9

Jonah turned 9 last week. Which kind of blows my mind. I mean, in some ways I don't even remember life without kids (what did I spend all my time doing?) but mostly I can't believe I have been a dad for 9 years. I'm no math major, but that is like 25% of my life.

Jonah is super smart. It makes me so happy that he can do his homework by himself and usually doesn't need much help. He's very self sufficient that way. And I'm glad he figured out how to build crazy castles and obstacle courses on Minecraft without me having to help because that game is aaannnooooyiiiiinnnnng! I love that when we are at Disneyland he is obsessed with noticing all the details. He's my own little Disney Nerd. On this last trip, as we were leaving the park one night I said to him "Hey, thanks for listening to me talking about all the little details in the park." And he said, "I mean, the details are what makes it! Anyone else would just put a regular bench here!" I love that he is really funny and has a goofy laugh. I love that he gets along with other kids so easily and has boundless energy.

We let our kids pick whatever they want for breakfast on their birthday. Jonah chose strawberries, marshmallows, powdered donuts, hash browns and Sprite. Um, gross.

A little Adventure Time with breakfast. Ah, Saturday birthdays are the best...

 Yeah! Presents!

 Jonah wanted to go bowling with his friends for his birthday. The great thing about a group of 9 year-olds is that they are pretty self entertaining.

 Amy and Lila and I just sat on the table at the back and ate breadstick and drank Diet Coke. If there is any activity that I can do with my kids where I can just sit and drink Diet Cokes, I'm in.

 On Sunday we had a party with family. Here is his fancy Pokemon cake. Why yes, I AM an amazing cake decorator. Thanks for asking!

 Candles.

 And we even gave him clothes as presents, because we are just that annoying. He was slightly excited about this Domo shirt. The rest of the clothes he just dumped onto the ground.

Perhaps someday Jonah will read this blog. Thanks for being an amazing son, Jonah. I love you.

Shmeaster

Is there any activity more annoying than dyeing Easter Eggs? I say, No. There is a huge amount of set up, a huge amount of clean up, and so little pay off. It takes like 4 minutes from start to finish and then the kids are off to play video games and you are left with a bunch of overcooked eggs in funny colors and stains on the kitchen table.

But it was Easter, so we did it. I need to come up with a better tradition next year.

Here is what else we did for Easter:

 We tried to take a family picture before church, because everyone was dressed in cute clothes. And this was the best one. Which, coincidentally was the first one. Isn't that how it always happened? The more retakes you try to do, the more you get upset that the kids won't look at the camera, and the more sullen the kids get, causing you to get grumpier. It's a vicious cycle. Someday we will pay someone to take nice photos of us again.

We did an egg hunt in our back yard after church.

Most of the candy was melted (we had to hide it before church) so know we have a whole bunch of half melted Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs to snack on.

Jonah doesn't bother wearing shoes for an egg hunt. And somehow our grass looks like shag carpet from 1974.

But the kids all found plenty of treats. 

Then we went to my Mom's for a delicious dinner and another egg hunt. 

She went overboard on treats, as my Mom is known to do on holidays, and spoiled her grand kids so they were naturally thrilled. She went and bought all the Easter Candy a couple days before when I told her that we would come down for dinner that day. She's a keeper.

And the kids had a ball playing with my brother's dogs. Let me here reassert the fact that I will never have a pet dog. We used to be able to use the excuse that Noel was terrified of them. Noel, while still terrified of cats, has somehow overcome his fear of dogs. So technically, if we didn't hate them and think they were gross and annoying, we would be out of excuses. The kids all declared that they had dog buddies:

Here is Noel and Calila (my apologies to Joel - I have no idea how to spell that name.)

Jonah with Rufus. 

And Lila with Rosie. Who is literally her exact same size, and probably weighs twice as much. The two of them laid on the grass next to each other for hours. It was pretty cute. But not cute enough to convince me to get a dog.

Happy Easter!! Until next year...when I will have come up with a better tradition than dying eggs.