Brock 8 it

 

Our son is a giant 8 year old third grader! Summer parties are the BEST.

This year's theme was the first annual water balloon Olympics, which coincided perfectly with the real ones! But a little less COVIDy but certainly just as news worthy. We had five events, all with water balloons as the focus including: a distance based toss, a carry behind the back run, a drop from the 4th floor into a colander hat, an all out melee, and, finally, a "who can pick up the most water balloon bits" weigh in. And yes, that is a very big unicorn.

And the final scores are in! LUCA! But fun was won by all.

Squids, which are sort of related to water was the animal mascot. Above is my beautiful looking, but perhaps emotionally,  and definitely physically, unstable pinata.

Here is his birthday crew: Miles, Luca, Mackai, Professor Birthday Boy, Theodor and Rex.

  The last time I made a pinata it was way too strong, but I must have either over compensated or Brock got strong and started playing baseball cuz it didn't last.

Upon Brock's request I made pies this year instead of cake and they looked great with a giant squid sinking a ship in short crust. I thought for sure I took pictures, but I can't find them. But, none of the kids liked pie! So that was sad, but luckily there was ice cream for them and parents to eat the pie.

Miles, Brock's good friend, has a little brother named George who is the same age and friends with Alice. This family is so sweet and got Alice a little birthday gift when they came over for Brock's. Here she is with a puppy just like George's that she had been admiring. 

Miles gift to Brock: A gravitrax!!! WOW!!!!!!

More presents from afar! This one I think is from the J's and N of California.

 

 ...which was, a kids baking cookbook, that he has been wanting for a while. And an adorable rolly polly finger puppet!! And a paper making kit which I know will be a crafting hit when stuff slows down.

 

 

 He has since been baking often and has perfected jam-print cookies that he does almost entirely on his own, and also key lime bars.  

 

Thank you uncle's and aunts and cousins!

Speaking of which, not shown here was the gift from the Knights with was a MUCH needed new baseball backpack. We will see that featured in our spring edition when baseball resumes!

 

He also got from us a 1000 piece puzzle,  which was great fun with the grandma donut throughout her stay. Here is the final result. Missing one piece! And we never found it. AND, we just completed another puzzle with the same problem! Brock thinks it is a puzzle scam to save money on printing. Apparently that one piece was hurting their bottom-line.

Matt and I got him a whittling knife and some knife stuff.

 

 

He doesn't have any idea what it is yet. 

 

 

But he figured it out! Here he is Castle of Grayskull style showing off its power (obscure He Man reference). 

These pictures were even taken around his birthday. I added them as fabulous visual representation of my wonderful son's playful and imaginative personality. He is a blast and I couldn't ask for more amazing spawnage!