Still only 29

Sunday we celebrated Great Grandma Olson's birthday. As you can see she looks great for 29! :). I got the pleasure of making her cake...which you can see I took full advantage of making it very "girly" since most of my cakes are themed around things like batman, race cars, and space aliens. I actually got to break out the pink!

Allie did a superb job with the decorations as always.

Most of the family (minus Scott, Scotty, Dylan, and Amanda's family) Grandma and Grandpa with 2 of their children (Tom and Dawn)

Happy 29th Birthday Grandma Olson...

We Love You!

A Harry Potter Cake???

Last month was Dylan's 9th birthday (yeah..I'm a little behind). We actually had a small get together with just family for some cake and presents a few days before his big bash. Here's cake #1 that I made for him...

So...a while back I guess I told Dylan he could have a slumber party for his birthday and invite a few friends. He immediately decided that it should be a Harry Potter theme party. Dylan has read all 7 books (which is not very normal for an 8 year old) and I had to remind him that most kids at his party would not yet be familiar with Harry Potter but...that did not deter him. He had 5 friends over plus his 2 brothers. So that would be 7 little boys running amuck in my house!!!! For those of you that have been to our house you know that it is very conducive to running laps and that's exactly what they wanted to do the whole time! We had to continually try to break up the madness with games and activities. A few parties back I discovered the best "quiet" activity....I printed some Harry Potter worksheets, word searches, mazes, etc..and they all just sit there like they're in school. It's awesome! (As you can see Dylan's cousin Jake was not too into the worksheet thing) We also had a "pin the glasses on Harry" game, some crafts, and movies in between the running around playing tag, wrestling, etc.. They took a break to open presents... So when Dylan decided he wanted a Harry Potter birthday I thought to myself...how in the world am I going to make a Harry Potter cake??? Dylan offered many suggestions of what I could put on the cake quoting all kinds of foreign words to me that only a Harry Potter fan would know (which I am not!!). I finally just took one of the covers from his books to copy and free handed it. When I was finished I was pretty proud of my creation... Happy 9 years!!! After cake it was time to "STAY IN BED and watch your movie!!!" time. Not an easy task with 7 little boys. I think Jake came into the living room at least half a dozen times after 1o:30pm begging aunt Jo for some more cake.

Well after Mark and I having to get out of bed to tell the boys to be quiet and go to bed at least half a dozen times I think they finally fell asleep about 12:30ish. We finished off the morning with some donuts and of course more running around in circles at high speeds. Thankfully we only ended up with one injury which was Tryg getting knocked down in one of the chase sessions....and he's pretty used to that stuff living with 2 older brothers.

So...I think Mark and I are done with the whole slumber party thing. Don't get me wrong...they were as good as 7 little boys could realistically be...we're just getting too old for this stuff!!!

Just a few things about our little 9 year old...

• He reads huge novels in about the time it takes me to read a few chapters and often gets in trouble at school for reading when he's not supposed to
• He's a total perfectionist (wonder where he gets that one? :))
• He enjoys writing his own comic books and has written some very creative stories
• He's a great big brother...always wrestling, reading to them and putting up with the crazies
• I never have to help him with his homework
• He likes camping, golf, baseball and is becoming a natural at the piano.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DYLAN!!!

What a cool mom

Check out my totally cool race track that I built for the boys in our backyard. I must say...I was feeling like a pretty cool mom :).