Brian’s 6th Birthday Party!

Brian’s sixth birthday party was today, and what a day it was! Wow. We started off with a few small presents with breakfast, and let Brian open his cards. He got some Lego City minifigures, a Lego City lunchbox, and, we finally let him have the very controversial Star Wars nerf blasters he’d received for his 4th birthday (and totally forgotten about). 😉 We’re really not into guns or even anything gun-like, but we’ve had lots of chats about such things with him, and we think Brian can play with these responsibly now. Then, we were off to Laurel Hills, and spent a frenetic 90 minutes or so getting the place decorated with all the Lego City decorations we could handle. Huge thanks to Rosemary and Sytse for helping us get things ready once again this year! Ty was the first to show up, a little early–which was just fine with Brian! Ty’s mom said that he just could not wait one more minute. 🙂 Soon, the rest of the guests started coming in, and the kids were running around and playing like the crazy little people they are. There was playground time, food time, piñata time, and of course, cake time! Kendall loved the piñata mask–it looked like the top of a Lego person’s head. We usually don’t open presents at the party, since things might get left behind, or cause jealousy problems, but the kids had their own ideas. They were tearing into stuff before we could do anything! It ended up okay, and we had the benefit of seeing Brian’s exuberant reaction to his current favorite book, The Day The Crayons Quit. It’s a really funny story that we came across at the library, and he really wanted his own copy. When he saw it, he held the book up over his head and ran a victory lap around the party area, screaming “It’s my favorite book! It’s my favorite book! It’s my favorite book!” It has to be the best present reaction I’ve ever seen. I was sorry the Orazis had just left and missed that amazing reaction to their present. 🙂

All too soon, things started winding down and we did the breakdown, packed up, and headed home (thanks again to Rosemary and Sytse for helping!) When we got there, our neighbors let us know that they’d accepted a delivery for us–what could it be? It was an edible arrangement for Brian, sent from Steve and Sue! They couldn’t be at the party today, rather unexpectedly, but it was a super special surprise to receive this extra gift! Brian was super excited about the cupcake-shaped dipped pineapple. Kendall took her nap, and we hung out downstairs cooling off and opening the rest of the presents. Wow, he had such a haul, it’s overwhelming! He liked everything, but once it was all unwrapped, he told me he wanted to play with his pick-a-brick Legos from our trip yesterday (aw!) He loves to make his own creations, maybe even more than following the instructions on the boxed sets. He’s pretty proud of his minifigure creations this time, it’s always so cool to see how he combines the wildest items. He really wanted Grandpa Steve to see his “Pizza-Cutting Pirate” minifigure.

Soon Brian was feeling like digging in to his fruit arrangement for a snack, and we were more than happy to help him with it. When he came upstairs, I had one last surprise for him–a Play-Doh Scoops ‘n’ Treats set! You have no idea what an obsession this particular toy has been around here. Brian sometimes finds videos on YouTube of kids playing with toys or toy reviews, and he watches them over and over. Clearly he’s not the only kid that does that–the video that started the whole Scoops ‘n’ Treats thing has over 41 million views! Anyway, this set became hard to find and didn’t appear to be available anymore.. People were selling it on eBay for close to $80–so it was pretty tough for me to track it down for a price that was acceptable to me (within a few dollars of the retail price). But, I did, and Brian’s reaction made my quest so worthwhile. He absolutely loved it! We enjoyed our fruit, had some dinner, an impromptu water ballon throwing off the porch (we had some leftover balloons and Brian really wanted to make water balloons–even more fun when there’s a chance Daddy might get soaked!) and then Brian just had to get into the Scoops ‘n’ Treats. He made some of everything! The mint chocolate chip Play Doh in that set is a real special item to Brian, since it’s his favorite flavor of ice cream. We played and played until it really had to be bedtime. Whew! What an amazing birthday party day. Thanks to everyone for the cards, birthday wishes, coming out to the party (and all the presents, good lord!) and just making Brian’s day so special.