Steve secretly likes them too.



The day we brought them home, the cats quickly hid from us as cats do. Thomas found Tony under his bed, so he crawled under with him and read a book. He put a sign up that said "shhh...cat sleeping" Here is Joshua and Tori. She is a really cute cat, but not quite as much of a people cat as Tony. She wouldn't come out of hiding for days when we brought her home. She is very sweet though and has warmed up to us now. She also figured out how to use the cat door to the garage much faster than Tony. So, I think she is the smart one of the two.

Tony is lots of fun for Charles because he puts up with almost anything. We are trying to teach Charles not to pick him up and drag him around like a stuffed animal. But it is hard becasue Tony lets him. The older boys went off to camp a few days after we got the kittens, so Tony and Charles have bonded. They are buddies.




The cats are a lot of fun to have around. They play and fight and knock things over like kids. But they are precious and the boys are doing pretty well taking care of them.

When the boys got back from camp, grammy and papa came for a quick visit on their way back from Hawaii where they visited my moms brother. They were here for my birthday which was really fun for me. Grammy made me a gluten free brownie "cake". I even got balloons and flowers. Steve bought me a GPS and mom and dad bought me a kindle. What a gadget geek I am. It was a really great birthday!



After getting a gps, I decided to try out something called geocaching with the boys. We had a week with no plans, so I checked out the geocaching website, downloaded the treasures into the gps and off we went. It took a few tries to figure out how to work the gps for this type of activity, but when we did, we actually got quite good at it. Who knew there were treasures or "caches" hidden all over the world that could be found with a gps?? Joshua, Charles and I really had fun doing this. Thomas complained the whole time. But, he did get excited when we found our first cache. This was the first one we actually found. It was in the woods behind our local Kroger.



We finished our summer fun with a trip to San Antonio to visit cousins and celebrate Charles's birthday at Sea World. We had a jampacked week of activity. The first day there we went to Landa Park in New Braunfels. It is a natural spring fed pool with a rope swing and a big slide. We packed a picnic and took all the cousins. They really enjoyed this. Here is Josh on the rope swing and Thomas coming down the slide.


Charles even got the nerve up to go for a ride on the rope swing (with a little help from cousin Christopher).



Next on our list of activities was a trip to Sea World. Charles had been asking for months to go to Sea World for his birthday. We hadn't been there in a quite a few years, and in spite of the heat it was a great day.

The Shamu show was fantastic. That darn whale always makes me cry. It's such a beautiful show.


Charles was absolutely mesmerized. He sat on Steve's lap eating cotton candy and whispered "Sea World is Awesome"



One of the best things at Sea World was feeding the dolphins in the dolphin tank.




The big kids ended the day at Sea World riding all the crazy big roller coasters while Steve and Charles saw all the rest of the evening shows. We closed the park down at 8:00 and headed home only to go to Schlitterbahn the next day. I don't have any pictures from Schlitterbahn, but boy was it fun. It is a massive water park that is so big you have to take a bus to get to the second half. It is built right next to the river in New Braunfels and part of the park actually uses the natural spring water. We had a lot of of fun there too, and will have to make this a yearly trip now that the kids are older.

We finished our visit with a little birthday celebration for Charles at Yvonne and Larry's house. It was a fun, exhausting trip and a great end to our summer.

First Day...all together

Today was the first day of the first, last and only time my three boys will be together at school. Charles was super excited to go to school with the big boys. He has never been a big fan of school, so I was really glad to see him pumped up. They all popped out of bed and got ready quickly this morning. After breakfast we headed out to fight the first day traffic.

We stood in line to get into Charles's Kinder class. There are too many Kindergarten kids this year, so they are in the process of transferring or hiring a new teacher. But for now the classes are stuffed full. Charles didn't care though. He went right to his locker, hung up his backpack then sat down and started coloring.

All Business.

He was so calm, cool and collected I hardly had a reason to get sad.
(by the way, all the scratches on his face are from a run in he had with Tony, one of our new kittens. Go ahead. Click on it to get a better view. Let's just say we think he has learned a valuable life lesson. "it is not wise to run away from ones brother with a cat in your arms")



Joshua told us goodbye and headed to his class, then Steve and I walked Thomas down to his 2nd grade classroom. No problems there. Thomas seemed a tiny bit nervous, but all in all happy to be back.



When the boys got home after school, I was asking them all (but especially Charles) how their day went. Charles proceeded to tell me that his "pork egg roll" from the cafeteria was not an egg at all. I think he was actually expecting a rolled up egg. God love him!