First Grade, Here I Come!

Geddy was very ready for first grade. He loves his teacher, Mr. White. And he loves school. However, he is struggling with being away from mom. And he quite dislikes eating in the lunchroom, so has yet to actually EAT anything while at school. He hates the noise and chaos of the lunchroom, but most especially the mess everywhere and the others kids at his table that eat like slobs getting food all over their face - stuff like this quite bothers him. He occasionally will drink his juice box but that's about it. Then the moment he gets in the car after school he opens his lunchbox and eats everything before we get home. Such a funny kid. This week, the second week of school, I had hopes for this improving. Then he had to go and get sick so has missed the last two days of school. Oh well, our hope is that after a few weeks he will get used to the routine and realize he is better off eating at lunchtime.

The iNtruder

Saturday July 28, there was a Trick-or-Treat in July party at the library I work at. It was part of the summer reading program. Geddy was ecstatic to have a reason to dress-up (as if he ever needs a reason). He had the hardest time trying to decide what to wear: Batman, Ninja, Robin, Pokemon Trainer, Captain America... He finally decided to combine elements of all of them and be "The iNtruder", his own creation that he draws endlessly. I love it when he uses his imagination and creativity!

The presents from Mom and Dad

Swimming Lessons

 The last day of swimming lessons happened to be on his birthday. It also was the only day I remembered to take the camera to get some pictures. He LOVED his swimming lessons!!! He had a great teacher. Geddy did very well with everything asked of him and he didn't even splash (too much)!

He insisted on wearing goggles like a couple of the other kids in his class. Let's just say I don't recommend buying swim goggles at the dollar store.

He has already asked if he can have swimming lessons all summer long next year. I told him we might be able to squeak two sessions out of the budget. I am so glad he liked it. I had been worried since he didn't have lessons at all last year. Unfortunately I was never able to take him any other time just for fun this summer.

The Party

 Geddy decided he wanted a Pokemon themed birthday party. At first I was a tad reluctant. I am not the biggest fan of Pokemon - at least I wasn't. As he has become more involved (obsessed) with it, I have learned a lot more than I ever thought I would about the whole Pokemon World. They are so much less-violent than most the other shows out there. And the characters are quite cute. And it is something all his own, not copying his Dad. I thought it would be super easy to find Pokemon stuff for parties at stores - but no such luck. Online, yes, but expensive. So I decided to do it all of my-own (or Scott's) making. With a little help from the internet. I think it turned out pretty well. Check out the following pictures to see for yourself.

Pokeball Cupcakes! I think I did a pretty good job given the time that I had. At least Geddy knew what they were supposed to be. Though I used the Fun-Da-Middles cupcake mix - not too impressed.

Here is his #6 candle (Charizard color) and the only Pokemon mini-figure I could find at 3am, Kyurem. Not the one planned for his cake-topper. But that's what I get for waiting until the night before to buy it.

Birthday banner with lots of balloons double-stick taped up. They didn't last long at all! But that's okay.

And yes, Scott pointed out that I forgot to cut out the part between his feet. All I can say is, I was in a big hurry that morning and it is now fixed.

Showing off the Pikachu Scott drew for our "Pin-the-Tail on Pikachu" game.  And Geddy is modeling the Pikachu Ear Party Hats we made for everyone.

We hid several little Pokemon all over the living room for the kids to find and put in their homemade Pokeball envelopes - see next picture.

Here are all the kids with their party hats and Pokeballs. They showed off, compared and traded their captured Pokemon. As they did this, Geddy explained to them what a Pokemon Trainer was and how the whole Pokemon thing worked. I wish that I had got that on video.

The aftermath of the Pin-the-Tail game. Geddy's is the furthest to the right. He said he did it on purpose because he was the birthday boy and wanted it to be the front one.

Now for what he had been waiting all day!

Geddy's good friend Jason gave him this very cool Batman figure.

Kristen and Tori gave him a fun new game to play.

Kendel and Keaton chose an awesome Batman Lego set for him.

McKayla's fun present was a huge thing of bubbles, a big sticky Grabber hand and a toy airplane.

His best friend Matthew gave him his favorite present of all. A real Pokeball with three mini-Pokemon AND a new pack of Pokemon cards!

There was even a wrapped present from Mom. He was quite surprised by this and he especially loved that I wrapped - not just used a gift bag- The present was two I-Spy type books - Pokemon of course!

Then came cupcake time! I also surprised Geddy by having those little ice cream cups with wooden paddle spoons. I didn't even know they still made them, I just happened to see them at Wal-Mart.

You can just barely see all eight kids in this picture. Only one girl he had invited hadn't been able to come. If you look closely at the table you will see a little paper creature in front of everyone. They are toilet paper tubes paper-crafted to look like Eevee - yet another Pokemon. I filled the tube with some little party trinkets and wrapped candies - this was their party favor "bag". Of course, I didn't think of it at the time, but to get the treats you had to pull tape off the "bum". The kids thought this was hilarious!

I put some music on while we waited for parents to come pick up kids. They had a blast just dancing around. The parents may not have been too appreciative of how wound up the kids were when they got them, but hey, isn't that part of the fun of a Birthday Party?

  I just realized there were two activities we did not get documented on here. First I must say that the party was supposed to be in the backyard. Our house isn't really meant for eight 5-7-year-olds. However, it had rained, thundered and lightninged all morning so I decided I better get the house clean and everything set up inside. Of course, half an hour before the party everything cleared up and it was beautiful. Oh well, too late to move everything back outside. We did attempt one of our outside games though. I had printed pictures of Team Rocket (enemy of the Pokemon Trainers) and taped them on the fence. The plan was to throw water balloons at the pictures. When I had moved the party inside I hadn't taken the time to fill up a lot of water balloons. So I tried to fill them as the kids were throwing them. Didn't work so well - eight kids go through water balloons REALLY fast! Plus, the bag of balloons I had were quite cheap and had holes. But we had fun. We also played a fun game of Pokemon Bingo between cupcakes and dancing. I found a lot of my printables - the treat tube, Bingo, and mini Pokemon for the hunt at a very cool website: http://www.dltk-kids.com/pokemon/printables.htm. They have tons of other ideas and themes so I will probably be using the site many more times.


 All-in-all the party was a success. The kids said it was, "The best, most-awesomest Birthday party they had ever been to!" Some had been to his Pirate party last year and said that was fun, but this one was better. The craziest part was that I had only had about 15 minutes of sleep - in bits and pieces. I had worked until 2:30 the morning/night before and then drove around trying to find the cake-topper. When I arrived home at 4 am, Geddy's bedroom light was on and he was awake. He would not go back to sleep no matter what I tried. He was just too excited for his birthday. But I survived, the kids had fun and Geddy is already planning what he wants at his next birthday party - An Angry Birds party. Why, I don't know? We don't have the game, he has only played it a couple time on friends phones or on a demo-Nook at Barnes & Noble. Whatever, we have a whole year to change his mind. Who knows what he will be obsessed with next year!