Long Ago In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

A young Padowan learner was getting ready to take the next step towards becoming a true Jedi. So his caregivers decided to host a gathering with other younglings to celebrate this rite of passage. They faced many challenges as they learned the ways of the Force...

Earning their light sabers and fighting the Sith Lord

Showing their best Jedi poses

Completing the Jedi Training obstacle course

Turning on the fair princess

I just love this face. Period.

Performing multiple stances, trying to find the best one

The excitement of the afternoon: Finding a dead bird in the back corner of our yard

A full-blown light saber war

Showing off the official Rebel or Imperial markings they received upon arrival

While the Jedis played, preparations were made for provisions to sustain the troops. I am by no means creative or crafty, so thanks to Party City, the Dollar Store, and ideas stolen from the Internet, the decorations and food turned out well, albeit very simple.

The menu consisted of Battleship Chips (Ben's favorite: Doritos)

Chewbacca cupcakes (chocolate with color-coordinating sprinkles)

Yoda sodas (lime sherbet with Sprite)

Darth Dogs (hot dogs)

Singing to the birthday boy. We have friends who created an X-Wing fighter cake for their son's Star Wars birthday, but I knew that was way beyond my talent and commitment levels.

Chow time

We ended with a generour friend who came and made balloon creations for the kids (more light sabers, of course, as well as hats, flowers, and animals).

We had 11 little Jedis running around and are glad for such fun neighbors and friends

Master Andy orchestrated the present opening

The happiest face of the party and our biggest helper - we couldn't have done the food without her. While the light saber battles raged outside, she came in and assisted with cooking hot dogs and setting out food.

The ultimate birthday hat and one tired Jedi.

Live from Chuck E. Cheese

Lucy's favorite ride: The clock. She kept pulling me back to it and rode it about five times.

Ben and Whac-A-Shark.

Birthday Surprises

There's nothing like visits from far-flung grandmas to help you kick off your birthday week.
Grandma Lori (my mom), flew in from Washington to help us with our celebrations and other projects around the house. She came just days after becoming a freshly minted bachelor of accounting after years of hard work and graduating as the valedictorian of her business school class. Way to go Mom! As evidenced by our gene pool, we Dockums come by our nerdiness honestly.

At the beginning of Ben's birthday week we made a calendar of all the things that were happening in the ensuing days so we could spread out the fun and he'd know what he had to look forward to. Grandma Lori's arrival was on day one, so then we were on to...

Birthday bowling

Meeting Andy for lunch at McDonald's. The highlight - Ben didn't have to split a Happy Meal with Lucy like he normally does. It was raining for the fourth week in a row, so we trekked up to the McDonald's with the indoor playland.

Baking birthday treats to share with his schoolmates - ice cream cone cookies! (I was not the creative mind behind them)

We were going to make Star Wars cookies for each child using our pancake molds, but they were way too big and tended to break.

Practicing Jedi poses for the birthday bash. We have a family friend who is a talented artist and asked us to email him some pictures of Ben with a light saber so he could create a special picture, which will be forthcoming.

Let's Get This Party Started

Last week Ben hit a milestone birthday: 6 years old. The end of being a little boy and the beginning of being a bona fide school-age kid. We had something planned for each day of the week and kicked it off on Monday with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese with his best friend, Cohen. Ben chose this special outing since Cohen wouldn't be able to attend his birthday party that Wednesday night. They had a wonderful time playing games, eating treats, and building the Legos that Cohen gave Ben. Lucy also had a good time tagging along and found some rides that were just her speed. I loved it because it was easy to manage everyone and the place wasn't too crowded on a Monday morning.

Best buds for the last four years. We'll all be sad when Cohen and his family move to Denver next month.

Cashing in the tickets they won from playing games. Favorite prizes: Airheads.

Lucy loved dancing along with the akward Chuck E. Cheese impersonator.

The crew by my favorite game: Skee Ball!

Getting down to work with the Lego helicopter. Together they had it finished in 15 minutes, with only minimal tussling over who got to put which piece where.

Ben's favorite game: The moving basketball hoop shoot.

One of Lucy's favorite rides: The bouncy school bus.

Lovely Ladies

A shout out to two of my favorite women: Andy's twin sister Betsy, who also recently celebrated a birthday and is an amazing person. Passionate, adventurous, witty, caring, super smart, wicked fun, and one of the most thoughtful gift givers I've met. She sent Ben a green Specialized bike helmet with skulls and flames on it for his birthday this year - he loves tearing around the neighborhood in his cool gear.

Andy's cousin Alex, who is a graduating senior headed off the start college life soon. Yikes, that makes me feel old because when we moved to AZ, where she lives, she was only 11! It's been a pleasure watching Alex mature into a bright, inquisitive, athletic, studious, fun-loving-yet-hard-working, intelligent, poised, lovely young lady. She's also a voracious reader and it's always fun to talk books and movies with her (and her mom Sherri). Congratulations Alex, we love you!

Betsy is in Phoenix for a corporate retreat and this snapshot is of them at a cute little restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale.

Sugar High

Yesterday I went to the grocery store and walked up to the register with 125 Dove chocolate bars. The male cashier gave me a quizzical look and after a pause commented, "Well, those will last you for a while." I laughed as I explained to him that they will be a Mother's Day gift for the women in our church congregation. To which he replied, "Don't they want flowers?" I laughed again because in my mind it's not even question which would be my gift of choice.

Here's the haul.

I told Andy that I'd like to put in a request for one of the red bars - dark chocolate, please. After all, this task was actually assigned to him, but for the second year in a row, it's been delegated to me since my Mother's Day pick last year was such a hit:

It's rare to find such large quanitities of chocolate on sale since most bars are normally a dollar each. But two year's in a row I've struck pay dirt, either through luck or divine intervention. Perhaps chocolate really is the food of the gods. :)

So while the man at the grocery store can be relieved that I'm not going home to have a giant candy binge, I wouldn't mind diving in to some of these on Mother's Day morning.

What about you, mother or not - chocolate or flowers?

Favorite Things

Here's a few things we're loving as of late.

Nollie:

1. Our yard

Thanks to a month of nonstop record rainfall (7+ inches - no joke), the lawn is lush and green and our foliage is blooming. Andy cut the grass twice twice last week and spent an hour trimming everything to perfection. Now we're just crossing our fingers that the sun will show up so we can actually go outside to enjoy it.

I used to think I could never live somewhere characteristically drizzly like Seattle or Portland, but have since discovered that Columbus gets more rain, on average, than either Pacific Northwest city or even London. Now the world is my oyster - If we can thrive here, we can survive anywhere! This morning we went to the mall playground to run out some pent up energy and then get a good sugar blast from the candy store strategically situated right next to the play area. Like all real estate, location is everything. Ben only had 25 cents to spend but wanted dark blue M&Ms, so we had to have the lady weigh and then dump out a dwindling bagful of candies multiple times so he could stay within his budget. I ended up pitching in a nickel when after the fifth effort the total came to 30 cents.

Is there anywhere you'd love to live or have sworn you'd never want to be? Has spring arrived where you are or you also experiencing some peculiar or severe weather?

2. Our local Goodwill store

I love a good bargain and part of the beauty of thrift stores is the hunt. Like the Goodwill I frequented regularly during our summer in Dayton because I had no friends and no life, this Goodwill also gets brand new items from Target. Apparently it also has generous benefactors who donate killer size 9 shoes. My two latest scores were barely-worn pointy toe leather heels from Aldo, one of my favorite shoe stores, in purple croc and cognac. They fit in nicely with my other footwear finds of Ann Taylor stacked heel and hot pink satin peep toes. The most beautiful part of all - they each cost a mere $4.

3. Celebrations
So fun to have an excuse to get together with friends. Congrats and good luck to Sarah, who is due any day with a little girl.


Ben:

1. Wall-E

Thanks to the magic of DVR, Ben has now watched it approximately six times in the past two weeks. Here Andy's with him watching it for the first time. I didn't like the movie initally, but it's grown on me. Love that feisty Eva! Kudos to Pixar for making a movie is so witty and engaging despite very little spoken dialogue.

2. Playing ball

Every spare second he can get, Ben is outside playing baseball, basketball, foursquare, or golf with his friends or Andy. He's also enrolled in soccer at the YMCA and we've had fun watching him tear around the field while his skills improve.

Lucy:

1. Coloring

Did you notice in the above picture with Andy and Ben that Lucy has dragged her coloring book outside? She focuses intensely on her Sesame Street pictures, even when friends are around. Beware the child who tries to distract her from her efforts! Every morning she runs to where the art supplies are kept and asks to "woh woh." Translation: color.

Another closeup of Lucy hard at work, finding her muse in nature.

2. Cousin Harper!!!!

Lucy and Ben (but Lucy in particular) love to look at pictures of their cousin Harper, who is a pint -sized celebrity in their eyes. She has a fabulous wardrobe and all her comings and goings are carefully, cleverly, and adorably documented on their family blog. Lucy will jump into the chair and say, "There's Harper, more Harper!" and won't be satisfied until she's seen at least five minutes of pictures and two videos. She even created her own soundtrack to this post of Harper doing various things. If Harper's folding her arms, Lucy folds her arms. If Harper's petting a horse, Lucy says "Neigh." If Harper's touching her toes, so does Lucy. If Harper's eating a pickle, Lucy says "Mmmm" to the screen. We're proud to be raising a little stalkerazzi. What will happen when she actually sees Harper in person this summer?