A Birthday and a Head Wound

Today the most independent child in the whole wide world turned 3. It was a bit anticlimactic since we celebrated 3 weeks ago. Really, Landon was quite confused every time someone told him happy birthday since he's been calling himself "bigger enough" since his party. 

Isn't he cute?

After lunch the kids were playing in the back yard and Grady came running into the house yelling and motioning that Landon hit his head and it was cut open down his whole entire face. Needless to say, I ran out back right away, only to find my sweet little birthday boy running toward me with blood pouring from his head and down his face. One good look at the super deep gash in his forehead and he was off to the emergency room with his dad. Four stitches later, he looks like this....

Even though stitches aren't a good thing, after seeing the rock that he fell on (over the fence in the neighbor's yard where he isn't supposed to play), we are SO thankful that it wasn't worse. And if you ask Landon, it isn't bad at all. He stopped crying before he even got to the hospital and since he got frozen yogurt afterward, he is just fine. Really, he hasn't slowed down at all. He's still climbing and jumping and being his typical daredevil self. Oy!

Will someone please tell me that this isn't a foreshadowing of the year to come!!!

Celebrating Dylan

Once upon a time, my super hard working husband was reading Joy the Baker's blog about a trip she took to Maine and a lobster boil she had on the beach. (Yes, my husband reads Joy the Baker, and no, Joy the Baker is not my sister Joy). Since his birthday was coming up in just a few days, and the superhero party that I was planning for him and Grady and Landon to share didn't really seem to excite him much, he decided that he should throw himself a party on the beach, complete with a lobster boil.

Well, we don't live in Maine, near a beach, or have any clue how to do a lobster boil, but since you only turn 33 once, Dylan called up the family and invited them along anyway (we had to keep the guest list small because, um, lobsters aren't cheap... and by small, I mean that we invited our 26 immediate family members).

After a trip to Ranch 99, the Asain supermarket that sells live lobsters, we headed 2 hours away on windy, bumpy roads, through super thick fog and arrived at the McClures beach parking lot. At some point along the drive as we were receiving not-super-excited text messages from our fellow travelers, ie."dude. are you serious?" Dylan realized that he may be just a little bit like his father in thinking that this whole trip was perfectly reasonable. And then, once we made it to the parking lot, we had to trek down a mountain sherpa-style with our arms and backs loaded down with kids, firewood, buckets, pots, blankets, extra clothes and some back-up food in case the boil didn't work out. But, in the famous words of the middle-aged lady we met last time we went to this beach, YOLO.

Well, Joy the Baker and the rest of you will be happy to hear that it all worked out just fine. No one caught hypothermia, no one got sick from eating food cooked in ocean water, only one of the kids almost died, and after we all hiked back up the mountain and drove 2 hours home in the pitch dark, people said it was the best birthday party they'd ever been to. Success all around!

In case you're ever wondering how to have a lobster boil, here's what you've gotta do:

1. Get a big galvanized party bucket and fill it half way with ocean water. Cover with foil. Place on a raging fire.

~let the kids explore, get drenched, cliff jump because it's gonna be a while before dinner is ready~

2. Let the water come to a boil and then boil for 10 minutes just to be sure to kill any bacteria or funky stuff that may be in the ocean water.

3. Throw in some halved onions, heads of garlic, and little potatoes.

4. 10 minutes later, add your live lobsters.

5. 3 minutes later, add some ears of corn.

6. 5 minutes later, pull it all out and help yourself to an amazing feast!

(yes, those are hot dogs in the foreground. they were the back-up plan and a bit more popular than lobsters with the kids)

 

You should totally do it some time.