Quincy invested some of his Christmas $ in this new remote controlled boat. There was no talking him out of it - he was in love. We tried it out at the lake today. It has awesome power and actually shoots water up in the air (and is pretty darned loud). I suspect it won't live long (altho he is very careful with it). Pic taken with my new 10-22 mm wide angle lens. So cool.

The kids have finished their latest Star Wars lego ship and enjoyed playing with it today.

Dead ants, dead ants.... thousands of them. That is how I spend my days. First started off with Simple Green and paper towels. Moved on to duct tape. Tried "bait" - supposed to kill them w/in 24 hours - instead seemed to invite them to move their whole colony to our house. Multiple vacuum episodes. More Simple Green. Bought non-poison spray whose main active ingredient is mint oil. Now our house smells like a giant candy cane. At least the other members of the family don't seem to mind it too much. Have reduced numbers (for now) from thousands to a mere 100 or so (that I can find) but they've moved to yet another window. But hey - the kid's room is cleaner than it has been in years. Literally.

Quincy had a good birthday - it went surprisingly well considering that both Aidan and Quincy were sleep deprived from the sleepover birthday party at Ellie's house the eve before. Quincy had a list of 14 things we had to get through during his party (that included some scheduled "free time"). He started off with free play while all the guests arrived. We then transitioned to coloring in stained glass like pictures. Next up was getting the t-shirts ready for tie-dying (doing the tying part). Then some Wii games and apples for snack before heading out to the playground. Actually we headed to the local elementary school - which interestingly enough is now being locked up. Fortunately there was enough play in the chain that we were able to squeeze through the gate anyway. First up was "stomp rockets". The school yard is on two levels so one of the goals was to shoot from the lower level up and over the high fence to the yard above. Then on to some rocket balloon fun. Next up was the pinata. At first we thought it might break quite quickly - before all the boys had a turn. But a full half hour of beating on it with a metal bat made it clear that there was no way we would be able to destroy the pinata and Pete turned it upside down to let loose the goodies inside. Remarkably the kids' bashing had managed to break a pencil in half and shatter quite of few of the chocolate coins and other stuff. After the pinata we did the dying part of the tie-dye. I have to say that it worked quite well to have them dye outside and happily no one dyed themselves (always a real possibility!). Then a quick time check from Quincy - 4:30 - oh no! Must head home for next activity! First up though was snack time of chips and quacamole followed by the birthday "cake" or in this case, snowman Krispy Kreme donuts. Pete and I tried to talk him out of the next activity to no avail - it was time for some kids to sit in the car while other kids squirted it with the hose. Yikes! The kids loved it. That pretty much wrapped up his scheduled activities I think. They played a bit more Wii and opened presents then Tyler and Quincy worked on building his lego present. Quincy scheduled the party from 1 to 6 and managed to pretty much fill the whole time. Phew!
After dinner of some of his favorite Trader Joe's orange chicken he opened some family cards and gifts. Here he is sporting his new Phillies hat courtesy of Uncle Chuck and showing off some of his new $5 bills (which he enjoyed counting!). You will be happy to know that he is supporting the Lego corporation (and Star Wars franchise) with his birthday funds. :-)

How do you like Quincy's pinata for his birthday party tomorrow? He originally thought maybe a Star Wars character - but then saw this tree...