Jareth's 10th Party

I realize that I have been very lax in posting about my children's birthdays. And for a family that does incredibly random themes, I feel this is a major failure for me. With all the trouble that I have with finding things to fulfill themes my kids pick, I think I really need to share the ideas I come up with for these themes for others to use. I'll try to do better in the future.

This year my son decided he wanted to do a birthday centered around Miyazaki, the Japanese film maker that our family absolutely adores. So here is what we were able to come up for the party.

First off, my sister-in-law saved me by agreeing to do a cake at the last minute because I completely blanked on the that front as I got caught up in the fiasco that was the invites.
Cakes De La Vega came through for us and made an absolutely amazing strawberry cake that my son just loved!

In case you do not know, this is Calcifer from Howl's Moving Castle. It became a funny joke that Vega saved my bacon from burning.

For a game we played "Pin the face on NoFace." Unfortunately my son thinking rationally and used a trick to figure out where to put the face on the black figure, so he won darn near right off the bat. But still, it was fun and the kids were able to take the masks with them after it was over.

If you do not know, NoFace is from Spirited Away.

The goody bags were the easiest to manage as we simply put things that we enjoy in them. Including a pair of chopsticks, some pocky, Swedish fish, bookmarks, and glowstick bracelets. The bookmarks I made from red cardstock to look like the bath tokens from Spirited Away. I love them. I am keeping a few for myself!

This party was so much fun! Even though nearly none of the guests knew anything about the films we took our inspiration from, they enjoyed the things we did and had. And once more my son was thrilled with the whole thing. And after all, that is what matters to me most!

An Epic Nerf Battle!

On Saturday March 12th, we got the awesome opportunity to participate in one amazing event!

Jared Guynes is a resident of North Texas who saw the damage done in December 2015 to the Garland and Rowlett neighborhoods by a particularly bad tornado and decided to help out where he could. He had been trying to get together enough people for a couple years to break a world record and then he thought, why not do this record thing and help my friends and family with their problem at the same time. So he worked tirelessly for months, pulled in all the right people, and organized the World's Largest Nerf Gun Battle.

Hosted at the Dallas Cowboy's AT&T Stadium in Arlington, the event was attended by over two thousand people. Let me give you the numbers right quick:

Verified Participants in the Battle: 2,289

Verified Guns Used in the Battle: 4,394

Guns Donated to local Children's Shelter: 112

Donations to Tornado Relief Funds: *Yet to be completely counted*

This was a huge event in so many ways! 

My friends and I saw the event and thought, this is awesome, we want our kids to have a chance to break a world record. We did not expect this. Not only did we break a record that is going to be really hard to beat again, we made an impact. Thousands of dollars are going to go to helping people rebuild their lives. Over a hundred guns went to kids that probably don't have much to their name. We made some awesome new friends. And it has inspired us to get together our own group for a Nerf Club so that we can continue meeting up and having battles. Plus, I went to an even with way too many people, got down on the turf amidst these strangers, and so did not have a single panic attack as my son continually got lost in the crowd, so there's my personal win!

A huge shout out to Jared for doing this. For the people getting the donations. For the families that got to experience it. For everything!

Here are my pictures of the event. Although I am sad to say my phone died early on and I didn't get as much as I wanted. But here is the Facebook Page of the group if you want to check out other's pictures of the event. 

I will also be posting a separate post when we get Jareth his Guinness World Record certificate. So check back for that!

 Pre-Game Carb Loading at CiCi's!

A Little Target Practice!

People Getting Ready for the Battle in the Parking Lot.

AT&T Stadium!

 Loki Made An Appearance! 

Getting Geared Up!

 A YouTube-r There for the Event. This is Kolton.

Obstacle Set-up on the Field!

T-Rex showed up!

 So. Many. People!

Making Our Way Down To The Field.

Waiting for the start of the Main Battle.

This was part of the group picture that you can't see us in.

The Guinness World Record Official!

After the Main Battle. So many bullets!

Kid's Only Battle.

There were more battles. The Rival Only. The Elite (Or traditional guns) Only. The Jolt (Single shooters) Only. Someone from our group participated in each one, and actually I think Jenn was in all of them! 

At 10 we started to pack up our guns and get out of there. And it wasn't until the next day that I saw the announcement. We broke the current record! We will get our official certificate soon, one with Jareth's name on it so he can hang it on the wall to show off. We did this! And it was one of the greatest things we have done. Now I just have to find something similar for Livia to participate since we elected to have her stay with Gamaw for the night. If you hear of another record to be broken, let us know!

Why I Am Letting My 7 yr old On Facebook

My son says some pretty crazy things. A lot of my own Facebook posts are his quotes, our conversations, or descriptions of his latest ideas and adventures. Many times I have been told to make a group for everyone to read and share their own stories of my son's antics. But I am a writer with two blogs and my own Facebook page, keeping up with yet another page was not going to make the project fun for me. Then I realized, my son is seven years old! Perfectly capable of writing his own updates and sharing his favorite YouTube videos with family he doesn't see often enough. So why couldn't he have his own Facebook page to update as he wanted and see what those family members posted in return. Facebook has serious privacy settings for a reason, although no one uses them these days, and they make it pretty hard for outsiders to see a person's content (yes I have tried to stalk people and run into those said walls). And right now my son is used to my constant monitoring, hovering over his shoulder as he plays Wild Krats games on my laptop. Until he is much older he won't know the privacy of his own computer, and right now he doesn't contest that rule. So why wait until he is thirteen, stubborn, wanting to post what is cool, avoiding his parents, and most likely to get into trouble. No. Instead I will give him an account that only I know the password to. Warn him that everyone in the family can see whatever he says. And get him used to behaving appropriately on the internet which so many young people abuse these days.

And why is this concept such a bad thing? What happened to expecting more from our children and teaching them responsibility and consequence? My son will one day be a contributing member of society, I think now is an excellent time to begin instilling in him the morals and values to make him someone I will be proud of.

So I am stepping out of society's comfort zone to try to help the next generation. If I am wrong, expect a letter of apology on here in ten years. But then I don't see others apologizing for some of the teens I see these days. Parenting is a trial and error experiment with much higher stakes than some would like to admit. I am hoping to change the world through my kids. Just wish me luck.

My Son

I would like you to know a little about each of my kids. Naturally I will start with my son.

Jareth was a complete surprise to us. I had just turned 19 when I discovered I was 9 weeks pregnant. My boyfriend (now husband) could not have been more excited, but I will admit that I was less than pleased. When I first found out that I was in fact pregnant I slumped into one of my regular depressions. Laying in bed, not eating, nearly comatose, except for having to go to work every day which I could not back out of. I lost 15 pounds in that first week.

Then I went in to find out how far along I was and figure out doctor's visits and health care. I got to see my little "bean" on the screen above me and suddenly I was in love. The mother part of me, the one that had been there all along just waiting for an excuse to really shine, came out full force. I got excited!

On December 20th I hastily wrote out essays for final exams, laid down in the back seat of my mother's car, and headed home from Indiana, back to Texas to have the baby with family and friends. The plan was always to get through a semester with help and then go back to school in IN where my friends were all eagerly awaiting to help with the little person they watched grow on the sono pictures. That never happened, but I have remained friends with a lot of them and they have followed Jareth's life on Facebook as if they were a part of it.

On January 1st I woke up at 3 AM from Braxston-Hicks contractions, and being a first-time, young mother I woke my boyfriend and stepmother with the belief that it was time. After we walked the hospital three times and they realized I was just dehydrated, they sent us home. I was woken up from a nap with severe back pain that I tried to ignore. "G, either this is it or something is wrong." I told him and my father rushed us to the hospital to meet up with my stepmother who had just got off work.

Finally! At 11:30 that night, with a room full of people waiting for him, Jareth decided to go ahead and make an appearance. He had the cord wrapped around his neck, however, and was not breathing. G and I locked eyes and waited to hear something from the group of nurses huddled around our little boy. Finally, a little whimper made its way to our ears.
I will never forget the extreme feeling of calm that I felt as I waited for that sound. Blame it on the drugs if you want, but I felt my god and goddess there by my side, reassuring me that everything was going to be fine. And it was.

We got to hold him for all of two minutes before they took him to the NICU for the night. Where he defied every nurse by rolling onto his stomach in a stubborn insistence to sleep face down. They even brought G in to see it while I slept, showing him how special his son already was.

Well, Jareth never slept on his back, no matter how many times we turned him over. He was always very quiet, often playing in his crib for lengths of time until someone went to see if he was awake yet. He takes his time in figuring things out. He has always listened, picking up words and meaning long before most people think he should. I sometimes believe he has better grammar than most adults I know. We have always treated him like an adult, never lying to him when he asks a question.

Jareth is an old soul, I saw it the moment I held him in my arms and looked into those beautiful blue eyes. Eyes that now range from blue with flecks of brown to green depending on his mood. And he continues to amaze me and make my heart smile.

I always say that Jareth was never a mistake. He was a choice, we choose to keep him. It took us 3 years to get pregnant with our next one once we finally decided to try to have another baby. And I did the math, G and I were together for 3 years when we got pregnant with Jareth. So it was the same amount of time, we just didn't know we were trying yet. But the gods did. And I thank them everyday for that.