Summer retreat, a preschool reunion, and lots of birthdays

I finally finished my So Cal post, so I'm trying my hardest to catch this blog up to the present.. at least until we head back down to So Cal in October. -_- So I'm going to start back in the middle of August. After our trip to Napa in August with our church friends, Kai and Evelyn have been back to being BFFs (I'll post about Napa soon!). At Minori's birthday party in August, we let Kai, Ethan, and Evelyn  run around together with relative independence.. now that the kids are getting older, we're trying to just keep the kids in our peripheral vision rather than following them around everywhere.

The three musketeers and Sora. Sora now loves to wear dress up dresses, I let her wear them to parties.. so needless to say, she loves going to parties.

A few weeks later, we celebrated Wally's birthday with cupcakes, water balloons, and Polaroids. Sora had to remove her princess dress for the water balloon fight, and in spite of the ubiquity of digital photography, the kids loved taking Polaroids.. just something about seeing a physical photo develop.

Kai and Isaac show off their photographic skillz, they took pics of each other :)

Decorate-your-own-cupcake station! Needless to say, there was a lot of frosting and candy

Next up was Nik's birthday! Decidedly more low-key than last year's big 4-0 blowout, we celebrated by hosting small group and just by chance, we had a two hour long blackout in the middle of small group. It made for an exciting small group: as the kids watched downloaded videos on the tablet (lucky that it was fully charged!), we went through the Bible study by lantern and flash lights. We capped off small group with a cake for Nik and amusingly, the power came on almost immediately after our friends left.

Bible study by lantern light

Happy birthday, Nik!

The day after Nik's birthday was a double-header. We celebrated Milo's birthday in the morning with a pirate themed party and doughnuts.

We then headed directly to Abby's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's afterward. Kai and Sora were excited to go back to Chuck E. Cheese after visiting in August, but in all honesty, the Cupertino location doesn't hold a candle to the East San Jose location. However, it was just fun to go with our church friends and the kids had a wonderful time hanging out together.

We also went to a birthday party for one of Kai's classmates, Theo. I'm really happy that Kai's starting to make friends at school and hope that having friends helps him grow in confidence. I had just visited VillaSport with Matthew for the first time earlier in the week, so that Theo's birthday party was there was a pleasant surprise.

First visit we used a free guest pass.. gotta get the slick deal while you can!

Theo's party was actually awesome for me. Since Nik was working that Saturday, it gave me an easy daytime diversion for the kids and having already been there before, I knew I would be able to handle three kids in the shallow pool. The kids loved running around the water play area and cracked open a pinata.

Ring pops with Kiana

These Saturday birthday parties have been essential to saving my sanity. Nik worked the past three Saturdays, and if not for these birthday parties, I would simply be on lockdown mode at home. Two weekends ago, we celebrated Nathan's birthday at the pumpkin patch. Bringing three kids to a pumpkin patch on my own is not something I would normally attempt, but knowing that our church friends would be there, I took the kids. It was a bit of a madhouse with lots of people, but our friends were able to help me out. Jad wasn't too thrilled about his first pumpkin patch either and was exhausted by the end of our visit.

The poor animals in the petting zoo looked so stressed out

The best picture I could get of the three of them :P

"Get this pumpkin hat off of meeeeee!"

And just last weekend, we celebrated three birthdays in one weekend. On Saturday, Nik was working yet again, so I took the kids to Evelyn's birthday in the park. It was low-key and wonderful; the kids were able to run off on their own to play with their friends at the playground and with so many friends around, I was able to hand Jad off to a number of people.

Afterward, we headed off to Owen's birthday at the Duck Pond. Essentially a large indoor playspace with lots of toys, it was nice change of pace from playing outdoors and the kids were able to roam around freely.

In love with their party favors from Evelyn's party

Kai and Isaac causing trouble together

Dress up clothing too! Sora was delighted

And finally, we celebrated Zachary's birthday this past Sunday. A ninja themed party at a gym, the kids enjoyed running around the obstacle course and using the gymnastics equipment.

I am grateful for all of our friends and for these parties. My only issue is that I'm getting a little tired of eating pizza all of the time, but I guess that's the trade-off! :)

In the beginning of September, we went on our church retreat to Mission Springs. Located just in Scotts Valley, it was nice to get away but not really be "away". This was the first year that we could let the kids roam around mostly on their own; there were times where we lost track of where the kids were, yet not knowing exactly where they were wasn't a big deal.. what a revelation!

Climbing this tree was a popular activity for the kiddos (and sneaking snacks from the snack stash)

Sydney Foo Foo loves Jaddy

Though Kai just left Butterfly for kindergarten, we recently had a reunion with some of our old preschool friends. The kids had a wonderful time playing together and it's nice to keep up these connections while the kids are still interested in playing with each other. Amusingly, Nina from Bright Star was at the playground at the same time and while I chatted with Nina's mom, Kai and Nina didn't remember each other at all. I know I'm being over-sentimental, but I think it's a little sad even though that's just the way things are for kids.

♫ Reunited and it feels so good ♫

Butterfly reunion with Kai, Micah, Jo Jo, Naomi, and Felicia