Tucker's birthday party- Epiphany

Our little man Tuck Tuck turns five this week!  It's been SUCH a JOY to raise my precious wittle man.  I cannot believe he is going to keep growing and not stay little like I like him.  :)  At Tucker's suggestion we had a "We Three Kings" party for his birthday since his birthday is the Feast of Epiphany this year.  He helped me make the cake (it was supposed to look a bit like a crown for a king) and we made star cookies.  We bought sugar pecan crescent cookies for "moons" to go with our stars.

This was strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting.  :)

We found the "star" lights in the Happy New Year section.  :)

He really wanted to put his "Five" candle on by himself-

Where the grown ups ate dinner.  :)  The ten children ate in the kitchen.

 We dressed Tucker and his two buddies at the 3 wise men and let them come see Herod (Marky) and then go to baby Jesus.  Another friend carried the "Star of Bethlehem" for them to follow.  It was adorable.   I give you- Caspar, Melchoir and Balthazar.

Then we went to the foyer and did that traditional "epiphany" house blessing with blessed chalk.

Daddy led the ceremony and wrote above the door-

 Bless, + O Lord God almighty, this home, that in it there may be health, purity, the strength of victory, humility, goodness and mercy, the fulfillment of Thy law, the thanksgiving to God the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. And may this blessing remain upon this home and upon all who dwell herein. Through Christ our Lord.

You write 20 + C + M + B + 14, the initials of the three wise men inside the year.  It should remind you that like the wise men we should be willing to leave all for Jesus.  Also- CMB stands for the Latin phrase "Christus mansionem benedicat", which means "Christ bless this house."

Then we went into the music room and sang "We Three Kings", "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World" by the piano.

Then it was time to sing Happy Birthday and cut the cake!

Here he is opening his presents.  We are going to BB's tomorrow and he will get more presents from our family party, but I wanted to give him his two "astronomy" gifts tonight since they go with the "wise men" theme.  He thinks all he got from us for his birthday is a space book and flash cards and he is happy as a clam.  He says "my wish came true!"  :)  Right before I turned the camera on I handed him the gifts and he said, "wow- these symbols look like hieroglyphics."  I didn't even know he knew that word.  My little mad scientist- how we love you!

My amazing Sister-in-Law!

Learning

This week the older children went to two science labs at the science center.  I can honestly say that they were very educational (as opposed to other classes they've had.)  :)  The first one Marc went to he learned all about the Arctic and Antarctic areas and even made a chart of their similarities and differences.  Julia learned all about bubbles and surface tension.  

Today they went and Marky did robotics!  He LOVED it!  I walked by and the instructor let me come in and take a quick pic as he worked with his group.  First they did Lego WeDo with a video instructor on their personal laptops, and then they moved into the Lego Mindstorm, which is building your own robot.  He said it took an hour and a half to get the Mindstorm ready.  They had to take measurements of a floor maze and program their robot to follow along.  Marc's team is one of only two teams in the class that were able to complete the task.  They had children in grades 4-6.  

Julia today learned all about flight, including flying machines and flying animals.  

Tonight when we got home it was freeeeeeezing outside.  So Daddy made a fire and we read several Christmas books and had hot chocolate!  I just listened to this talk on the importance to reading out loud to children.  There is a false thinking that great readers make great writers, but it isn't necessarily true.  Great readers- readers that read very fast and efficiently- are not saying every single word in their head as they read.  They are flying through the page and even skipping unessential info.  They aren't "hearing" fully the language in the book.  You hear language with your ears- not your eyes.  You will write the way you speak- and you speak the way people speak around you.  So the moral of the story is- and I had forgotten this- is KEEP reading out loud to children even after they can read to themselves.

And earlier last month Julia asked me if she could borrow a piece of poster board.  She went to her room and came out later with this.  Sweet Sissybug- how we love you!

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve friends had us over.  The children had pizza and then watched a movie and played while we grown ups had a steak dinner.  :)  We had a great time.