New York New York

Note - this is written by Daddy!!!!
Well today mummy had a well-deserved day off to do ladies things with her friends which left daddy to come up with an idea of just what to do for the day. Given your new found interest in trains, Maddie, we decided to head to Dover train station to get on a train and just go for a ride. We arrived just as a train was pulling into the station and got our seats on the top deck and got comfortable. Daddy hadn’t at that point figured out where we were going and sheepishly asked the conductor where the train was heading, he said New York (hot dog! …I thought that, not him) Impulsively I asked if you wanted to go there and of course you both beamed! Before I had time to reconsider I handed over a big chunk of change (narrowly avoiding a fine as I hadn’t bought a ticket on the platform but I told the guard I wasn’t familiar with the whole train thing and he let me off!) and our journey had begun. We then found out that there were over a 1000 stations between Dover and the big Ciddy and this train was stopping at every single one of them, ah well, you guys loved every minute of it and so two and half hours later we pulled into Penn station (which surprised me as I thought we were going to Grand Central, the only station I know). Daddy hadn’t given much thought as to what we would do when we got there, (New York gives him stabbing chest pains at the best of times), and after spending 20mins trying to get out of the station we emerged into a bright and beautiful warm autumn day on this great big busy street and we made our way through the crowds. I realized straight away that my daddy skills were being tested to the max not to lose either of you and also to come up with something interesting to do, Ollie you were brilliant in looking after your sister, holding her hand tightly like a true big brother. You have an affinity for the big city that I will never have, it was written all over you. Maddie, never content to ride in the stroller, you walked the whole time, independent as ever. After a meander for 30mins it became clear that the highlight/destination would be a lunch stop and we headed for 5 Guys (who do make a fine burger), the place was packed, nowhere to sit, our burgers weighed several pounds each and promptly fell to pieces in our hands, and most of it ended up on the floor but we got through it and then decided to head back to the station, the pair of you all the time marveling at the goings on all around you, and soon we were heading home. Maddie you struggled to stay awake on the way back but just about managed though you would have fallen off the seat if your brother hadn’t held you. Ollie you continued to marvel through the window at the various delights as the NJ landscape passed by. Daddy is much happier on the side of a hill than in any city but it was just the best to spend this a great day with you both my lovely lambs, you were brilliant in every way, loving the whole idea of this unpredictable adventure as much as I did xxxxx daddy

Oliver Turns FIVE!!!!

Oliver's birthday morning!! All the presents from the whole family were stacked on the kitchen table, along with several from his friends that we hadn't had time to open the day before. He had loads of fun opening everything up.... a few things he played with a LOT were his new Chuggington trains and track, his stacking robots, his dinosaur excacation kit, and his cherished new stuffed owl. Here's a photo of him with his goggles on, hammer and chisel in hand, slowly digging to reveal the encased bones of a T-Rex. He got several of different kinds of building sets -- Lego, Erector, K'nex -- we can't wait to start building with those. At bedtime, he was super excited to see his new glow in the dark solar system model. Now (a few days later) I can report that he has become a huge Lego fan... he was almost exploding with excitement as we built his new Lego firetruck, and has hardly stopped playing with it since.
After a late breakfast (bacon! eggs! toast!) and more playing, we finally headed out towards Kittatinny State Park with the "superbike" loaded and ready to roll. The weather was stunning, a perfect fall day. I had a great walk with Maddie to the airport at the end, where we met Andy and Ollie, resting on a park bench after their manly bike ride. We found some creative ways to include Owl in the bike ride, since Ollie couldn't be parted with him... first he was inside Ollie's shirt, which was snugly tucked in, but Ollie wanted Owl to be able to see where he was going. So we stuffed him into our camera bag and attached that to the bike with a carabiner clip - the winning solution! Happy boy, happy owl.
We had a quick stop at the grocery store on the way back, then headed to our new favorite restaurant, Alice's, for an early birthday dinner. Andy and I had yummy burgers, and the kids shared one (mammoth) portion of mac&cheese. After dinner, the waitress brought a big bowl of chocolate ice cream with a candle in it, and we all sang Happy Birthday to our glowing, blissed out boy.
So many times during the day, I would tell Ollie what Daddy and I were doing 5 years ago exactly.... how we hadn't met him yet, didn't even know if he was a boy or a girl, were heading to the hospital, was in labor and feeling super ouchy... and he was pretty curious about how he wasn't REALLY 5 until late that night. In fact, as I type this, it was about 16 minutes from now, at 10:56pm. We are blessed that you are ours, Ollie - you are the most lovely boy we have ever known.

THE OLIVER OLYMPICS!

The big day finally arrived -- Oliver's birthday party!! It was really cool having his party on Saturday and his actual birthday Sunday -- a whole weekend of fun, ending with a super tired, super happy boy. When we began thinking about the party ages ago, Andy said it would be cool to have an "old fashioned party" where we planned (gasp!) PARTY GAMES! Like in the olden days, you know.... :-) So our brains started churning, and at some point I expanded the idea to become the "Oliver Olympics," knowing that the kids would get a kick out of winning gold medals if they or their team won a game. I found some cool decorations online, mainly some excellent long flag banners and cut-out paper Olympic rings, as well as the gold medals. Then we had to decide on the cake, and all the Olympic themes seemed really boring (a torch? rings? bleh), so when I looked through a cookbook for ideas and saw the cutest owl cupcakes, I showed them to Ollie and he said, "I want those!" A thematic departure, but we didn't care one bit. The last order of business was to plan the party games. We knew of some favorites off the top of our heads... musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey, a relay race... but for more good ideas I looked online and found lots of great ones. We narrowed it down to 10 games, though we didn't have time to actually do them all at the party! More on that later. I typed up a master plan, complete with assigned teams when needed (I actually pulled names out of a hat to do this, incapable of making these CRITICAL decisions on my own). The food at the party was definitely the weak link... we made mini sausage-rolls, our favorite English standby, and had loads of corn chips with guacamole, salsa, and hummus... and that's about it. Lame. I forgot to put out cheese sticks and chex mix for the kids (and hungry adults, for that matter). Although I must say, the party was at 2pm, a between-meals time.... and we did have cake! I made it the day before, a recipe I've used often, knowing we'd be too busy on the day of the party. Very pleased with the owls.
On to the party.... Ollie's eleven closest friends came (very sorry we couldn't invite ALL his friends, just not enough room!), along with younger siblings, so there were TWENTY kids here, including Ollie and Maddie. Moms and many dads as well, so a very big crowd indeed. Before I forget, thank you to EVERYONE for being so helpful... every time I turned around, someone was offering to help - setting up for games, tidying, rounding up the troops, passing out cake, etc. We're so grateful! So, the best way to describe the party is through the games - here goes!
1. ZOO RESCUE
Probably our most successful game... I had hidden (with some help, as I forgot to do this in time and had to finish after our first guests arrived) about 75 stuffed animals around the downstairs of the house and the front yard. I know what you're thinking: 75 stuffed animals?? I'm shocked as well. We don't "collect" stuffed animals by any means, but apparently, when you have 2 kids, these things just accumulate. Many are quite small, three or four inches long, but many others are as big as a standard-issue teddy bear. Our range is quite impressive, including a hedgehog, a little fox, a good number of singing birds, pigs of all sizes, a hermit crab, loads of lambs, and on and on. We divided the kids into two teams, gave everyone their own plastic bag for collecting, and explained that ALL these animals had escaped from the zoo and we needed them to hunt for them... the team that collected the most animals won the medals! So they all dashed out in every direction, gleefully hunting and stuffing their bags, and then returned to their team bases for the big count. It was close - the winning team found 39 animals, and the other team found 33. The only unfound animals were a couple stuck deep into the sofa, and one very small frog in a shoe in the hallway. Nice job!
2. BALLOON POP
For this game, we had blown up one balloon per child (plus a few, since I miscounted), each with a little folded piece of paper inside. All the papers were blank, except for one that said, "WIN!" After everyone had a balloon, we said "Go!" and they had to pop the balloons any way they wished, to see if they held the winning balloon. Well, I had no idea it could be so hard to pop balloons, when you're actually trying to! It was a hilarious, raucus free for all, with kids attempting to sit and jump on balloons (not an easy task, really), intermittent loud POPS!, and lots of excited shouting. Ollie kept batting at his balloon, sort of chasing it and punching it, not a very effective technique, but lots of fun to watch. Lowry had the winning balloon, and won the gold medal.
3. MUSICAL CHAIRS
All twelve big kids played this game, so we set up 12 chairs in a long line (we had removed the dining room table earlier to make space), each chair facing the opposite direction from the last. The kids walked and danced in a circle around them while Andy blasted Poker Face on nearby speakers. For the first round, everyone had a chair, but after that one chair was removed each time. I was worried there would be a lot of struggling for chairs and possibly hurt feelings, but the kids were just SUCH good sports. The best thing about this game was that the kids just had a blast with it, they weren't strategizing or lingering near chairs, they just pranced around and danced and were silly, and no one fussed when they got out. Our only regret was that we didn't do this game twice - it was just so fun. Claire, Brooke, and Harper were the last 3 standing (or sitting, as the case may be), then it was Claire and Harper, and Harper won by a nose - gold medal!!
4. FLAMINGO
It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so we thought it would be a good idea to get the crazy kids outside. Flamingo is a cute idea, but it didn't work with 5-year-olds... you divide into two teams, and one person from each team has to stand on one leg and try to keep their leg up longer than their opponent, while the other team tries any means (except touching the person) to get them to put their leg down. Your team gets a point if you held your leg up the longest. Eventually, everyone has a go and the team with the most points wins. So, the kids were too excited to really focus on who was on what team and who they should aim their attention at making fall, so we nipped this one in the bud. Onward!
5. COLD DAY RELAY RACE
Two teams again, and each team had a hat, mittens or gloves, and a scarf. The first two players have to put on their stuff, run all the way to the other end of the yard and touch one of the volunteer parents' hands, then run back and give all the gear to the next person in line, until each person on the team has gone. A pretty excellent game, though for some reason one team was a lot more motivated than the other!! Still, a pretty close race and really good fun.
CAKE BREAK!
We all headed back in and gradually made our way to the dining room, where all the kids sat in a circle and everyone sang the Happy Birthday song to Oliver as the cake came in. I'm not sure I've ever seen pure happiness displayed in human form as what I saw on Ollie's face then. So, so sweet. All the kids got owl cupcakes, and the big owl cake was cut up for the parents (and don't forget our fab neighbors, Steve and Maureen, who are lovely beyond words). Super happy we don't have a rug - crumbs everywhere, a quick sweep and they were gone.
6. PIN THE TAIL ON THE DONKEY
Andy was intent on making the donkey himself for this game, which I agreed to mainly because I couldn't find one to purchase that was bigger than about two feet across (lame!). My hesitation was in the logistics (not in his artistic prowess, of course!) -- primarily, how to construct a tail that would adhere to the paper/board. Problem solved when I found a huge piece of folded cardboard (sold for science fair displays, etc.) -- we could stick a pin in that! We made a little tail out of brown yarn and managed to get a pin to stay in it with glue. The kids really enjoyed it, and Oliver won! Not fair, really, as he got to practice a little bit... but Georgie came in a very close second.
7. PASS THE PARCEL
I hear this is a very traditional English game; you select a small gift (I chose an mini Simon game) and wrap it over and over and over again, layer after layer of wrapping paper. The kids sit in a circle and the music starts (this time it was Don't Go, by Yazoo) and the parcel gets passed until the music stops, and whoever is holding it gets to unwrap the first layer. This goes on (and on!), layer after layer, until the present is revealed. I think I wrapped about fifteen layers... the kids were great, really careful to open only one layer, though the excitement mounted with each layer! Congrats to Duncan, the big winner! His mom was just sooo excited to have a new noisy game to bring home (sorry!!!). :-)
So, we ran out of time and energy for the last three games... one was called Balloon Sandwich, a race played with balloons held between tummies or backs, no hands, and another was Sleeping Lions, where the kids lie on the floor and pretend they're asleep, getting eliminated if they move (would be good if this game lasted about a half hour, ha ha). The one I really missed, though, was the Plasma Car Time Trials, where we planned to set up cones in the dining room and time each kid as they completed two laps around the track on the plasma car. They all would have loved that, but we just ran out of steam. Oh, I can't forget the gift bags.... we gave each guest their own little stuffed owl, along with a few English chocolate treats and some extra gold medals. Great keepsakes from the famed Olympics/Owl birthday party! Planning and preparing for this party seemed a bit daunting at times, but in the end it was just so much fun (although I had almost no time for normal conversations with adults, which was a bummer) - and the kids were simply fantastic, honestly. Oliver, you were a star - gracious and fun - as always. We just love you beyond words. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!