All aboard the dinosaur train!

Last night's debacle notwithstanding, Andrew's birthday party went off pretty well. (And for those of you wondering--no, his birthday is not today--it's not until the 24th, but we like to give the poor kid a little distance between birthday presents and Christmas presents). As has so far proven to be my wont, I tend to plan fairly elaborately for Andrew's parties. I'm not quite sure why this is--I enjoy it (well, let's be honest: I enjoy planning it. The last minute preparations and execution can be a little stressful), but that hardly seems sufficient reason for putting so much effort into something that only lasts an hour or two. I think some of it may be me compensating--when I was younger, my mom always used to tell me what a creative mother I'd be (based on the crazy and creative games I used to coerce my siblings into playing). But most days, I don't feel particularly creative. Or fun, for that matter. So birthday parties may be my one chance to redeem my reputation. But enough about me.

Andrew's current obsession (as anyone within speaking distance of him knows) is dinosaurs. And PBS kids' new series, Dinosaur Train, is his newest favorite show. So it seemed an obvious choice to do a Dinosaur Train theme. In preparation for the big event, we even made our own dinosaur train out of boxes and posterboard. (Good thing I still had all that paint handy from painting Andrew's room this summer!)

Once the guests arrived, we took them into the kitchen where each child got to create their own dinosaur headgear. Xander (below) said that he wanted an alien dinosaur. The others were a little more traditional: triceratops and T-rexes, mostly.




After the hats were finished, the kids got to take a ride on the dinosaur train, and then learn a little bit about one of the stranger dinosaur discoveries: a therizinosaur. In the tradition of the TV show, which concludes each episode with a real palentologist--Dr. Scott, curator of the Natural History Museum at the U of U--talking about the dinosaurs that showed up in that episode--we asked Dan's dad (we'll call him "Dr. Bob") to come talk to the kids about the therizinosaur. This curious creature is (according to several books and websites I've seen) widely acknowledged to be possibly the strangest dinosaur that lived. It belongs to the therapod class, counting among its distant cousins many aggressive predators (T-rexes, raptors, etc.), but the therizinosaur evolved from a predator into a herbivore. The most recently discovered species of therizinosaur was discovered in Utah (the only one found outside of Asia), and Poppy (er, "Dr Bob") just happened to be present at the dig where it was discovered. The kids were pretty fascinated by that--Xander asked, with awe in his voice, "Are you a scientist?"

Above: listening to "Dr. Bob." Below, Dr. Bob telling the kids about the therizinosaur.

After the history lesson, the kids went on a brief "dinosaur hunt" downstairs, looking for the stuffed dinosaurs that were hidden, and some dinosaur "fossils." The fossils were duly brought upstairs and excavated (plastic models of dinosaur bones cleverly put in plaster--bought fairly inexpensively at Big Lots, of all places). Of course, the excavation took longer than we expected, and some of our fossil hunters lost interest before the first bone had even been found. We had to put them away for a rainy day, but not until after the faithful diggers had found a few bones. It was pretty fun to see how excited they got when their careful scraping and brushing revealed a "bone." I think the exercise also helped them appreciate the painstaking work of real paleontologists.

Since Laurie and Matt arrived in town late last night, we included them in the festivities. Leo and Evelyn had a good time playing with each other (read: alternately ignoring each other and then fighting over the same toy) while the big kids were otherwise occupied. Leo is just learning to walk, and is in the Frankenstein stage that Andrew was in three Christmases ago, when he terrorized all the grandchildren on my side of the family (both because of his tendency to walk with his arms out in front of him, like the Frankenstein monster, and because when he went down, he took down whatever kid was closest to him). He's pretty cute.

Finally, we opened presents, had some snacks (pigs in a blanket, fruit kebabs, oranges, and crackers and a cheese ball) and then brought out the piece-de-resistance (if taken literally, quite the piece of resistance, given that it took three tries to get the darn thing to come out of the pan the way it was supposed to): the dinosaur cake. While the cake took the better part of the morning to frost, I think it was worth it, since all the kids were thrilled to get a part of a T-rex. Dan took the kids to the grocery store to get me a frosting tip (Andrew having chewed the previous one out of shape at his last birthday, and me having forgotten to get a new one in the interim) while I mixed the frosting. Since this can be quite a process to mix 6 cups of powdered sugar, not to mention tinting it, I was still working on it when they came home, which led Andrew to remark: "Mommy, you didn't get anything done while we were gone!" Stinker.


And that pretty much concluded our dinosaur adventure. After that, the kids played while the adults talked. Although there were really only four kids Andrew's age at the party, in addition to himself, our actual guest list was more than double that, once you included parents who'd accompanied kids, grandparents, cousins, and siblings of invitees. Still, it never got too chaotic, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. My definition of a successful party.

What else have we been up to this week? Well, assiduous readers of our blog will have already seen my earlier post about Evelyn's potential potty training. And we have been trying to get her to the bathroom--she's not quite to where she identifies that she needs to go, but if we ask her, she will sometimes say yes, and she has managed to use her potty at least a few times every day this week (except for today when we were all a little preoccupied).


We've also been indulging in some dress-ups. Andrew has too, but for some reason I mostly have pictures of Evelyn.



On Tuesday, we made cupcakes for Andrew's preschool class. Afterwards, of course, we fed Evelyn and Andrew some of the leftovers. I'm not really sure how Andrew managed to get frosting in his hair, but he looks good in green, doesn't he?

Evelyn has been boning up on her animal sounds. Here's a little video of her responding to a book with baby animals.