When you wish him a happy birthday, he says…
Someone wasn’t too sure about opening presents, but fortunately, the big sister stepped in and helped him out…
All 3 children got a ninja mask, although G isn’t quite ready to be a ninja yet.
And cake, of course…
It wasn’t Pinterest worthy. It won’t win me any supermom awards. But, it was 7-year-old-PERFECT.
Admiring gifts from grandparents.
We had a taco bar. Everyone was pleased. Reed’s taco was HUGE.
And of course, there was cake. He was so happy– everyone singing, candles, cake and his birthday.
He tried to take a HUGE bite of cake and this happened…
But, littlest brother still takes the cake for messiest cake eater.
Happy Birthday, Reed! It’s hard to believe that he has been home for four birthdays now.
Today was the day before Reed’s birthday. I have to admit, I will be relieved when this birthday season is over. We try to keep it simple– a few small gifts, a fun activity, a dinner and cake of their choice, treats for their class and a birthday shirt. It suppose I like to think it’s simple, because we’ve avoided big parties so far, but it’s really not so simple.
I spent my entire day on birthday prep! Running around, baking, then making his birthday shirt.
The baking– one cake and 24 cupcakes is done. Not the most beautiful, but hopefully it will be acceptable by 7 year old’s standards.
The birthday shirt. Why I started this, I don’t know. I was hoping Reed would tell me he was too old for it, but no, he wanted one. They all love their shirts and wear them all year, so I must do it.
But, I’m in a transition with my screenprinting equipment, so I had nothing quick and ready to go to make him a shirt. The other option was to dig out my sewing machine, but all of the work of finding the materials would have taken me awhile.
So, I went with the tracing and painting method.
I feared that this might look amateur. It does. The ink is on too thick and many of the lines are shaky and smudged.
But, I think he’ll like it.
Still left to do: Wrap Presents and Make Birthday dinner
Reed: “Tomorrow is my birthday?”
Me: “Yes, that is correct.”
Lena: “Oh, yeah. Reed’s birthday IS tomorrow. Hmm… I still haven’t decided what I’m going to get him…”
I took some self portraits with my younger two today.
With Lena, I am totally silly and we just goofed off. If you see us looking off to the right, that’s because we had the computer set up to show what the camera was taking a picture of, and it’s hard not to look at it!
I had fun with Lena, and I really love this one that I captured with Gus, who has been super cuddly lately.
So, why didn’t I do this with Reed? Well, he was off celebrating his birthday a bit early at Legoland with Aaron.
He had a great time!
I wanted to do something special with Lena for her birthday, so I researched some events going on around her birthday. I found the Fairy Princess in Kansas City. Perfect! She had told me that she wanted a Princess birthday, so I knew she’d love this.
First, the kids get their picture taken with the fairy princess. This is Lena’s that I scanned. Then, they wave her magic wand, a box opens and they get to pick a bag– with a crown inside!
She needed to switch crowns and then got to go do crafts.
After she was done with crafts, she got to pick out a cupcake and we headed home. Telling me over and over again, “That was fun, mama! That was fun!”
Once home, we opened gifts– what we had gotten her and what my mom had sent. We got her a book, a coloring book and a set of princess themed legos, all at her request. My mom got her one of the recordable Hallmark books which she recorded herself reading, and a cute little outfit. She announced that each gift was “awesome!” and shared what she loved about each.
When she was free, I took her outside to snap the picture of her in the snow in my previous post and I took a couple of other quick shots of her.
For dinner, we had her big quest of chicken nuggets, french fries and cake. Our much-loved babysitter Amanda joined us for dinner and gave Lena a home-made hat and each of the kids a pack of Christmas stickers.
She loved this part.
My 6 year olds, all ready for bed.
a moose in moscow 