Elliot's 8th Birthday- Defy

We finally got around to celebrating Elliot's birthday when we were back home in January. First step: Make a Minecraft angel food cake!

 

I always have plenty of helpers

Elliot headed up the frosting and decorations himself! We put on plenty of strawberries and whipped cream along with Minecraft figurines. I suggested waiting until right before eating to put the whipped cream on, but Elliot was not convinced that it would be fine to do it earlier in the morning so I let him. It looked fairly mushy but tasted delicious at cake time!

Birthday lunch of Pizza and cake. Then we took Elliot's best buds James and Kelton with us to Defy!

He's got muscles. He's got muscles on his muscles. He's got muscles on his eyeballs. 

No one could vanquish Isaac, the true king of the mountain

Check out monkey boy Elliot in background

The swiss cheese - foam pit combo!

"That guy's my Elliot!"

Technology at it's finest. It was a projector with a touch screen that let you clear matches when you hit clusters with a ball. I kept trying to explain to Elliot that you were supposed to throw the balls from a distance, but he was unconvinced. 

Proof that Elliot is brave these days! I was so proud of him!

Proof that Aaron is a cool dad.

Kelton gave Elliot a literal bag of dirt for his birthday! Well, technically it was clay harvested from the wash near our houses. It came with a YouTube video about how to process your own clay. We had a lot of fun mixing it up with water... but then kind of forgot about it and didn't make it to the awesome pottery stage.

Elliot says "Stuff. And I smell great." Keeping this sentence in here is a belated birthday gift to him. 

Mt. Vernon & SPY

 Elliot got the whole first week of January off of school, so we decided to stay in Virginia with Aaron working remotely. The goal was to hit up lots of DC museums, since we don't know how much longer my parents will be out there, and the kids are old enough to remember it some. Unfortunately, Covid hit again. 

Aaron's positive Covid test next to a puppet Elliot made out of my first draft dice bag. Elliot discovered Max's old Dice Masters set in the game cabinet and became OBSESSED. I sewed him some dice bags out of scrap fabric in the basement. We ended up taking it home with us. Elliot tried to teach his friends how to play, but it made poor James Mills cry. He has hoodwinked babysitters into playing, but all of them confess that they didn't understand the rules along and just did whatever Elliot advised them to do. He's a smart, game-loving kid!

Mom and I put the time stuck at her house to good use by de-junking the basement! It was a super satisfying project. We trashed a lot of stuff and made a big pile for them to bring to a flea market in the spring. 

When we weren't laboring in the basement, we entertained ourselves by:

Firing up the old Jacuzzi bath! We almost lost Isaac in the bubbles a few times!

Fierce bubble warrior

I had a good time wearing this pizza costume that I found in a closet. 

Isaac was the only one who properly acknowledged how hilarious I was. He's good for my self-confidence.  

Eventually we deemed ourselves non-contagious and ventured out to a couple of sites. First on our list was Mt. Vernon, home of George Washington. 

How picturesque! 

This old tree was there when George Washington was alive!

Isaac had a hard time wrapping his head around the idea that the ropes were meant to block off areas, not to swing on.

The wallpaper and dedication to color schemes was impressive

A couple of tourists in the Mt. Vernon kitchen

The Kimberlies! They both love George Washington!

The museum had a kid zone where they could make a Christmas ornament

The boys were less than enthusiastic about our dress ups photo op

It has been years since I've been to Mt. Vernon, and it was the first time visiting with the Christmas Décor. It is so very well done. 

Our trip the following day was to the new location of one of my childhood favorite places, the Spy Museum! They had some fun interactive challenges and fascinating displays. We had been watching Marx brothers movies and found out that Harpo Marx was actually a secret agent who transported diplomatic mail from the Soviet Union in his socks. The kids would have played in the secret tunnels all day long. 

Thanks always to Mimi to showing us such a great time in VA!

McLean for the Holidays

Christmas was a lovely affair as always! Mimi got artsy with the beef wellington so I got to help her cut out holly leaves from the leftover pastry dough. It turned out great!

She's an artist in the kitchen.

Look at that spread!

The Johnsons on Christmas Day. I love these people!

My crafting contribution - a tribute to how Aaron always changes the words to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" to be "He sees you when you're sleeping" on loop.

Morgan got Max some pinecone jelly. It was... edible? It had good flavor but eating a pinecone, even a soft one, just feels weird. 

Max had us play some debate game where we argued about ridiculous scenarios. He's a good guy to have around. 

Grumpa's shop was the source of roasted marshmallows and magic wand making. Blake and Grumpa are making an electric guitar together from scratch, which will be truly epic if it gets finished. 

Here's a picture of Annie on the way to hide her brother's body after the mishap with the axe

I found some giant paper in the basement and used it to make family new year's resolutions together. We each got a different colored crayon and got to write a goal for each of the categories. The one I'm most excited about is the Family History birthdays. I stole this idea and most of the content from Megan. Throughout the year on the birthdays of close deceased ancestors, we will read a short story about them and look at a picture of them during dinner. Then in the fall we will celebrate Dia de los Muertos with an ofrenda of pictures of our ancestors we have learned about throughout the year. 

Kalahari Dos

 This year, we gave our kids a trip to Kalahari Water Park for their Christmas present from us. We spent the day after the wedding hanging out and prepping at Jonny and Megan's house and then drove up to Pennsylvania on December 22. It was so fun last year, and this year it was even more fun with slightly taller kids! We had a fun group- Jonny's family, Joanna & Rayne, Timmy, Grandma Blood, and Elizabeth. Rayne came up with the game of singing Christmas songs at the top of your lungs as you go down the group tube slides while the rest of the group waiting at the top or bottom tries to guess what song you were singing. It wasn't very successful since it is so dang loud in there. 

It was snowing outside! The whole park was indoor except for a section of the hot tubs. You can cross through a boundary from the indoor to outdoor part of the hot tub. It was so neat being in the hot tub in the snow! The kids kept jumping out to get snowballs.

This little fella had an absolute blast. We sweet talked Grandma Blood into watching him via baby monitor while he napped so we could get in more park time. She had a Spanish copy of Harry Potter and chocolates, so she was good to go. 

Isaac eventually figured out how to go down the slides without flopping like a fish like he is in this picture

The red and black slide in this picture is the Anaconda, the biggest slide we could convince Annie to go on. I got a grand total of 0 pictures of Elliot in the park because he was off with cousin Aaron for hours at a time. He was tall enough to do all the rides this year and was doing some pretty extreme ones! He and I have the same favorite ride- Smoke that Thunders. It's a 4 person innertube ride that drops you into a huge funnel. Every single time I felt like our tube was going up so high that it would surely flip upside down. It's exhilarating and even more fun when it's dark outside, so the funnel part is pitch black!

Catherine had a traumatic experience on a waterslide with her uncle that was trying to make her tube rock as much as possible, so she was boycotting all slides- even the super mellow one that Annie dubbed "the family ride." Annie laughs her head off and yells "this is the best day of my life!" whenever we ride it. I took it upon myself to get Catherine to ride the family ride with Megan, Annie, and me. I had to talk her up to it for several hours with Annie's help and physically drag her up the stairs. I dub it successful exposure therapy. She's not converted fully to the wonders of water slides, but she did admit that it was not nearly as scary as she had built it up to be in her mind. I do love that Catherine. 

A bunch of Bloods recuperating with screens after a long day of going up and down water slide towers.

We did the same strategy as last time of eating meals in the hotel room instead of going out to eat in the restaurants. Megan was a champ to bring most of the food from home for us to mooch off of, and we supplemented with a grocery run from the Walmart down the street. 

After 2 wonderful nights at Kalahari, we drove back to Maryland and took the MARC train down to DC to spend Christmas with the Johnsons. We were impressed by the public transportation system and glad to dodge having to rent a car. 

Union Station decked out with Christmas décor, waiting to be picked up by Grumpa!

Jacob and Natalie's Wedding

Jacob and Natalie got married on Dec 20! Natalie is super cool. She is a super go-getter who is passionate about civil rights and jazz music. I'm confident that she and Jacob are going to make the world a better place. 

Just look at these two!

They got married in DC, which was convenient for us because we were planning on being at my parent's house for Christmas. We ended up being out east for three weeks! We started out the trip with a few days at Jonny and Megan's house before the wedding. We got to go to their ward Christmas party, tour Timmy's new townhouse, eat Megan's yummy food, and let the kids dump out all the toys in the basement. It was wonderful. 

This picture feels like a bit of family history- Mom blood using sharpie to freshen up scuffed boy church shoes before the wedding. Classic Sara Blood maneuver.  

The wedding just so happened to be on Elliot's birthday! His Uncle Max did that to him as well. That means that 25% of his 8 birthdays have been commandeered by weddings. We mostly celebrated his birthday later. His actual birthday was honored by giving him unlimited screen time in the car while driving to the wedding with his favorite person in the world, his cousin Aaron.

The actual sealing was scheduled for the evening after dark, so we took pictures at the temple first, then had the reception nearby, then went back for the sealing in the evening. 

The Bloods welcoming our newest addition!

8 of the 10 siblings were in attendance. Mary and James couldn't make it. What stellar people. 

Isaac's tiny butler outfit frequently overwhelmed me with cuteness. 

The kids and dads got to hang out at the visitors center while the rest of us rushed over to help finish set up at the reception. Natalie's family hired my mom to take point on the wedding reception, and she knocked it out of the park as usual. 

My kids got to see Mimi and Grumpa for the first time in months at the reception, and the kid's reactions were adorable. They adore their grandparents. 

The food was delicious, the stories and toasts were heartwarming, and the slideshow was hilarious.

Mimi managed to have a birthday present for Elliot (origami!) on top of the thousand details she was managing that day. Truly a wonder woman. 

It was a fun day celebrating these two wonderful people!