Ryan's 9th Birthday: Jedi Training

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, a boy was born...his name was RYAN and he is strong with the Force. He celebrated his 9th birthday to begin training as a Padawan, and invited his friends to join him by learning the ways of the Jedi at the Jedi Training Academy (aka Tae Kwon Do)! The kids' Tae Kwon Do (TKD) academy does birthday parties, and since Star Wars is as big as it was back in the day, we thought it would be fun to have a TKD party...I mean JEDI TRAINING....for Ryan's birthday! (It's the first birthday I didn't "run"...which is very strange for a Type A Control Freak such as myself. Nonetheless, the kids had a blast, and I got to watch and take pictures.)

Rich was in charge of the coup de grace....THE CAKE TO END ALL CAKES......The Death Star cake! I was thinking of Costco but hubby decided that simply would not do....and thus the Death Star. I have to admit, crazy investment aside, this is wicked cool, seeing as how I grew up when the original Star Wars came to being. Our kids love this stuff as much as we did when we were kids (you should have seen Alex's face when we found the shoebox that had Rich's original action figures from the 70's!).

The kids in their "Jedi Training"...


As the Birthday Boy, Ryan got to be a Black Belt for the day!

Ryan kicks the board, Jedi style!

And Ryan gets the traditional SPANKINGS...including one from DAD!

Certificates we gave out to the kids. Am I a geek or what?

Halloween - Superhero Style

No Hannah Montana or Cinderella here. No, we have boys. And boys dress up as cool things that have big guns and otherwise eradicate all evil from the planet earth and beyond. And so we have Optimus Prime (Alex) and Captain Rex (Ryan), saviors of the universe. For those that don't know, Optimus Prime is from "Transformers" and Captain Rex is from "Star Wars - The Clone Wars."

Scoot

Today marks an historic moment for me as a mother. After much vacillating, I agreed to let my boys ride their scooters to school. Without me trailing behind (which is not to say I have a scooter, mind you). We're in the city now and it's not like our old town, where I could see the school from my kitchen window. So I reluctantly sent them on their way. And being the paranoid mother that I am, I gave it about 2 minutes before I decided I needed to check on them, slyly of course. Do you know how hard it is to be covert in a suburban? Not so much! Fortunately, they weren't embarrassed. They just waved to me with "See, told you we'd be okay" smiles. They're growing up, despite all my efforts to prevent it.