to see what we see

i am in the throes of packing woes.  why oh why do i find myself here so frequently when it is one of my very least favorite things to do?

but the good news is we bought a house!

the bad news is i must pack like a madwoman!

but even madwomen need a break from the madness so here i am.  :)

a couple saturdays ago, phil was home and we had nothing in particular scheduled for the day.  i love those kind of days.

so as we headed out with the kids, allie asked where we were going.  i answered, "to see what we see."

and this is what we saw.

we found ourselves at the unique la show where we saw caine's arcade!

if you haven't seen caine's short video, you should.  that is a pretty cool kid.

 we got our fun passes.  still $2 for 500 plays, good for 30 days.  still a good deal.

and played the famous basketball game!

also the claw machine!

and then we saw caine himself running one of the games.  here he is helping mikey line up the tube to drop a marble into a hole.  mikey won two duck tattoos.

this girl was all smiles after her daddy won her a little tiger.

a quick pic with caine.

and we saw nirvan, too!

and then we were off to la brea tar pits to see what else we'd see.

this picture makes me laugh.  when did they turn in to such hams?  the kids, not the elephants.  the elephants have always been hams.

it's a bird!  it's a plane!  it's superboy!

it is very, very hard to get a natural smile out of this girl.  this is what you get when you ask her for her "prettiest princess smile".

it's still pretty easy to get smiles outta this one though.  except his near constant thumb sucking does tend to block the view.

also very hard to get a normal smile out of this one, too.  but very easy to get faces like this one though.

and then we saw a big ole long line of food trucks!

it was very windy in food truck aisle.

but that didn't deter us from getting a sampling of food truck fare.  too bad it wasn't as tasty as we hoped it would be.  probably shoulda patronized the truck in front of this one instead.  korean bbq burritos.

once home, the kids asked if they could have some cardboard boxes.  i immediately answered, "NO!"  crusher of childhood aspirations, right here.  we're moving, remember?!  eyes on the prize, people.  then mommy and daddy went upstairs to take a nap.  when i came back downstairs, i found what they had been up to.  improvising their own arcade.

his version of the soccer arcade game.

this is where the tickets come out.

her version of the basketball game.  and that's where her tickets come out.

guess who got to be their very first customer?

and that is what we ended up seeing when we went out to see what we'd see.

what i love

you know what i love?

i'll tell you what i love.

i love coming downstairs and finding them like this.


you know what else i love?

i'll tell you what else i love.

i love finding them like this a few minutes later.

now the little sister can read short stories from her reading book to her big brother.

and he only had to help her sound out a couple of the words.

yup.  that's what i really, really love.

his party

so for his birthday, mikey requested a party at mulligan's.  and he wanted to invite his homeschool crew.  we planned to have it on a friday afternoon hoping that the place would be pretty dead in the middle of the day.  and it worked out great.

finally time to get this party started!

we decided to make this an optional drop-off party and half of the moms took us up on it (hey, a homeschool mom's gotta take advantage of these rare opportunities and i'm totally on board with that!).  so a BIG thanks to phil and the moms who did stay and help keep everyone together.  i absolutely could not have done this party without them.

in the midst of serving everyone food and trying to keep everyone together, i completely forgot to get a shot of mikey's cake this year.  he asked for a camouflage cake with a tank, helicopter, and army guys on top.  guess his days of elmo and curious george cakes are long gone.  still so hard to believe he's eight now!

gentlemen, start your engines.  mikey's favorite.

it was great to have the whole place pretty much to ourselves.

 the kids had a blast going around and around with their buddies.

the little sister even got brave enough to drive one by herself, too.  she loved it.

you know who else loved it?  (hint: it wasn't lauren).

but auntie heesun and little j sure did! loved their synchronized steering each time they drove by.

however, it wasn't long before...

the competitive streak came out!

and yes, i looked like this for the entire ride.

then it was on to laser tag!

then mini golf!

and paddle boats!

seriously.  this place had it all.

and finally arcade games.  you know this game where the light goes round and round and you push the button to make the light stop in the spot right in front of you?  well, this is the one game that their daddy can always win.  and he always plays it whenever we are in an arcade so that his kiddos have enough tickets for each of them to get a prize.  cuz that's the kind of daddy he is.

and this time was no exception.  though lauren wasn't quite sure what all these tickets were for.

allie did, though.

a very full day at his favorite place with his favorite people.  a great way to celebrate my boy turning 8!

the belt test

mikey's started tae kwon do a few months ago.  he loves it.  good thing, because phil signed him up and paid for a year's worth of classes because they offered the lowest rate that way.  anyway, three weeks ago was his very first belt test.

sooo excited to test for his yellow belt!

he asked me to take a punching shot with him looking fierce.  here it is.

he didn't say it, but i could tell he was a little nervous, too.

and then it was belt test time.

getting ready to do some kicking.

that right there is a pretty high kick.

excuse me, i was momentarily distracted by this face.

where was i?  oh yes, high kicks.  my boy has some mean high kicks.

and on to punching.

and falling back.

action shot.

more high kicks.

and then...

he got his yellow belt!

just checking to make sure all was in order.  and probably right then was when he noticed they wrote "mike" instead of "mikey".

no matter though, that yellow belt was his!

job well done, little guy.  so proud of you!