Birthday weekend!

Happy birthday, Auntie Pam!

The Ives family's hot streak of summer/early autumn birthdays rolls on this week with Auntie Pam's 27th birthday today. Grampie and Grammie came in from Iowa City to join the party (remember, it was Grammie's birthday just six days ago). Highlights included lots of time to visit and play, two trips to the fire station, where we saw the brand new ambulance (just three days old and fresh with that new ambulance smell), and a special birthday dinner out last night.

We went to a local Italian place which has a gluten free menu, so Owen had a great time.

Maya, meanwhile, finished eating early and then provided the entertainment by playing peek-a-boo with her grampie.

The new ambulance at the fire station was very inspiring to Owen. He decided he wanted some flashing lights for his bicycle, so we outfitted the handlebar with a flashing bike tail light he can turn on and off.

While it was unseasonably cool this weekend, each bike ride was followed by a cool down period featuring Popsicles.

(A shout out to Nana and Grandpa here. Doesn't the above picture remind you of the picture of Daniel with his ice cream cone out in California when he was a little boy?)

Today was a little more about work. I got Maya down for a nap around 12:30. When I walked out of the room, Amy and Owen were going into his room with a stack of books and the hopes Owen would have an afternoon snooze. I hadn't finished lunch, so I went downstairs. About 10 minutes later I heard some footsteps going across Owen's floor. I peeked upstairs, hoping to catch Amy as she left the room, but what I saw was Owen sneaking out the door and closing it behind him, so as not to awaken his sleeping mother.

Affirming he was not tired, I asked him if he wanted to A) go to the pool or B) paint the fence. He chose the latter. So Owen and I went outside and got a lot of work done. It was a wonderful afternoon. Two hours of talking and painting on a perfect end-of-summer day.


The ladies got into the action when they got up. While I kept painting, Amy had Owen and Maya help her in the garden. Maya threw herself into the work, climbing into the potato barrel.



And one final first. We grilled hamburgers for dinner tonight and threw in a special treat, a fresh gluten free hamburger bun for Owen. Believe it or not, this is the first time he's ever eaten a hamburger as a sandwich.


Pretty cool. And very tasty ...