Kyle's birthday party!

Because we were traveling for Kyle's birthday Kyle had to wait a little bit longer for his party. After a little confusion over why his party wasn't the same as his birthday and then a little more confusion about why he didn't turn 5 at his party if he already turned 4 on his birthday he had a very successful party! He had chosen a construction theme which meant my ordering decorations online as it is not easy to find construction themed birthday items here in Italy. We added to the decorations by going to our "home hardware" store and bought lengths of red and white chains and a whole roll of construction safety tape! We blew up more balloons than we knew what to do with and then ran out of time to hang them! And after all the worries of it being a summer birthday almost everyone invited attended! We had 28 people (13 kids) for our family style construction party! We had friends from our moms group and even a couple from Brian's work.

The kids enjoyed building "something". I'm not quite sure what it is. One of the dads supervised the hot glue gun while the kids created with boxes (mostly cereal type). They certainly had fun with it! Now we have "something" out on our terrace and I'm not sure when Kyle will let it go to a "new home". They also enjoyed creating their own tool belts with canvas aprons and fabric paints. We had a lunchtime BBQ with burgers and hot dogs for everyone. Then there was the mandatory cake and ice cream and the gifts. For those who wanted to stay around even longer we opened up the pool and also built boats out of milk cartons (gotta love Family Fun magazine!).

The boats turned out to be a great hit - especially with a few of the dads! Of course the egos came out and the competition got serious - dual propelled boats were hitting the waves! Although a couple of the kids really liked the boats I think they enjoyed the pool more!

People must have enjoyed themselves because we still had several families here at 5pm (5.5 hours after the start of the party!) and the last family didn't leave until 7:30pm! We certainly enjoyed hosting a great day!

Kyle had his day figured out, "Mom, when can I open my presents?" "After we build and do aprons." As we're building and making aprons, "Mom can I open my presents now?" "No Kyle, after we eat." "Mom can we eat right now?" etc etc. Then after he opened his gifts of course he wanted to get into all the millions of pieces of Duplo mini, Lincoln Logs and Playmobil. We told him that he could after everyone left we would take everything inside and he could open the boxes. He promptly went around and asked everyone if they were leaving and told them that it was OK if they left now!!

Kyle asked for a construction cake. Hmmm, I really wasn't sure what to do so over the last few weeks anything I saw that might help me with the cake I bought! What ended up being used were a couple of Matchbox vehicles and some signs that were actually part of a Donald Duck cake topping set that I found in an Italian party store.

Catching up and Aunt Laverna and Uncle Mark

OK, there is no guarantee that my next few posts will be in any sort of chronological order! We've had such a great summer and every time we do another "great" thing I've been thinking to myself. "Oh, I can't wait to get this up on the blog to share with everyone" LOL And the end result is that I haven't posted since the beginning of July! So now I'll try to steal a few moments and catch up a little bit!

One of the hightlights of our summer was a very brief, but very fun, one day visit with Aunt Laverna (AKA Auntie Berna) and Uncle Mark (AKA Uncle Mork). They had a one day stop in Naples on the cruise they were taking for their anniversary. We were thrilled at the opportunity to meet up with them and share a little bi of Naples with them. I think Aunt Laverna would have been just as thrilled to sit in the shade somewhere and dote over her great niece and nephew!

We took them up to Sant Elmo's Castle that overlooks Naples and the surrounding areas all the way past Vesuvius and Sorrento and the Gulf of Naples. The views were incredible and of course, Kyle was thrilled with the ride up the vernacular and the outdoor escalator! We then went to Brandy's, a famous pizzeria in the heart of Naples (couldn't let them come to Naples and not experience pizza!) and then we walked around the city a bit before taking them back to their ship. Of course we had to make the mandatory stop for gelato. It really was a great day and I think we all treasured the time we had together. And even I was shocked at just how difficult of a time Kyle had with the good byes.