Every one of the guildies was present and accounted for and let me tell you, we are just as much fun in real life as we are in virtual life. ha!

The founding four of the Switchblade Symphony guild...

and the fun spread to a few more members...

Party animals, eh?

My nephews and their friend who is our newest guild member...(I love the big boys in the front holding their Magic cards and the little guys in the back playing their DS game).

Kristin and Dan have given up the game but once a guildie, always a guildie.

We settled the wild kids in for a movie...

Little Simon took a cat nap on Andy...

And we ALL squeezed into the computer room for a guild-wide raid. We did a low level one we have never run before so we could see something new, have fun and not require too many skills from a healer who had a few mojitos (aka..me;).

I love little Isaac in there, my two nephews, my hubby...it's a family affair and we have made some great friends.

The party was oh so fun! I hope it's an annual occasion.

"Do you want to _____?"
"Okay! Let's go!"

So painting it was this morning right after the breakfast was finished.

The package looks like it holds a giant blood clot. Interesting.

I pulled up a liver recipe with rave reviews and managed to turn this...

...into this:

Doused in butter, bacon and sprinkled with lemon juice and zest.

Plated with green beans.

We all ate it, dipped in BBQ sauce. If it was the liver or starve, I'd eat it and say it was damn delicious. But it's not the liver or starve and it's obvious the cover up ingredients were not enough.

We can all say we tried liver now and I think I may live out the rest of my life on that single taste.

Xander is sick today but couldn't pass on cookie decorations.

I love how our kids always bring company into our bed to flip through the Netflix watch now stuff. They look so cozy. hehe

...and yes, more Legos.

The roof is complete on the Lego house! Jason definitely has a brain wired for this stuff. The kids were asking me all day, while jason was working, if I could help them build a roof and I had no clue where to begin. The book I laid on top didn't seem to satisfy them. ;)

Jason finished work and came up with this great roof design, complete with skylight.

Complete with windows, door, bathroom, furniture...

Check out that hinged design for more playing options...

The kids are inspired! Xander is figuring out a roof design and Isaac a family car. All the the minifigs have been moved in and the kids are busy in play. I just can't believe how many useful pieces came in our random 12 pounds of legos we bought off Ebay. no kit, no instructions...just raw imagination.

Xander just ran in to tell me the Spongebob minifig is watching his favorite show and eating a pizza in the new house. Ha!

Simon added a hat to his guy...

Xander completely overhauled his ship...

I'm certain they are already completely different now...but hey, I did what was asked of me:D

I missed snapping photos of the Transformer but here are a few ships...

Xander build (for Isaac)...

Simon build...

Xander build (for himself)...I like the guy sweeping off the deck.

Microscopic look at bug wings.

We needed Jason for this dinosaur build. It was a bit complicated for us!

Checking out Chinese money.

Xander is walking on cloud 9 with all of his Bionicles and Lego Ben 10 stuff. The kids wasted no time assembling them.

If you've followed past birthdays you know how awesome my cake making skills are. This bad boy was three layers high and leaning enough to make me check the fridge several times before its debut. I was sure it was going to fall over and be plastered to the milk jug...but it did manage to stay upright.

The kids played the heck out of the Moonsand...

Did some bead design...

It was a very nice, relaxing evening. I don't mean to brag but we do have the best family and friends:P

I love this action shot of Xander's mane flying back.

It was recently discovered that Xander (turning six in three days) knows how to read! We have a computer for each of us in our family "computer room" and I could hear Xander reading aloud all of the instructions to create an account for a game.

I sent him a few instant messages to see if he could read it and he did! It just boggles my mind.

Maybe more so because I was just listening to a program on NPR about a school trying to work with their problem with illiteracy amongst the grade school kids. All I could find is this one but it also talks about the problem. It seems the biggest discussion is methodology for teaching.

Actually if I read into that article my kids are learning to read because Jason and I are educated and not poor...hmm.

All I know is we leave them alone to direct their own activities throughout the day, answer questions as they come up and voila(!) they learn to read and write with no teaching at all. No discussion on phonics vs. whole words, no money spent on curriculum and no homework.

The most important thing, I believe, is answering the questions. It sounds simple enough but kids ask a lot of questions.

They seem to know exactly what they need for their own learning. It's amazing!