Peter is 7!!

It's hard to believe this handsome little man is already 7 years old! It seems like we just celebrated his last birthday. Peter had very specific ideas about how he wanted to celebrate this year. He requested I bring in cookies to school - which was so much fun. I love seeing how he interacts with his classmates and teacher. I had multiple kids come and tell me "Peter is a Lego Monster!!" Don't we know it.

Benji is always so happy to go to Peter's school - he wants to be big so badly.

Peter with Mrs. Hughes. Of course, she had nothing but good things to say about Peter, complimenting him on his reading and math skills (but maybe she has to say that!). The smarty pants kid actually blew threw an entire years worth of sight words in the first 4 months of school, so she told me she's having him read chapter books and taking little reading tests on those while the rest of the class works on phonics. That doesn't surprise me, he's such a little bookworm.  I'm so proud of him. 

 Since his birthday was on a Sunday this year, Peter decided he would like to go to the Natural History Museum in LA the day before. He loves the dinosaurs and especially the rocks and minerals exhibits. 

 Building a willow branch house at the museum.

Checking out the 'tick tock croc' as Benji called it.

And running scared from the giant polar bear.

 For dinner, we stopped at The Boiling Crab (yum!) in Korea town and took this family selfie while we were waiting for a table. I suppose a family of 5 doesn't really fit in a photo frame too well -- you can just barely see Nora's blurry hair on the side.

Travis found this really cool snap circuits set for Peter and he loves it. You can make a propeller fly or turn on a light or music or set off an alarm by rearranging the little circuits. Peter thinks it is the coolest.

Then for dinner on his actual birthday Peter requested: 

popcorn shrimp, cooked spinach (he eats it with vinegar), mashed potatoes and gravy, and eclair cake for dessert. Talk about your carb overload! Our friends the Dunns came to join us for cake and dinner and we had a fantastic night together! 

Happy Birthday Peter. You make us all so happy.

Devil's Punchbowl

While Travis was still off after Christmas we made the trek out to the Devil's Punchbowl area for a bit of hiking. I didn't get any pictures, but they had this great visitors center with live snakes (ugh), scorpions, and other native animals. The boys thought it was especially cool when the park ranger showed them his rock collection and how a scorpion glows when you shine a black light on them. 

 Once again Benji had us in stitches on this hike. He kept saying things like "I'm a billy goat!" or "I don't to hold your hand, I'll do the bum slide." Which is exactly what it sounds like -- sliding down on your bum on the steep parts. Mostly we just heard him say over and over "I got it. I got it!" like he was a total pro at this already.

Peter is such a little adventurer. Look at that concentration!

Why hello there, handsome.

 Once again, Nora just chilled out in the backpack.

 Don't let our t-shirts fool you, the boys found ice in this little creek and spent ages throwing chuncks of it around. See? It really does get cold in CA!

 These next couple pictures crack me up. Peter and Benji were just hanging out on this little shelf on the way back up and then they noticed the rock climbers behind them and got all excited. They kept calling out encouragements to the climbers. It was pretty funny.