The Monkey's Birthday

Oh we are getting closer to real time here...only about a seven weeks behind.  The Monkey had a birthday in November, and he asked for a pirate birthday cake, and the QB, as always, was ready to oblige. 

She had a lot of fun putting this together.  I think the inspiration for the cake came from here:

The cake was a big hit. 

Notice the aweseome wrapping paper employed on the gifts in the background--Sunday comics and brown packing paper..we were running a little low on real paper.  But I don't think the Monkey minded much.

The football was for him, but it has been the Monkey's little brother that has played with it the most.  Just about every day I come home to find him in the living room with the ball in his hands.  He holds it up and says, "down, set, Hut," and then runs around the room. Sometimes he stops and says "kick" and tries to kick the ball, but he hasn't figured that out quite yet.

This Lego ship was big on "wow" factor but since its an advanced set, he hasn't played with it much--er, what I mean is, I haven't sat down with him to put it together yet.  We've got about 1/3 of it done.  My goal is by the end of the year to have it built with him.

This bicycle we got in the back alley about two months ago. It belonged to our neighbor's son who didn't ride it very much.  He (our neighbor) regularly places gently used kids items in the alley that his family no longer needs, and we are the regular recipients of the gesture.  The bike's chain was rusty and the bike needed a cleaning and an inner-tube change, but since Mr. Baseball got a new bike for his birthday I was able to part-out his old bike to get this one working.  Then I washed up the frame, adjusted the handle bars, put on new grips, added the training wheels and the final touch was to put some Armor-All on the tires.  The best part about it is that a week later the Monkey surprised us all by hoping on his old bike (that no longer had training wheels on it) and riding it across the yard.  The training wheels are now collecting dust in the garage, and if we can get some warmer weather, we'll be riding for sure.

A few weeks after the Monkey's birthday, Grandpa Franklin came into town for Thanksgiving. He was scheduled to come for Mr. Baseball's baptism, but he was sick that weekend so he used his credit to come for for Turkey Day. Among other places, we took him to the Ranching Heritage Museum.  The boys love the train (and I think it's my favorite too.)

Grandpa striking one of his famous poses.


And then shortly after Grandpa left, the Monkey came down with chicken pox.  If you look closely in this picture form his preschool Christmas performance (taken a week after he cleared up), you can still see a scab on the side of his neck.  Besides a lot of pockmarks and one tired day on the couch, you wouldn't have known he was sick.  It was his brother's that got the worst of it. But that's for another post.

The Monkey loves preschool (he goes twice a week).

Sorry about the grainy photographs.  That's all my camera could manage from a distance in the light of the chapel. Stay tuned for a Christmas post in the next few days.