Elijah is 8

Today is Elijah's 8th birthday! Wow--time flies. Seems like just yesterday he was this very persistent little foot in my ribcage. Now he's a persistent pain elsewhere.

Last night was the big party and it went great. We had it at Quarry Cinema in Cold Spring. His guests were Dylan, Dreydin, Allie, Annamarie, Noah, Ariana, and Ben. It's really fun now having kids close in age because all of Elijah's friends know his siblings and they all play together and get along well.

We were given a tour of the projector area prior to the movie--very cool! I always assumed it would all be digital, but it isn't--it's 3 foot wide reels of film. The kids were fascinated and the birthday boy got to press the button to start the movie. The movie was the Pink Panther 2--extremely stupid and boy did they laugh their little butts off.

I noticed a gender difference. Both of the girls made a big deal out of including a card in his gift. None of the boys bothered. Annamarie made him a very nice handmade card with a very nice note about hoping he has a very nice birthday...love, Annamarie. Allie bought a card but also signed it "love, Allie". Oh, my. Make note that Allie was his first grade girl and Annamarie is his 2nd grade girl. At this rate those birthday parties are going to be awfully big by high school. I also think Ben is going to steal a lot of them--he and Annamarie hit it right off. I got a chance to talk to her mom when she arrived early to pick her up and found out that Annamarie, like Ben, is a year ahead in school. They are a very interesting family; the father is from Montenegro, which is in the mediterranean; the mom is Serbian. I told the mom I've been to Europe and have family there; she asked where; I said Italy; she said with her heavy accent "Yes, yes, the hair, of course".

Wils had a great time at Lynn's. He and Zac went there and then Brian picked Zac up at 7 after the movie started and they went home to bed and Wil stayed with Lynn. They baked--Wil brought his little baking set that she gave him. After, hearing the details of the party, William told me that when it's time for his birthday, he wants to have the same party as Elijah, except when it is his birthday, he wants to go to the party instead of to Lynn's. Gotcha, Wils! We'll try to accommodate that, for sure!

Our new computer arrived yesterday. Yay! I've barely had time to set it up, and won't have any time until Sunday at the earliest. It's going to be very nice. We also got one of those flip videophones and will be able to upload video clips to this site. That will be fun.

Last night after the party Ariana went to work on a new book using Blurb.com and she let me see the first page. The book is called "just4" and the introduction explains it is about life with 4 brothers who are her best friends. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. And then, as she typed, she raised as finger and said "But I want one more"

They are looking forward to this weekend. We are going to Wisconsin to Gramma and Papa's for Elijah's family party. They will be meeting a new friend, baby Grace Schmidt. I used to babysit Grace's mom, Katie; we had a great time! {"What'dja say, Charlie?"}