Major's Fourth Birthday Party...Etc.

Judging from the lack of comments, I'm going to assume that the readers of my blog did not find the little girl in my last post nearly as cute as I did. Seriously, that girl was A-DORABLE. It reminds me so much of Mary Alice at that age. I have a tendency to grab the video camera whenever I hear my kids singing, so I'm sure that I have a dozen or so videos of Mary Alice as a little one singing out like that. Nothing makes me smile like the voice of a singing child.

Moving on...

We celebrated Major's fourth birthday this weekend. We decided to have a family party this year. The day was beautiful! The whole family watched Major's tee ball game in the morning. Josh and Chad kept telling Major to slide. Finally.... Major did slide. I only saw part of it, but I guess Major slid all the way around the bases.... He slid in between first and second, in between second and third, and in between third and home.

We continued our birthday tradition of eating lunch at Rosa's and then came home for cake and presents. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked of Major and his cake this year. I felt a little bit rushed and only took a few pictures. This was the best picture I had of Major and his cake.




Major received several exciting presents. His Uncle Chad built a sandbox for him. I have a feeling that the sandbox is one present that will get used often this summer. He was given a bicycle-like contraption called "The Green Machine". His legs were too short to reach the pedals. Mary Alice sure enjoyed riding it around our cul-de- sac, though. I love the fact that we live in a cul-de-sac. When we lived in our previous house, I always felt anxious whenever the kids would ride their bikes. In our old neighborhood, the driveways all faced the street. I was constantly worried that the kids were going to get run over by one of the cars that often raced down our street or backed over by someone coming out of their garage. We have really enjoyed the new traffic-free area around our house. It is so nice for the kids to be able to ride their bikes safely. This is probably my favorite thing about our house.


Here is Mary Alice on "The Green Machine". The girl has raced around on this thing nearly every day this week!


The kids with their Uncle Chad. He even made a top for the sandbox, due to my concerns about cat poop. He did an excellent job building this nice sandbox, don't you think?


Yesterday, Mary Alice and Major's cousins came over to play. The kids and cousins utilized the new sandbox and got extremely dirty, but had tons of fun! After their little playtime, we made good use of the garden hose and our bathtub. Those kids were covered with sand from head to toe!


They played for a while on the driveway right before covering themselves with sand. (Notice Mary Alice sailing by on The Green Machine.)





I just thought that Jonah was especially cute in this picture. He liked watching the big kids play.


The next couple of picture are unrelated. These are of Mary Alice in her ballet recital costume. It came in the other day and, of course, she had to try it on.
She played around and practiced her little dance for me. So precious! I love my sweet ballerina girl!








And now.... a story about something funny that happened last night. Each night when we put the kids to bed we have a little routine that we follow. At the tail end of our routine we say "Goodnight!" to each of our little darlings, head down the stairs and turn on the "downstairs light". The downstairs light is a chandelier that hangs directly over our entryway. Right next to the "downstairs light" is a balcony, which is a few feet away from the kids' rooms.

So.... last night we said "Goodnight!" as usual, headed down the stairs, and turned on the "downstairs light". Josh went into our bedroom to watch a ballgame and I headed into the kitchen. A few minutes later we hear a frightened Mary Alice call out "Daddy!!!" I pretty much ignore her as this frightened cry is not uncommon and usually means that her bedsheets are crooked or some other such silliness. Josh said, "Yes, Mary Alice." Mary Alice replied with, "I smell something like smoke." Major said, "I smell it too." Josh started heading up the stairs and noticed a fire smell. He feared an electrical fire in the attic and told the kids to head downstairs. Then I heard him yell out, "Amber! Turn off the downstairs light!" I ran out of the kitchen and started turning off all of the downstairs lights. When I reached the chandelier, I looked up and saw that a child's t-shirt was perched on top of one of the chandelier bulbs, on fire. I quickly ran into the laundry room, grabbed a broom, and lifted the burning shirt off of the chandelier. I took it out to the front porch and beat the flame out. I felt like one of those frontier women, using all of my strength to put out a fire that threatened to burn down our home. I am happy to report that the flame was extinguished and our only loss was a greatly charred t-shirt.

You might be wondering why we put t-shirts on our chandeliers.... The kids often throw their dirty clothes off of the balcony whenever they are cleaning their rooms. They then retrieve their dirty clothes at the bottom of the stairs and put them in the laundry room. This shirt had probably been sitting atop our light fixture all day and started burning only after we turned on the "downstairs light" as we do every night when we put the kids to bed. This dropping dirty laundry over the balcony method is fine and dandy as long as the clothes are just dropped over the balcony. The burned shirt was one of Major's. He doesn't "just drop" anything, but rather, must have forcefully slung it over the balcony. This morning, when he was cleaning his room, I saw him do it again and had to retrieve a pair of pajama pants from the chandelier! Major is not allowed to throw any more clothes over the balcony, as it could be a fire hazard.

I guess that's all for now. Good night! :)