Little Celebrations for a Big Boy.

It all started Saturday. My parents came up and took Andrew shopping for much needed jeans and shoes. Then he got to pick out a present from the toy aisle. He picked this amazingly cool styrofoam remote airplane that he flies better than any of us adults.

We weren't necessarily planning on having a party-party... but that what ended up happening.

Then Sunday, we sang him "Happy Birthday" and ate cake after dinner time.

The Playworld Cake.... excellent. In fact, I had to ask where they got it, it was SO good!

Monday was his actual birthday. 1:00PM to be precise and he had a fun day planned. He got to take pumpkin muffins for a snack into school. It's the one day that he is allowed to take something sweet and very unhealthy to school and trust me, I tried to talk him into rice krispy treats, or brownies, or cupcakes with icing, or cookies with M&M's... something that's says, “celebration!” But no, he wanted to bring in pumpkin muffins... the same snack he's wanted to bring in the last 3 times it was his snack day. What can I say, it's his birthday.

Andrew and his friend, Gabe at the fastfood playland. Andrew was wearing his birthday crown from school.

AJ and I then surprised him, by taking him and his friend/classmate out to fast food/playland after school. The plan was to have one of his favorite's for dinner... enchiladas. However, when 5:30PM rolled around and the middle was still frozen, we scrapped that idea and went to Chili's for dinner. There he got to open all of the cards he had received in the mail. Finally, the evening ended at Bible Study where we brought cookies for him to share with his friends.

Opening up cards (that sing!) at Chili's.

Tuesday was our free day... meaning no babysitting and no school. So we got up and out early to head to the Gardens to see the butterflies. However, on the way the "Hot & Now" sign was up at Krispy Kreme. We couldn't resist. We visited the butterflies and the turtles and saw the new artist's exhibit before heading home later that morning.

Slideshow from Gardens

On the way home, we made a small side stop at a local university that has a walkway over a busy road. We parked and walked the walkway (the boys have always wanted to walk it, we just never had).... “squishing” the cars as we “jumped” on them. I'm sure we were a sight to oncoming traffic.

After a lunch of Chili's leftovers, we had mandatory nap time. It had been a couple days since either boy napped and with the time change, the company, the festivities... they were running on fumes. Fortunately, they both crashed this afternoon and I was able to clean and wrap presents in peace.

Opening gifts.

Tuesday evening, we went to PlayWorld as a final celebration with a couple other families. The kids played hard, we ate pizza and cake (surprisingly very good cake) and Andrew opened presents. He got some cool gifts, too. But grand finale for him was a new bike. A huge 20” bike. (Hard to believe he had completely outgrown the bike we got him for his birthday just last year).

Andrew trying out new "roller shoes". I bought them 1.5 years ago for $10 at Aldi, totally guessing on size. They fit perfectly.

Slideshow of Playworld Fun.

These last couple days have been really fun. Shouldn't everyone have four day birthdays?