Our 10 Year Old Gets a Minecraft Birthday!

Our baby is a decade! Yep, Eben turned ten! It's still hard to believe we've had him for that long.

Some pre- birthday fun things he got to do:

Surprise kidnapping by ninjas, Dodie and Mr. Steve, along with Jasper for his birthday also, to build with Legos and lunch.

Dada finally gave him Harry Potter The Sorcerer's Stone, which he's been waiting until he turned 10 to read and had the whole thing read in a couple days.

Dada also gave him Heelys, which he had told him he was too big for and that they don't make them in his size so he was very surprised and has them mastered already.

 Eben's actual party was at Intel, thanks to Mr. Schock!! He was so excited. Intel is his dream job. He actually wanted a technology birthday party, but I was stumped with that one as far as a party theme goes so I asked if he would want a Minecraft party as a technology party and he said,"YES! I just thought you'd never let me have one!" I don't do commercial parties. But this actually seemed easier and he loves this crazy game.

When everyone first got there we let them roam free and check everything out, the huge sport court, the massage chairs and the video game room, which of course was Eben's favorite. Mr. Shock had pre loaded all the computers with what else...Minecraft!

 Then we gathered for the big Reality Minecraft Game!

Eben put everyone on teams represented by their Minecraft block and they all had to complete many different tasks to get a starburst stone from the treasure chest. Like 20 steps on the climbing wall, 5 jumping jacks, 3 holes of mini golf,...

make 3 baskets and spell Eben's name in Minecraft. 

The kids and adults played and had to protect their Minecraft block from me, the Creeper, who tried to steal it. If I got it I took a starburst from them and their team had to do an activity over again. They had a protector on their team with a sword, which I didn't think through very well and a couple of times got hit pretty hard by some very good protectors! I got pictures of all the teams but one, the grass block team.

But we did get a pic of the grass block cake! Peanut butter, Oreo cookie, mint, and chocolate rice crispy treats made up the dirt and different colors of green fondant became the grass. We had extra so Eben helped me make a Creeper too.

The "Kissing Picture" after the birthday song.

It was the easiest cake to serve, no knife, no plates, no forks - just grab and go!

I had to show the sweet hair bows that Eben made way in advance for all of his sisters to wear at his party. Grass block bows - what a great brother!

 Eben we love you so much! I really can't believe we've gotten to love you for 10 years! (Well, actually more like 11. We loved you when you were our Froggy too.) You are an amazing son and big brother. You have some huge responsibilities and you do them so well. You do a task as soon as you're asked without complaining (usually). You are gifted in so many ways, figuring things out, computers, all things technology related, musically, you are always humming or tapping or something (which sometimes drives us all nuts!), and you're great with babies! You make many people feel loved every day. We love to love you and watch your love for God and others grow! Happy 10th birthday!

Eben actually did an amazing job blogging his birthday.

10 Years Through the Corn Maze

Looking back through all of our photos, I thought it would be fun to put all of our Corn Maze pictures through the years on one post. I didn't even realize the first picture we took at Spooner Farms in front of the squash decorated window was with Papa when Eben was one! It's been such a fun tradition and I remember the 2 years we didn't go I missed it so much. 

2004 Spooner Farms - Willy Wonka 

2005 Spooner Farms - The Flintstones

2007 - Hunter Farms

2008 Spooner Farms - Narnia

2008 - Hunter Farms

2009 Spooner Farms - Honey I Shrunk the Kids

2010 Spooner Farms - Alice In Wonderland

2011 Spooner Farms - Secret of the Pharaohs

2012 Spooner Farms - The Greatest Show on Earth

2013 Spooner Farms - Eye Spy Monster Maze

Spooner Farms Corn Maze 2013!

Every year one of my favorite fall activities is going to the corn maze, so when Dada suggested we go this year we excitedly got dressed up in our fall attire. (I usually make the girls fall dresses, but didn't this year because fall dresses of the past fit them fine!) Then we headed out to have breakfast at Elmer's for some Dutch Babies! Peter also makes great ones, but they're time consuming and take all of our pans. We got to Spooner just as 7 buses of kids came! It wasn't that bad though, they didn't do the corn maze. After Peter bought our tickets and yummy pumpkin spice chocolate caramel balls we took our traditional kid's fall picture on the bench (it used to be a cow and before that there were giant pumpkins). 

The theme this year was Eye Spy Monster Maze. It was a lot like Monsters Inc. but not. The entrance was a lime green tunnel with huge soft eyeballs.

We love Spooner Farms for many reasons, but mainly because their corn maze has a theme and a goal. This year it was to find all the monsters hiding in the maze and scratch off their picture, so we could unscramble the revealed letters to get a prize.

The maze also has many fun hidden surprise scenes like this giant eyeball foot.

The big 4 showing off their progress. We all stick together but the big kids do like to go ahead and then come right back and tell us where to go.

My loving littles. He loves her more than so much. It's so cute, especially if she wants to love him back.

I just really loved this pic of Opes. She did enjoy finding mud puddles with her pink boots on and there were plenty to find.

Pella made it the whole way through! Even though she did have to be carried part of the time due to crankiness. And Dada loves her so much he put her on his shoulders even with her very muddy boots on.

Sweet sisters. She preferred holding hands and going slowly with Opal.

We found a Woolly Bear this year too! Kivi loves them.

Eben the gentleman, holding the door for all of his siblings.

When we had found all of the monsters we each got a giant candy eyeball prize!

Honey Harvest 2013!

First Stop Egypt!

We finally started "school" a.k.a."Just Learning" the second week of September. The start up was a bit more rough than other years. We went so many places and had many visitors during our summer so I couldn't school them right through like I had all the other years. I worked hard on figuring out a schedule where I could teach all four of them. That was new and required a tighter schedule, and we're still figuring it out. 

 After our initial "Book About Me Week" the kids decided to spend our first month of homeschooling in Egypt, Ancient Egypt actually. We built pyramids, learned how to embalm and wrap a mummy, we designed our own pharaoh crowns, wore Egyptian eye makeup (it wasn't just for girls!), drew maps, wrote our own hieroglyphic stories and read lots of books.

Seaside Oregon Trip!

September 6-8, 2013

Dada took us Seaside for one last summer hurrah. We rented a house from one of his coworkers which was a block from the beach and promenade. We brought along the kid's bikes and the bike trailer and rode into town everyday along the "prom". About four different older people called Peter the Pied Piper.

Bergie had potty training week right before this (He did awesome, only 2 accidents the first day and 1 the second!) so he was still doing the "have a drink while you go potty" plan - that way he gets to practice more! It was so funny to see him drinking his shot glass of sweet tea on the toilet.

 One or twice a day we'd ride into the little town just a couple blocks away and head to the candy store! They had a wheel you could spin every day to get a free taffy, Dada even won a free lollipop and Eben won admission for all of us to go into the house of mirrors.

After realizing that an ice cream cone was only a buck, we decided we'd have to come back every night to get one. It was a good short vacation tradition.

We went to the beach thinking we'd just stroll along and let them play in the sand, but Dada and the four big kids actually went into the ocean and swam! That's Eben and Kivi way out in the background.

Berg and Pella did have a fun time playing in the sand. Berg was determined to make the longest track in the sand he could. He worked on it the whole time.

Some of the soaking wet people walking down the beach looking for crabs, sand dollars and shells.

On Sunday, we left early for the Tillamook Cheese factory tour. It was impressively big, had tons of fun history posters and interactive touch screens and huge windows where you could see the production going on below. It also had very good tasting cheese!

On the way back we went to see haystack rock, but it was freezing and windy, so after trying to eat lunch without our bagels flying out of our hands into the sand, we left.

After a nap, games for Mama and Dada and a movie for the kids we rode our bikes to get what else,

more ice cream!

We clean up and said goodbye to the house.

On our way home we took a detour and stopped by Cape Disappointment where we went on a little hike to see the oldest lighthouse on the west coast.

The guard was on duty on even let us look at  through the hugest binoculars we've ever seen.

It was such a fun trip! We can't wait to do it again! Thanks Dada!

Dada and Daughter Wakeboard Trick

Kivi and Peter rode doubles may times this summer on a wakeboards. When Poppie brought up a hydrofoil board that he made, he and Peter had to master it. Peter fell in love with this board and rode it until it died. He would get so high and cute little Kivi looked so small. She would slip right under the rope and go from wake to wake. They looked so amazing together!