Felix Turns 5

Saturday, March 13th, we celebrated Felix's 5th birthday; he had it themed as super heroes. In the morning we had his friends from school come by for a party and book exchange (which I didn't understand and it led to a kind of embarrassing moment). Renae, who is very clever, came up with this great idea for party favors: the day prior, she created this super hero comic book in Word (I think) with Mad Libs type blanks in the text and balloons. During the party, and while dressed as a super hero herself, Renae had all 17 super hero clad kids captivated with what might become of the words they were shouting out to her. Afterward, I typed those words into the computer in the bedroom, and printed them each a super hero comic book that illustrated their efforts.  I'm really blown away at these ideas Renae comes up with, she doesn't give herself enough credit.
After that, we had about an hour to prepare for the family and friends-of-family party. It was a lot of fun, and Felix got all kinds of great stuff. Tru's aunt Chelsea's boyfriend, Rudy, brought these two incredible Spiderman and Batman pinatas.
For me it is a little sad, as a friend of mine had said, "Five is a big deal, he's like a "kid" now". When I've lamented this, I've had several people remark that it's making me feel old, but that's not it at all. I'm just not ready for him to be five, to be a kid. I so enjoyed his toddlerhood, I don't want it to be over.  Look at me blubbering on.
Felix was writing his Thank You's, when he thought he would include "jokes" in some of them. In one he wrote out his name with a picture of a little person where the E should be. He explained that that was him, and that he had jumped up and knocked the E out. Sure enough, at the top of the card was a lone E, displaced by a wily Felix. He thought he was so funny.

Simulpost: Felix and the Chicks (with bonus material)

I am putting together our first ever simulpost; an event in which one post appears simultaneously on two blogs.  This idea was given to me from my memory of a "simulcast" of some bygone Olympics on different channels.  Actually, I don't really remember if that did, in fact, happen. Anyway this post will appear on Our Felix, and Los Pollos Dinamicos.

So what occasion is so big it justifies two blogs? We got two more chicks; a Barred Plymouth Rock (the black chick), and a Rhode Island Red (the red chick). Currently we are keeping the chicks in a large box in the dining room. We will keep them here for about another week before we move them into the garage. Because of the rat problem we had in the past, I built a tractor to cover the chicks' box at night when we move them to the garage. It's really just a precaution. When the chicks are a little older, we'll be able to take them out in the yard under the protection of the tractor. I'll include a picture of it in a future post.
Felix adores the chicks and has been spending a lot of time holding them or watching them.  We will know when Felix has picked up one of the chicks because the chick remaining in the box will cheep until her friend gets returned.

I don't know how Pip, Stripe, and Horace feel about the little additions, I haven't asked them.  I suppose "deal with it" is what I'd tell them if they had an issue with it.  Though my three girls are good layers, we seem to be averaging about 17 eggs a week.  We got lucky in a way in that each of them lay different color eggshells; we easily track how well each is producing.  My understanding with the two breeds we just picked up, they will produce brown eggshells, I imagine similar to Stripe.  I notice some variation in shading in each of our layer's eggs, I'm thinking that will probably make it unlikely that we will be able to distinguish the eggs.
As for names for our babies, we haven't decided yet for certain.  The Rhode Island Red, Felix considers his.  He has gone between Cheepy and Strong Chicken and may settle on both to make a very long name.  The Barred Rock is a breed I wanted to get last year but it wasn't available at that time.  I don't have any ideas though Felix had referred to her as Speedy at one time.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Felix and I had a morning alone together, so we took a trip to Volunteer Park in Seattle.  We climbed to the top of a water tower built in 1906 and then finished up with lunch at Five Guys.