Large Cars Decorations by Grammy

Lizzie and Ramone
Guido and Luigi
Mater
Sarge
Stanley
Flo
Doc Hudson, Chick Hicks, and The King
Fillmore and Sheriff
Red
Mack and Lightning McQueen

Sally, Dinoco Lightning, Tractor, and of course, Alex

Alex's Birthday Cake

Alex and Becky made his cake together. She baked two layers of cake, then Alex helped her smear ice cream between the layers.

After refreezing it, they frosted it together. Alex put plastic and candy Cars decorations on the cake and Becky used gel icing to write "Happy 7th Alex!!!" on it.

Then he blew out his big "7" candle, making it official. Happy Birthday, Alex!

Happy 7th Birthday Alex!

Our oldest turned 7 at 2:01 AM. He slept through it, but when he awoke, he began a fun and relaxing day. He and Becky made cinnamon rolls after breakfast. He opened presents from family and got a lot of neat gifts, including several new games.

We played Cars Tractor Tipping, Make 'N' Break, Gobblet Jr., Cars UNO, Cranium Ziggity, and Cranium Whoonu, and Cranium Cadoo. He was especially pround of beating me twice in a row in Gobblet Jr., which is like Tic-Tac-Toe, but played with small wooden cups in 3 sizes that can gobble up your opponents smaller pieces. Becky had to ask me if I let him win because it was his birthday - while that sounded noble, he earned the win the hard way. He must've had a good teacher. :)

Grammy Hardage made him large versions of the cars from the Cars movie that we decorated the house with. We went out to dinner at Bravo! where the birthday boy had pizza and we of course came home for dessert.

Birthday Cinnamon Rolls

Becky and Alex got up this morning and put together some semi-homeade cinnamon rolls. They used frozen bread dough - thawed of course and rolled it out. They covered it with butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Then they rolled it up and sliced rounds out to bake and then topped them with frosting. Good eats for the birthday boy (and the rest of us)!

Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt

Before we had an evening Thanksgiving meal, Alex talked us into going on a walk around the neighborhood on a scavenger hunt. The goal was to find items on our walk that Alex set up ahead of time on a list. You would get points for finding feathers, flowers, acorns, and for a bonus point - a PIG.

No one found the pig and when we found out that the others were hard to find, Alex added pine cones and squirrels to the list, which were much more readily visible. Alex was keeping score and ... wait for it ... he won!

Wacky Hats

This is actually one of Alex's presents from his party, but Aaron and Becky had fun building wacky hats from a kit. This cracks Aaron up everytime he sees this picture come up on our slideshow screen saver.

Strike!

Today we celebrated Alex's birthday at the Southwyck Lanes Bowling Alley. We've found it hard to get kids to come to a party close to his birthday because it usually falls right near Thanksgiving. That's why we turned Alex and a bunch of his closest friends and classmates loose on the lanes today. We had a great turnout and the kids really loved the bowling. We also had Cars themed coloring pages for the younger siblings, but the older kids enjoyed them too. Everyone got Cars temporary tatoos and enjoyed cake.

We got a great cake from Sam's decorated with the Cars characters. It was half vanilla and half chocolate, allowing everyone to pick their favorite flavor. Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" with a "cha cha cha" after each line - not sure where that came from - and Alex blew out a big "7" candle.

Since we were bowling hard and eating cake, we saved the present opening until we got home. He got a really fun mix of games and toys. He's already told us that he wants a Party Heroes party next year.

Grammy's Here!

Grammy came into town tonight on the same flight I did. Of course, hers originated in Austin, and then connected in Dallas where I got on the plane. I walked up, gave her a hug, and then got hustled down the aisle by a grumpy traveller to my seat a few rows behind her. Kinda wierd to share a plane, but not see her for the entire flight. The kids haven't seen her for 7 months and are looking forward to her stay.

Attack of the Blue Sesame Street Sno-Cone

To reward the kids with a fun night out after a hectic week of doing the single parent thing, Becky took them to the latest Sesame Street Live show. They wore appropriate shirts we picked up at Sesame Place this summer.

They really enjoyed the show, which featured all of their favorite characters.

The real adventure began simply - with a request for a Sesame street Sno-Cone. We don't know if they were designed this way or mixed up badly but there was WAY too much blue food coloring in Aaron's. He kept grabbing handfuls of it and of course, stained his hands and tongue. But the fun didn't stop there. Within 24 hours he had a neon blue diaper deposit that stained his tuckus as well. It would not come off in the bath and had to wear off over the next few days. In addition to the program and concert CD, this was one more thing to remind us of the trip to Sesame Street.

Board Review Express

Today I left the troops behind for a short medical education trip in Dallas in preparation for the Family Physician Boards I will be taking next summer. We had 3 days of lectures from 7 to 7 (with breaks thank goodness). My tuckus was tired of sitting when it was over.

It was rough leaving the rest of the gang but it wouldn't have been much fun here. Since I was in lectures all day, I wouldn't have seen them much anyway and Becky would've had to wrangle the kiddos by herself away from home. Not to mention the fact that Alex has school this week. I stayed in the Dallas Intercontinental and spent my downtime back on the treadmill (in front of a big mirror - I found out that I really don't like to watch myself run), or watching TV.

I spent half an hour in the pool one night (it was 88 that day in Dallas), but I found that it was a little creepy by myself. I kept touch with home through my cell phone through calls and text messages. Before long I was winging my way back home to the troops. I'm taking them on the next CME trip - hopefully with half day lectures.

One Last Trip to the Park

Halloween 2006

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Becky brought her famous Touchy-Feely game to Alex's school party again this year, featuring a dragon toe (a yucca root), zombie snot (clear gelatin with rubber bugs set in it), vampire fingers (white asparagus spears), giant troll eyeballs (partially peeled kiwi fruit), and mummy brains (soft salt dough) that the kids (and teachers) had to touch without looking at them, buried as they were inside beautiful artificial pumpkins that Becky's mom made last year. Once again it was a big hit. The problem is now that it has become popular, she's dreading coming up with new surprises each year, because the kids remember the old ones. I have no doubt in her ability to come through.
For the first time ever, we all went out trick-or-treating in costume as a family. The kids picked out their own costumes this year. Aaron went as a Jack-O'Lantern, but had mixed feelings about the hat. Alex went as Lightning McQueen from the Cars movie, including red hair paint and red sweats with a racing stripe. Becky went as Malificent from Disney's Sleeping Beauty and I wore the zombie get up that I went to work in, but with more comfortable shoes.

The kids did really well on the candy prowl. A neighbor that knows us gave them special gift bags. Aaron was much bolder than Alex was at this age, but they may have been because his older brother was there with him at every door (except for the 2 that I made Alex sit out for repeatedly forgetting to thank the candy donors). We spent a few minutes at one house that had a clap-on little ghost decoration that danced and moaned because Aaron kept gleefully calling out - "Do it again!" One lap around the block took an hour but got them bags so full that Aaron couldn't carry his anymore from door to door (but he did drag it himself up to each door when we got to a new house). We made it back in time to hand out some candy ourselves - Alex really enjoyed giving candy out this year. We lit our pumpkins and watched them one last time before blowing them out and heading to bed. Alex has already started planning his costume for next year. We advised him to at least wait until after Christmas.

It Was a Zombie Jamboree

This year I dressed up for Halloween - something I haven't really done since leaving residency and joining my practice. I wore this to work - I was the only doctor to dress up (after we made sure no kids were on my schedule - this would've been too scary).

I got the clothes at Goodwill for about $13. I had fun shredding them with my multitool and smearing them with fake blood. I imagined that I was re-animated and bashed my way out of my coffin with my forehead and then got into a fight with some of the other zombies when I designed this. I read online that mortuaries slit the jackets up the back to fit them onto the corpses easier, so I did the same.

I bought some makeup and Becky got up early to help me apply the pale face, dark (sunken) eye sockets and prosthetic head wound. We powdered my hair (to sub for dirt & dust) and sprayed it in an askew position. I put on a little fake blood (from eating brains) and practiced my vacant stare.

It was a huge hit at the office by both my staff and patients. My nurse went into the rooms before I came in and told my unsuspecting patients that "Something's wrong with Dr. Evans. He doesn't look very good and hasn't been acting right ever since he got here." I startled one pre-teen while taking the kids out trick-or-treating because he didn't realize I was in costume until he walked past me and saw my head. Next year - Jedi Knight.