Happy 8th Birthday, Philip!

 So today Philip turned 8.

We started the day with coffee and dippy eggs.  Then he watched Portal videos on YouTube while I baked his birthday cakes.   

He's been obsessed with Portal for about a month. 

 Let me back that up -   for   m o n t h s   he's been watching Portal videos.  I don't even know how he first discovered them, but he found some really dark cool videos with a lot of robots singing parodies of well-known songs - Making Christmas,  This Is Halloween, The Sound of Silence, etc.  Then he started asking me about Portal and how we could get it and how he could play it and if I thought he'd be old enough to do it.  My knowledge of Portal encompasses less than a half of a percent of all Portal knowledge, but you know who does know?  CJ.

Not only did CJ know, but he also owned both games, so about a month ago (maybe?) I installed Portal 1, and he was off and running.  Philip was able to beat the game in about a week, with the help of a few video walkthroughs.  Then we installed Portal 2 to a similar outcome.

We had the idea to make him a Portal birthday cake.  These were a few possibilities:

I thought the third was the way to go, but I hate fondant.  It would have to be iced.  

Luckily, I know somebody who is really good at such things.

She used her expertise to assemble and frost the cake to smooth perfection.

Then I freehanded the decoration.

After that, it was time to design and execute the treasure hunt.  Regina gets credit for this idea.  She came up with a list of hiding places, and together we  thought of clues, with help from the interwebs.

Our objective was a hunt that wouldn't be over in 4 minutes; one that had some satisfying problems to solve.  He had the most trouble with clue #2, since it involved an old-school push button phone with letters on the keypad.  I thought it would be fairly obvious.

To be fair, it also took Natalie several minutes and a few hints to figure it out.

I thought he'd have more trouble with the Morse code, but he was all over that one, especially since unbeknownst to me, Dad had given him an introduction to Morse a few days earlier.

He has the worst posture.

He wanted meat lover's pizza for birthday dinner, so that was no sweat for me.  Mam came up to eat with us, and we had cake and presents afterward.

Birthday presents were : a heat activated Pac-Man mug, some Minecraft Dungeons boxers, a light-up diamond sword from Tess, some really awesome Minecraft sneakers (Mam), and a Lego Minecraft set that has been on his wish list since Christmas (also Mam).  

After dinner, Philip and Natalie went off to make some progress on the Lego set.  Andy, Theresa, and I finished watching a movie (Knives Out), and then Philip watched Noelle play Portal until it was time for bed.  

Happy birthday to our funny, smart, silly, clever, twisted little boy!

Y tho?

Silver Anniversary. :)

Are You Happy Now? ;)

I recently had a complaint that I haven't updated the blog in a long time... you know who you are  ;)  ... so I'm throwing a little bone along with an apology. Besides feeling like I'm drowning under my responsibilities and having a one-year-old menace to chase, I've also been missing a camera or two. And a cell phone. My memory is at an all-time low. Anyway, no pictures, no blogging. Simple as that.

Andy recently took a trip out west to visit our 2nd son and his bride, and he purchased a camera out there, which was promptly regifted to me as an early birthday present.  It's already been two weeks, and I haven't lost it yet.


 

Speaking of the Menace...

He used to be so easy to photograph! Now, whenever  he sees a camera, he dashes toward it.  It's hard to capture him doing whatever you wanted a picture of.  Anyway, the new camera has a feature called Color Pop, which highlights only the desired color - red, blue, green or yellow.  Here's the Bandit with a yellow filter:

And here are the girls with a blue filter:

Noelle has the braids.

And Regina, last but not least.

Happy 4th Birthday, Regina!

It was so much fun to make!

 Regina's Fourth birthday cake was a Candyland masterpiece!

Here is Philip, devastated that he isn't allowed to climb up on the chair and get his paws on the cake.

Regina through the years...2010, 2011, 2012, 2013.

Daredevil.

In June, he learned to crawl.

In August, he started to walk.

 And now, all he wants to do is climb. 

First he climbed up the tailgate. 

Then he stood on the siderail.  Then he tried to get up on the roof.

Then he climbed through the window into the cab.

THEN he tried to climb back  out into the pickup bed through the window.

We almost thought he wasn't going to make it.

NOW what are you going to do?

In August...

Conor turned 16 and passed his permit test 

without any trouble at all.

Andy took him and his sweetheart Emily to Scranton to see the a RailRunners minor league baseball game in the UGI box.

Sarah and her boyfriend Jeremy went up to Great Lakes

to visit Brian.

Philip fell asleep in Andy's arms 

for maybe the second time ever.

Sarah and I took all the girls and Philip

to Ocean City and to see Granddad & Pat

before Sarah had to go back to college 

Sarah, Noelle & Regina

(for her last first day!).

Sleepy Phil with the tide coming in!

We buried my mom.

Jennifer drove up from Texas for the funeral 

with her Dad & Mom, Jason, Ian, Sophia & Kevin.

Here is Regina playing with her god-brother, Kevin.

Conor broke his leg.

And Phil turned one.  :)

Phil started to take a few steps the week before his birthday, and can now take up to a dozen.

We also discovered that he is quite the camera ham, as you can plainly see.