Resident ninja and his party

 So there's this thing called Lego Ninjago... About which, up until about August, I knew absolutely nothing. Not so anymore. The boys in our neighborhood are besotted with this new movement in Lego ninja, and the monkey is very into it. For his seventh birthday, he asked if he could have a Lego Ninjago party. We have never held a proper themed birthday party before for any child, but since we now have outdoor space to host - and since we will be moving soon and will soon be apart from these friends - we decided to go for it. 7 seems like a good year for a real birthday party anyway.

I went online and found an ridiculous and frightening extensive amount of ideas and activites related to little boy ninja parties. So I lifted a few of them, and we spent a day or two preparing. Attendees were the families in our farm neighborhood, our two close neighbor friends from our old suburban neighborhood, and the monkey's good friend Josh - his closest homeschool buddy. About 20 kids, ages 1 - 10, and 11 adults, comprised the attendee population. We pre-made pizzas in the brick oven pizza yesterday and served slices as our main "appetizer" for our 3 - 4 :30 pm party (a hit).  Attire was "ninja optional."

Yesterday, when the monkey and his pals were creating ninja-themed decor, our soon-to-be 7-year old took it upon himself to write up some rules for the party. After all, "weapons" were going to be involved (darts and origami throwing stars), so protocol was necessary. The list:

Here's what we ended up with:

a) Looking the part (here the monkey is decked out alongside his close friend Josh):

b) Dart practice: throwing darts at balloons which contained pieces of candy in them

c) Crafts and names: making construction-paper ninja faces (simple, and I had pre-cut the pieces) and finding out our "ninja names" using a handy dandy short-hand code I found online

d) Throwing stars. We distributed throwing stars made out of construction paper (which I pre-made, origami-style), and we lined the kids up and had them throw them as far as they could to see whose went farthest. The monkey, happily, won two out of three.

e) Pinata: note the Ninja "star-thrower" shape...

f) Lego count. Guess how many legos are in the (Ninjago) container?

g) Ninja cupcakes!

 Of course in the midst of all that, there was also time to sit around, hang out, and eat... Photo evidence on this for the oldest and youngest party-goers.

Notes from Natural History Museum (LA)

We rounded out our October museum-going blitz with a trip to the LA Natural History Museum on Wednesday, where they were having a "homeschoolers day" with free admission and events on the topic of Bugs and Botany. While the billed events were lackluster, the museum itself was pretty cool, and we enjoyed touring it with four friend Ventura families.

Monkey petting a walking stick insect

Roo and new friend Abby in the dinosaur exhibit

Goose surveys a polar bear

Three Los Angeles museums in eight days! A new record perhaps? It was worth it - we had a good time. And made it through our 'fall break' week with gusto.

Scoping out the science center

This week is "fall break" for schools in Ventura County, so Monkey and Roo have no Tuesday/Thursday classes... Nor are we expected/required to do our normal daily schooling activities. Thus I've arranged a full week for our crew including kids' medical appointments (3 doctor, 3 dentist); museum visits (2); and gatherings with friends. And last night we got together with our neighbor/friends the Jamisons to watch the third presidential debate, so we're throwing some civics into the mix as well...!

Yesterday we hit the California Science Center, about an hour away in Los Angeles. Even though many of the concepts and exhibits were over the kids' heads, there was still a good amount to entertain and delight the crew, especially the oldest two. Few samples:
a) A little chemistry experiment--

b) The very favorite feature, Computer Center games in the learning labs:

Happily, the mouse was able to hang in there for the nearly three hours that we lasted. Overall, fun way to spend the day.

Vertebrate Zoology, round 2

On Saturday the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, right here in town, had its annual open house. Since only three of us visited this local gem in August, we decided this was the perfect opportunity to attend en masse. The taxidermy show-and-tell was a sufficient dangling carrot to get us all through the door:

Learning about ostrich eggs

The mouse - true to her 18-month-old ways- lasted approximately 33 minutes before she made polite attendance impossible, so the visit was fairly short-lived. But still entirely worthwhile!

Getty-goers

Virtually every time we have driven past the Getty Museum, shuttling a guest to/from LAX, the question as to whether we've ever visited the museum has arisen. And why shouldn't it? It's an amazing museum. But going to the Getty would entail schlepping a crew of 6-and-unders along - a feat that I'm not sure I'm ready to undertake. So to date, we have not gone.

This post helped me change my mind. Family room? Art detective cards? (I already knew about the tram). Like it. Also like the close proximity (45 minutes) and free admission - just have to pay $15 for parking. The final two things that pushed me over the edge were: 1) the kids have no T/Th "school" for 1.5 weeks, so we are in free-flow-schedule mode, and 2) we're moving sometime in the next few months, so we're nearing our last opportunity... And simultaneously, we are feeling antsy and transitional and need things to do.

We went for it.

I kept my expectations lows and anticipated staying just a couple hours and spending precious little time in the actual exhibits. On both counts, I was right on. We were there for 2 ish hours, including lunch, and we were in the exhibit rooms for probably a combined total of 13 minutes. Most of which was spent trying to teach, and re-teach, my museum-goers the appropriate distance from which to point one's finger at a component of a painting. They kept returning to 2 mm as a default (and I am not exaggerating).

But it was worth doing and (sometimes) fun. They liked it, all except Roo who was in a glowery mood and claimed not to be able to think of one part she enjoyed, and I was glad we went. It's a worth-doing LA experience, and I'm glad we did it while we were here.

The mask Roo made in the "family room"

We glommed onto a school group to learn about a sea monster sculpture

Monkey using his 'art detective card' to find a lizard

Action shot kids

Mouse is officially 18 months, as of yesterday. Loves to climb!

Goose loves her hair in a ponytail (and happily has a much tougher head than Roo's)

This new dress of Roo's is her favorite - would wear it daily if she could

Playing guns with his buddies on the play structure. Turning EVERYTHING into a gun these days!

Solvang stint

We spent Columbus Day in Solvang - a dutch themed town north of Santa Barbara, in wine country. The last time we went was with Nona and Grandpa in early 2010, so suffice it to say that for the kids, it was more or less like visiting for the first time. It actually feels a bit like fall up there, which thrilled us. We ate Scandinavian pastries, visited a miniature horse farm, picked apples, and picked up burritos for lunch - which we ate a local playground. All around a lovely family day.

Poor Mouse was plumb tuckered out by the time we left four hours later!

(And we all just had a second day's worth of apple crisp for dessert.)

Matchbox tying

What, you haven't heard of this? It's all the rage among 6-year old boys, I hear... Tying matchbox cars onto pieces of furniture with ribbon. No shortage of this in our house...

Fairy work

Our resident 5-year old is growing fast and furiously in her art and writing skills. She and her big brother have taken to tracing with good results - here is a sweet fairy she did yesterday. And the sweet note she penned on the back!

Fall guys' trip

Last week HF went on his annual fall hike with five other guys - the two from last year (former work colleagues Randy and Joe) as well as three others. One of the four was our New England/Pasadena friend "Uncle Dan," with whose wife and three kids the remaining Pray Creek crew spent the first day of the guys' absence. The other two guys were friends of Randy's whom HF hadn't met before.

The guys stayed south of Yosemite this year, a spot called Bear Lake. HF liked it less than where they were the year prior, though it was still beautiful. The altitude was about 12,000 feet and evidently it was challenging physically. The crew did some fishing and caught some - always a perk. It got cold at night, into the 20's. Start to finish he was gone for 5 days - long enough to feel like something got accomplished (and for us to really miss him)! He had a great time.

Note the new "men's" hiking kilt that HF is wearing in the first photo...