Happy Birthday Matt

Today my little boy turned 5. He would say that he had a good birthday (except for the time that I put him in time-out for jumping on Thomas' head). We painted a volcano that he got for Christmas and he really enjoyed that. Hopefully the volcano kit works when we try to make it "erupt" (with baking soda and vinegar through a straw). If it does work I'll put up a couple pictures. One of his friends came over to play and then we had a wonderful birthday dinner of....macaroni & cheese, and dinosaur Jell-O knox blox. I recently got a silicone dinosaur cake mold and thought I'd try it out with Jell-O. The lime green wiggly T-rex was a hit. I had to tell Matt to "stop patting the Jell-O". Unfortunately the brontosaurus came out headless. Oh well. He got a couple books about outer space and (of course) volcanoes, Chutes and Ladders, and an abacus. He surprised us by counting by 10 to 100. I don't recall teaching him how to do that. After we played a challenging game of Chutes and Ladders (I won), we all played video games. There is a car game on the PS3 that Matt wins quite often. I even try to do well, and I just can't get it sometimes. Oh well. It makes him feel good when I score 2 and he scores 12. (It's "Calling All Cars" that you can download from the PS3 in case you were wondering). His aunt called him and she got a lesson on how a Gallimimus is a meat eater, but doesn't eat other dinos, just their eggs. ( I'm not sure where he got that info, 'cause as I look it up online, it seems that it is an omnivore eating mostly bugs and plants and small animals.) She also got to learn about the different kind of lavas out there and the bad consequenses of being in an earthquake (like he knows). So if you ever call here and talk to him be prepared to hear a lesson on some type of dinosaur, or the difference between pahoehoe and aa lava. (by the way "aa" (pronounced 'a-ha') is a real word that you could use during a game of Scrabble. It is the bumpy lava that when it cools turns into the bumpy, spikey rock, rather than the smooth, rope like lava. But I digress). He will have a birthday party on Saturday. He's having a Luau party complete with the Limbo, and a volcano cake. Hopfully it is fun and the activities flow well. (get it- flow, lava... ha, ha, ha I'm so punny!)

Yesterday we took the boys to Chuck-E-Cheese for the first time. They thought it was so cool. (we thought the pizza was crappy, but I seem to remember that from 20 years ago). We got a lot of tokens and only used a few, so we can go back and just play instead of eating their yucky pizza.

Other than birthdays, all is well. My parents are coming next week and the boys are very excited that Grandma and Grandpa are coming. The boys get to participate in a Ward Pinewood Derby next week so we are glad to have our Pinewood Derby expert Grandpa coming to help. We'll see how that works out.

Well, it's late and tomorrow Matt has his doctor checkup complete with shots, so I'd better get some rest. Later.