10 Years

As Ree mentioned recently - can it really have been 10 years already? Our decade old sons were only born a few days apart and it blows my mind thinking how old they are now. Can this really be the same kid? What happened to my baby?

I want everyone to know, but especially Chase that I am so proud of the boy he is. He tries hard to do what's right, he is obedient and helpful. He is learning the gospel and being an excellent example to his friends. He is respectful and a great protector of his younger siblings. He works hard in school and listens to his teachers. He is an avid reader and devours series of books such as Harry Potter, Eragon, Gregor the Overlander, Artemis Fowl. He loves playing sports such as football, basketball, baseball. He has a magnetic personality that attracts kids of all ages as playmates. I am not kidding - freshmen in high school knock on our door to see if Chase can come play - football, Risk, computer games etc... He loves to fish, catch crayfish and frogs, chop logs. He can take his mom for a ride in an extra large canoe and steer the whole way. Don't get me wrong, he's not perfect - he has issues with teasing, putting his things away and staying on task, but I am not going to sing his ills - just his praises. He is a great kid and I really hope he'll be a fantastic teenager, wink wink, ok maybe that's asking too much. But I do hope the next 10 years will be as great as the first 10 have been.

We had a celebration on June 30th, a few days before the big day on July 3rd. He had 4 friends come so with Chase and Gregor we had 6 wild boys (and 1 wild girl tagging along). I am not a party person (unlike Taffy) and have great difficulty coming up with ideas and organizing the chaos. We settled on an army subtheme. He sent out camoflage invitations and we gave out camo goodiebags with camo splash balls, army tatoos, dog tags and uniformed rubber ducks.

Chase choose a red velvet cake and I did camo frosting and set up tiny soldiers all over it. I am not a good cake decorator either but I guess it you can't mess up camoflage.

The boys played on the water slide for awhile and then we did some organized games as well.

We did a water balloon toss.

We did a variation of water balloon volleyball. Some of the boys seemed to really "get it" and work together. Others were horrible, like Chase and his partner, Yogi.

We did several games with "Rocket Balloons" but I didn't get any pictures of that.

But the biggest hit was the obstacle course. We timed each boy's trip thru the course where they had to go up and then down one slide into the pool, then up and down the other slide on to the slip and slide part, then run and jump over the wagon, then run and crawl under the card table, then hop like a bunny until they ended up in the hula hoop, then they had to run to the first cone and pick up the spoon and put an egg in it and wind their way thru the cones, then they handed off the egg and spoon to me and had to dribble a soccer ball across the finish line. We did it twice and the boys had a great time and even Ainsley got to run the course! Oh, and all the boys did improve their time the second round. But Adam still won!!

I think 6 boys was manageable but I am not sure if I could have done more than that. The boys that attended were Vic K., Yogi P., Mark K., and Adam P. Mark was funny. He LOVED the water slide. He would ask during the other games if we were almost done so he could get back on the slide. We came in for lunch and he gobbled his food down and asked if he could go back outside. We said no, we have to have cake. I think he even passed on dessert hoping it would make things go quicker. Then he asked to go outside. We said no, it was time to open presents. As soon as the last present was opened he asked again and we agreed. Luckily there was about 15 minutes left to play after the presents.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHASE!!