The Big 5

My sweet little boy turned 5 this week! Kindergarten here we come! He wanted a snake cake. So he got a snake cake! Mommy isn't a big party person so we did a family party (he got a party last year - good enough, right?)

Some of the party-goers (except the one taking the picture- Daddy was here for this birthday :)

The bruised-up baby - that's another post.

No, Destroy...

it's not...

your birthday... Thanks for intervening Dad. Blow, Search, blow!

Search got one present this year. The boys have collectively broken so many things in our house in the last two months that we couldn't afford to get him much stuff for his birthday. They broke a window. They broke and shattered a glass light cover. They broke the $50 baby gate. They broke a towel rack. The day before Search's birthday he broke the baby gate. I had already bought him four presents. So, on his birthday I got them all out (an iron man costume, an iron man hand blaster thing, a toy dragon that he'd asked for, and a football) and told him he could pick one. I told him I had to take the others back because we needed the money to pay for all of the broken stuff. It took him a while to choose but he finally chose the hand-blaster. And the sad thing was that he was very happy about his one present and never said another word about the other presents. My little lesson didn't have the effect I was hoping for :) He also had to give us his birthday money. Yes, we're big meanies! Seeing his contentedness with just the one gift makes me want to continue this simplicity. Not that we were extravagant before, but sometimes I think it's the parents who think that the kid needs all this stuff when they'd really just be happy with one or two things!Have your cake and eat it too!

Shooting brother with new missiles. Great, more missiles in this house. Just what we need :)


I let the kids decorate the cake and they loved it! They were pretty meticulous about the patterns on the snake's back :)


Here are a few pictures from soccer. He's been playing for the last couple of months but it's hard to take pictures of him because I'm busy trying to keep Dodge off the field!
I love this picture! Ah, how cute, they're learning how to push each other out of the way!


Search REALLY hates it when the other team scores. So whenever the other team has the ball and is anywhere close to his goal, he gets in there and protects. He's stopped it a few times but for the most part they kick it right past him :)
He really enjoys playing and plays hard! The last 3 out of 4 games he has played the entire thing. We only have 4 kids that show up and 3 play at one time. Three of the games they've only had 3 kids, so he's played the whole time. Last game he had to sit out for a break for a few minutes and he was mad! He didn't want to sit out! He's pretty aggressive and the bigger kids don't intimidate him that much. He gets in there and steals it from them. Once he gets the ball he's pretty good at dribbling and usually makes 1-2 goals in a game. He has a serious problem kicking it out of bounds though. And he does it just to get it away from the other team :) Silly kid. He's fun to watch and gets right up if he gets bull-dozed.

We love Search and we're excited (and a teeny bit scared :) to see what year 5 brings!