birthday boy, one month late

We went to Billings over Blake's seventh birthday and brought the twins with us to help celebrate. Grampa Steve came down from Plentywood, and we all hit the Reef for some swimming (no photos of the pregnant lady in the swimsuit, please). Blake is FINALLY tall enough to ride the water slides, and we pretty much didn't see him from then on, unless we managed to catch him on the way up the tower to go down in a double inner tube with one of us. 

Grammie Monie has a pellet pistol, so all the boys had some turns plinking away with it.

Mason is the shooter. You can tell because that other boy, the one in camouflage and Carhartt's? Yeah... he never wears anything else. Ever. Seriously, that is how you can tell who is Smith and who is Mason at this juncture in their lives.

I think the trigger was very hard for the younger boys to pull.

A full view of what they were shooting: that's one of Mom's frying pans suspended from the swing set. The pellets made a satisfying "plink!" when there was a direct hit, so the kids knew when they had nailed it and when they had missed.

Opening presents. He was a very kind young man this year and asked for ice cream sandwiches instead of a cake or cupcakes. EASY-PEASY!

One of his favorite shirts now, I usually have to remind him that he can only wear it twice a week, preferably not one day after the next, after having used it for his jammies as well.

Grampa Steve brought a package of three clear cars, each with an LED ball in the center, complete with sticker decals. The boys were in HEAVEN, and each had help peeling the very thin decals off the paper they came on. It was brilliant.

He loves his Grampa.

We had plans for a crafternoon (results revealed in my next post), but then a package arrived from Aunt Erin and Uncle Dan-O, and he begged off helping me make anything so he could build Hagrid's Hut. Shortly thereafter, we started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at bedtime, and he wants to grow his hair long and shaggy and be Harry for Halloween. He's also stolen one of my chopsticks to use as his wand.