September 27, 2014-Happy Birthday Keaton!

(click here for today's pictures)

A day of celebrating!

• Today was Keaton's birthday-the big number 3 for her.  And since this is our third birthday in 2 weeks, we remember well how to celebrate.  Keaton was even the lucky one who used the birthday plate (that I just found in the kitchen while rummaging around for garage sale stuff.)  She was pretty pumped about it being her birthday and would flash her huge grin whenever we mentioned it.
• Since it was her birthday, she got to pick out breakfast and her choice this morning was "pink yogurt" so strawberry yogurt it was.  And since Robby was passing out breakfast, he sweetened the deal literally with a tiny bowl of ice cream for everyone.  What could be better than ice cream for your birthday?  We may have started a new tradition around here.
• The weather was pretty perfect during the ball games today.  Reagan and Campbell cheered first (8:30).  I really don't know what has changed but this week Reagan really seemed to enjoy it and Campbell really, really did well.  She only sat down for a bit of the game and not most of it.  They did their dance out on the field and Reagan has been making Campbell practice everyday and I guess it paid off.  
• Grannymom had brought Keaton 3 birthday balloons along with a tiny present (candy bracelets) to wear.  My Keaton was thrilled with this and I am pretty sure that she felt that the whole football games along with Lilli and Cash being there was just a big party for her.  With all of this excitement, the first game flew by pretty quickly.  
• Graham's game was next (10:00).  And I think that they won just by a safety.  But the highlight of this game was Graham catching an interception.  An interception doesn't really change anything in Graham's division (maybe just counts as a down) but we screamed and hollered and cheered him on like he was making the winning score in the Super Bowl.  
• This was the best weather day we have had so far this year-the first and third game days were crazy hot and the second was cold.  But today was hot yet still okay-we did need an umbrella to keep the sun off and at least one Dennie has a bit of a sunburn-but it was still a pretty good weather day.  Despite the nice weather, we still left the fields to go and eat lunch-today's stop was McDonalds.  
• After the kids ate and Keaton blew out candles on a cookie, everyone went to the play area to play.  At some point, Anderson heard a police car and said "we must be too loud, I hear the police coming."  I don't know what else was said but I walked out a few seconds after this when the police car was zooming by the restaurant.  But inside of the tubes I could hear multiple Dennies screaming and wailing.  I walked closer while saying "what is wrong?" and "I'm right here."  But that didn't help-Keaton and Campbell shot out of the play ground area and they were hysterical.  Keaton grabbed her shoes and was headed inside.  I didn't really get why they were panicked and tried to sit her down to put her shoes on but that didn't work.  Campbell was sobbing and shaking and Keaton's little heart was about to pound out of her chest-I could feel it as I was holding her.  Those two little monkeys thought that the police man were coming to get them and they were doing their best to get back inside the restaurant.  I think we need to talk about police men being community helpers.  
• After calming my hysterical girls down, we went to Anderson's game.  Since Lilli and Cash were with us, my crew had plenty of folks to pass the day with-they played catch, played musical chairs, played duck duck goose, did cartwheels, played with Whitman, learned cheers, ran around the field and a multitude of other things.  Anderson's game was the last of the day (1:00) and his team did pretty good today-Anderson was the rusher a few times and did really well.  
• Last week, when the game was over Allen asked for help gathering the pylons and the Dennies raced to get as many as they could.  This week, they didn't need anyone to ask-my kids were off as soon as the last whistle blew and worked up a sweat gathering those pylons.  
• At home, we showered everyone in super fast motion so my boys (big and little) could get upstairs to watch the football game.  They laughed, they cried, they cheered and they booed during the game (well, some of those).  The last half of the game, Nonna and Pops came over to watch with us.
• We had hamburgers for supper and then we let Keaton blow out the candles from her cupcake made by Nonna.  Everyone loves singing Happy Birthday at this house but no one loves it more than Whitman.  He just grins and laughs and sings away-of course his Happy Birthday sounds a little more like a cross between Jesus loves me and Happy Birthday but it is all unintelligible.  
• After Nonna and Pops left, the kids all had another shower since they had played outside off and on during the evening.  They helped clean up the toy room and then had a long while to play on their kindles-with 6 kids sitting on the couch playing on kindles we should be doing a kindle commercial here (Cash is spending the night-he was the 6th on the kindle-Whitman was already in bed)
• We read our Bible story and then it was lights out-the boys upstairs and the girls downstairs-we will see how quickly my boys fall asleep-right now it sounds like it may be a while!