Gametes In Love

Flattery AND an offering of my favorite candy bar??? I won’t lie: my first question upon seeing this last night was ‘What am I being buttered up for?’

A sophisticated shop keeper sold us on another cat. I passed on the pet eagle though.

Storm’s class had an event. They’ve been “studying money”, and each kid had been assigned a job as the final for this project. They had to make the “goods” they were going to sell, and then each class represent their store. There was a cashier too. The store with the most cash at the end of the night “won”. Sadly, it wasn’t the pet store, but hey — he tried 🙂
And no, we didn’t buy the eagle!

I told myself that THIS time I wouldn’t forget to post our family photos. I usually hold out to send out holiday cards, but that time of year is wrap-up of photo-season crazy, followed up by holiday prep-crazy, so … I’ve been forgetting. But since I’m sitting here catching up (and recognizing that our family photo is 3 years old) I realized I didn’t do it. Again. :-/

So here goes. Photos by Renee Marie Photography, who has been awesome enough to put up with our insanity for years 🙂 We did this session at one of my favorite places out here — the Redwood Preserve in Los Altos.

Please note — family photos mark the one of handful times time of year I force our sons to dress up…. in jeans.

Ski week just happened, and we took a short trip for a few days. We visited Hearst Castle, the Lighthouse and some tide pools on the shore right outside of our hotel. It was lovely…. and frigid for a February.

To see more photos of the castle and lighthouse scenery, check out the Flickr album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/avalikelava/sets/72157694354741675

Grammie visited with us for a few weeks at the start of the year. It was great! One of our week-ends we took her to Tea Time.

Storm has come up with a very interesting innovation for himself. It’s driven by the motivating factor of coziness. Storm is all about his cozy robe, cozy pants and fluffy friends. So… his robe is now a leash for a “friend”, so that a friend is always accessible.

Observe…

It all started with some Advent Calendars. Big for a day… maybe two. Forgotten after that.

A fun time had with friends (and a Santa visitor). I’m not perpetuating the myth, but it’s cruel to fight it when your friends host a party. Griffin knows Santa’s “not real”…. Storm meanwhile gets to be nervous about his gift being the last in the bag 🙂

Back home. Oh the torment of having to wait for everyone to be ready. There might have been some box shaking and bag peaking to guess what’s inside. Note to self: Lego is hard to conceal through this method of deduction.

Griffin is doing a very good impersonation of our Dancing Santa.

Storm and Dad hard at work assembling his new toy robot. Dad did an admirable job (mostly) supervising.

7 years old. 7 guests. Still a mad-house 🙂
But I’m grateful for continuing to stumble across event places that get these kids excited for birthday celebrations. I kid you not, the whole day of his birthday party I kept answering the same question: how much longer until my birthday party. It was counted in hours, and minutes.

Griffin’s tournament changed the schedule of his second game, so it went into Storm’s party. It was a bummer, but they made it back in time for him to play a bit too.

A little story as retold by Shane…
When half the crew was ready to bail on ToT (it was getting late/they got tired), they turned back. On the way, Storm asked Shane to go ToTing on his behalf.
Shane: No way! You don’t ToT at my age
Storm: Why not?
Shane: Plus I don’t have a costume
Storm: Sure you do! You can go as a parent without a kid.

Nice one, kid! Nice one!

Meanwhile, our annual Arata Farms trips go on. It took us awhile to find our way out of the maze, and we did. I shouldn’t be surprised at all the traffic to HMB. I was hoping since it wasn’t Pumpkin Fest it wouldn’t be as bad, but, well… I think I just need to come to terms that if it’s Oct, it will be busy. Super warm day too — warm enough for the kids to want ice cream.

OH, and of course — my brothers photo w/ pumpkins 🙂

The age of 6 has left the building. Our littlest man is 7.

Today you are 47″ tall and weigh 46.2 lbs.

Storm-y, you are one super creative guy. Your Lego building still continues, but you have now expanded into some amazing paper creations (from origami to far-flying airplanes) and super cool comic book writings. Your imagination impresses me so much. It seems to have no limit.

I love that half of your projects you do for others in mind. You write your comic books for your friends. You make origami to give to others. Your desire to give people a little bit of joy [through your projects] makes me proud.

I admit, because of your creativity, I often overlook how book-smart you are too. You are blazing through the first grade curriculum. I’m sure that if your teacher allowed testing you today on the remainder of the 1st grade keywords and math-hats you’d have them all. You often surprise me when we’re out and about by reading the labels and signage around you, telling me about things

I didn’t think you’d pick up on. I’m struggling to stay one step ahead of you.

On the topic of surprises, you are one athletic kid. You don’t let us onto this, but you are good at sports as much as you hate to admit it. Your PE teacher calls out how competitive you are; you are a good runner, and from what I saw last night — a pretty competent basketball player. Now… can you stop grooming the out-field during your baseball games???

I’m really excited to see what this next year will bring you. Come on, 7!!!

Onto your favorites…

What is your favorite color? Blue
What is your favorite book? Captain Underpants
Who is your best friend? Owen, Lucas, Rob and Will
What is your favorite movie? Ninjago
What is your favorite song? I don’t have one
What is your favorite show? Phineas and Ferb
What is your favorite animal? Black Panther
What is your favorite toy? LEGO!!!!
What is your favorite food? Ribs. Really? Yah. Should I make them more often, then? I like Brandon’s ribs. The new kind. [note, here I was surprised and dissed all in one go! But Brandon get’s a shout out for getting my kid to like meat!]
What is your favorite shirt? Star wars
What do you want to be when you grow up? An engineer! What kind of engineer? A robot engineer.
What is your favorite thing to do? Go to the Kid’s Club at the gym. How come? Because I make ninja stars or I watch the X-bpx and the Wii. Until you play? Uhmn.. humn.

Here’s a quick view of your last 365 days (and you asked for this song yourself … even though your first choice was Gangam Style… and said “No way!”):