Celebrating SIX!

We spent a big portion of our weekend celebrating Rhetty Spaghetti, our very favorite SIX year old!!!

Six streamers on his bedroom door for six years!

The last thing Rhett said to me the night before his birthday was, “Don’t forget my birthday streamers,” further proving traditions don’t have to be elaborate or fancy to be meaningful.

Our little Rhetty Roo turned six on Saturday morning and surprised all of us by selecting bowling for his birthday activity.

Has he ever bowled before? Unclear… but we don’t think so and he certainly could not remember ever bowling before. But my goodness bowling was what he wanted to do on his special day so bowling was what we did! And we had so much fun doing it!

We arrived at our local bowling alley in the late morning and the boys were so into it. And hallelujah they didn’t seem to care where they fell in the rankings because I could’ve easily seen bowling morphing into a disaster if they got too into beating each others’ scores. They thankfully cared more about strategizing and came up with a system that seemed to work well: First, they’d chuck a heavy ball down the lane to knock down as many pins as possible. Then they would follow it up with a lighter ball they could more easily manage to target their remaining pins. Each kid got at least one strike and/or spare (with bumpers!) which sealed the deal in making bowling a blast in their eyes.

After bowling we hit up the arcade and played our hearts out until I hit a wall and could not get out of that place fast enough. I said to Ryan that arcades for me are like Target for him: It’s all fun and games until something clicks inside of me and it’s time to go… NOW. Get me back out into the sunlight STAT.

After the arcade, we made our way back home where Rhett declared he wanted to spend the rest of the day swimming in the lake and playing backyard soccer. Chase gave Rhett goalie gloves for his birthday because somehow the tiniest member of our dude crew is the one who loves playing goalie. The kid is fearless out there and my mama heart is selfishly kinda hoping goalie isn’t Rhett’s favorite position for life because can you imagine the anxiety!? During every single World Cup game I felt so stressed out for the goalies and I cannot even imagine how their parents felt watching them play. Heart rate = 200 bpm, surely.

We rounded out Rhett’s birthday with family movie night and birthday cake!

Rhett wanted to watch a few episodes of Grizzly and the Lemmings, his all-time favorite Netflix cartoon, and then we watched the finale of our latest Survivor season together.

Over the summer we got so into watching old seasons of Survivor as a family and it’s been so, so fun! Discussing the players and their strategies and watching the challenges brings me right back to the early 2000s when I loved the show as a teen. I should mention that there are some episodes that make me and Ryan cringe — some language and adult-ish stuff — but they’ve also led to some really great conversations about honesty, treating others with respect, etc. Plus it’s awesome for family movie nights to now incorporate shows we, as adults, enjoy a little more.

Sunday

Sunday was “activity day” in our house with soccer and piano taking over most of our day.

Somehow meet-the-team and the first soccer team scrimmages popped up on Sunday for both Chase and Ryder’s upcoming soccer seasons. This will be Chase’s first season playing a level up from recreational soccer, as he is hoping to make his middle school team next year and expressed a desire to improve and work toward this goal for the first time. He’s always loved soccer but not at the expense of giving up his weekends and free time and rec has been a great fit for him (and our family’s priorities) for years. This new program isn’t as intense as travel soccer but seems like it will be a perfect fit because it only requires one practice and one game a week but the coach is a paid coach with more experience. He’s excited and we are, too!

We had all of 10 minutes to make a beeline from Chase’s soccer scrimmage to his first piano performance. He dumped a bottle of water over his head, toweled off and changed his shirt and was good to go!

Chase played “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes and we were so proud! He was confident and composed and watching him play a song he’s worked hard to perfect brought us so much joy. It was also a lot of fun to watch the other students from his music school perform, especially a little boy I can only describe as a true piano prodigy who sang and played his heart out at the end. A mini Billy Joel in the making!

After Chase’s piano performance, we headed home and I tackled some household chores while Rhett began working on the birthday Lego kit he got from my parents. Ryan, Chase and Ryder headed back out about 30 minutes later for Ryder’s soccer session. (Chase went along to play soccer on the sidelines with Ryan.) By the time everyone was back home, it was time for showers, jammies and early bed times.

Bed time stories take place with our foster kittens these days as we have a new duo we’re caring for and loving in our home right now. (Maple and Waffles were adopted and we are so thrilled for them! Who would’ve thought a trip to the pet store for crickets would’ve unlocked a journey into fostering kittens?!)

Now I’d like you all to meet Kiwi!

And Nugget!

Kiwi is the sweetest little guy with the loudest, deepest purr you’ve ever heard. He starts purring the minute he sees us and is a curious little love machine. He loves chin scratches and being held. Nugget is Kiwi’s more adventurous brother with a sassy side that makes all of us laugh. He loves a good sneaky pounce and will even try to crawl up my leg if I’m wearing pants when I am getting his canned kitten food ready.

Like we did with Maple and Waffles, we’re keeping this duo separate from Comet. We actually introduced them last week and it went mostly well as the kittens were curious about Comet and Comet’s tail was wagging at warp-speed… however when the kittens started running, I was so glad I had Comet on a leash because he’s huge and bouncy and came close to (very accidentally!) hurting one of the little kittens just because of his size, massive paws and puppy energy. Comet has zero aggression in him and played perfectly with 7-pound Pepper but after Pepper’s horrible attack, I am admittedly really, really spooked by anything that could result in an animal getting hurt or injured (or worse), even by accident, so fostering is working well for our family right now, as we’re able to keep the kittens safe away from Comet in our guest room. If Nugget or Kiwi seem like they might be a good fit for your family, I’d love to help fasciliate an adoption for you, as they’re the cutest little guys deserving of so much love!

As for the week ahead, fall activities are in full swing now so our calendar is filling up. I’m currently blogging from my favorite coffee shop and plan to work here for a few more hours before sneaking in a quick workout, picking up the boys and heading off to Ryder’s soccer practice tonight. I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead!