Birthday Parties Archives

April 28, 2016

Finn’s First Birthday

I had to get back to the Sunshine State in time for Grandson Finn’s first birthday party on April 24. Adam and Carly put together a super pool-oriented party that kept the kids maximally occupied and minimally melted down.

Finn took awhile to get the idea of what to do with his cake, but it didn’t take long before he was covered from head to toe with what looked like cake measles.

Herding cats

Son Adam is trying to direct the scene, but Elliot, 3, left, and Graham, 5, right, weren’t getting with the program.

Can you blame them?

I’d be scared of facing this crowd myself.

That, like so many things, reminds me of a story. During the Watergate hearings, Sen. Walter Mondale walked down the Capitol steps to be confronted with a media scrum waiting for a witness to come out.

“Hey, guys, what do I have to do to get this much attention?” he joked.

“Easy,” a photographer said, “Just screw up one time.”

These folks are all wet

Here’s a gallery of photos that could be filed under “chaos” in the dictionary. Another parent and I were noting how young kids in Florida learn to swim. Graham and Elliot are strong swimmers for their age, and Finn will get drownproofing lessons soon.

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the images.

February 8, 2015

Birthdays 2 and 4

In another of an infrequent series of posts about how living in Florida in the wintertime isn’t bad, I invite you to a birthday party for Son Adam and Wife Carly’s boys this weekend. Both of them have birthdays in February – Graham is 4 and Elliot is 2 – so they have a combined party for now.

Back up to September: Wife Lila’s niece, Laurie Everett of Annie Laurie’s Antique Shop fame, had a toy tractor that had come in from an estate sale. Lila said I should pick it up for the boys and haul it 1100 miles back to West Palm Beach.

Tractor made it to Florida

We decided that Christmas had so much going on that we’d hold the tractor until Birthday Season. It was well received.

Is this a good idea?

Graham was all about the bounce house, but he wasn’t convinced that going down the slide was a good idea. I remember that feeling the first time I climbed onto the high dive at the Capaha Park Pool.

Dad comes to the rescue

Dad Adam was a little more sympathetic than the pool lifeguard who growled, “Kid, those are one-way steps. There’s only one way back, and that’s off the end of the board.”

Graham remained unconvinced. He’s going to be the conservative kid in the family. I remember him complaining at last year’s party “That music is too loud.”

I’m alive to see 5

THERE’S a kid who is limp with relief that the experience is over and there’s a chance he’ll be alive to see his fifth birthday.

Here’s trouble

Elliot is going to be the one who, like his dad, will try anything at least once. As soon as he figured out how to climb up to the top of the slide, he was beating feet to do it again and again.

A gift of love

Lila is a quilter. Not one of those machine quilters, but an real old-time hand quilter. She made a snowman quilt for Matt and Sarah’s Malcolm, and a similar one for Graham.

She presented Elliot’s to him today. When you are two, it’s probably not as cool as a tractor, but he’ll appreciate it over the years.

Graham and Elliot are expecting a brother to come along in a couple of months, so Lila better get busy.

Graham with his quilt

Graham knew right where to find his quilt in his bedroom. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

August 3, 2014August 2, 2021

Neighbor Rhonda Turns 50

When we moved into our house on Kingsway Drive 58 years ago, Bob and Mary Tinker lived across the street; the Grays lived next to them, the McCunes lived in a small cottage down the hill, and the Hales and Heislers in their farm houses finished off the neighborhood. We were way outside the city limits and cows grazed in the field behind our house.

That’s Mrs. Tinker in front of her house.

Boltons came Memorial Day 1994

Bill and Rhonda Bolton moved into the house on Memorial Day, 1994. Even though they’ve been living there 20 years and have been the best neighbors you could want, we all still call it the “Tinker House.”

They keep an eye on Mother for us. When Brother Mark kept getting a busy signal on her phone one night, he called me and I reached out for the Boltons and Carla Jordan, who lives over by Food Giant. It turned out to be a false alarm: Mother had failed to hang up the phone properly and that’s why it rang busy.

When Mother’s mower stopped while she was massacring grass the other day, Bill came over to help her push it away from the street. It’s nice to know you have friends and neighbors who will come running if you need them.

Come over for Rhonda’s party

Bill stopped by Friday to invite Mother to Rhonda’s 50th birthday party on Saturday. I’m not sure if he used the phrase, “if you can make it up the hill,” but that would have insured that she would attend.

“A good time was had by all”

That’s a line that one of The Missourian’s country correspondents would tack on to any story involving more than two people, even if it was a funeral. In this case, it was true. There was a nice mix of family, friends and neighbors, good food and even a photo booth.

Birthday party photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the images.

February 14, 2014

World’s Oldest 3-Year-Old

Last weekend I went to a joint birthday party for Grandsons Elliot (who was 1) and Graham, who turned 3 on Valentine’s Day.

Civilized cake

You saw the photos of Elliot eating his cake last week. It’s pretty obvious why he got his own cake and the rest of us got pieces of this one.

Video of a boy old beyond his years

Much to Grandson Malcolm’s annoyance, I’ve always quizzed the youngsters about things that might be in their food. (He was taught at an early age to intone, “Bluuuuuuberries cause efluuuuvia.)

In this video, Graham in response to my questioning, assures me that his cake doesn’t contain rhinoceros tails, crocodile noses or hippopotamus hides. Beating me to my next offering, he says, “No alligators, just cake.”

Then, he cracks me up by holding a hand to his ear, making a face and solemnly saying “That music is too loud.”

I thought he had turned into Instant Old Man, but he DID let the other guests play on his lawn.

Taking little brother out for a drive

After the party broke up, Graham got his dad’s permission to take his little brother out for a drive for the first time. The kid’s a pretty good driver.

I’m going to buy him a compass for his dashboard to go along with his white belt and white shoes so he’ll fit in with the rest of Florida’s Old Man drivers.

Adam, Carly, Graham and Elliot are lucky enough to live in Loxahatchee, a rural section of Palm Beach County, on a gravel road that deadends at a canal. It’s a good place for Graham to drive if Dad or Mother is along.