Closing ceremonies

The boys' birthday weekend sums up the season of celebrations in our home. All of the holidays in our home happen between mid-March to July with a majority of them occurring between the second week of June and the 3rd week of July. So we are all done celebrating and ready for a quiet winter and spring (well, you know, except for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas).

Will turned 4 on a Friday. We told him he could choose where he wanted to eat dinner so he chose Chuck E. Cheese. Eating at Chuck E. Cheese got vetoed by someone else in the house so we told him that he could go play games at Chuck E. Cheese, but to choose somewhere else to eat dinner. This led to Will having a 10-minute debate with himself over the merits of the Carl's Jr. playground vs. the McDonald's playground. It went like this "Well....McDonald's has a better playground...but Carl's Jr has those cone things I like to play with...hmmm....hmmm..." Eventually he decided on Carl's Jr. We had to run to Wal-mart during the day, but Will didn't seem to mind since he got a set of play car keys complete with alarm system when we checked out. He had seen them in the Wal-mart check-out line about 10 days earlier and threw a huge fit when we wouldn't buy them for him. I told him that he could do some chores and earn some money to go buy them for himself. To his credit, he spent the next 2 days following me around and asking for chores to do. He wouldn't even go outside to play with his dad. Have you ever tried to find chores that an almost-4-year-old can actually do by himself? It was a challenge. I ended up paying him to do the things I would have made him do anyways, like picking up the toys he dumped out on the floor. He told me that he was going to buy the keys and then he was going to do more chores so he could "go buy that piece-of-junk racecar that will break 5 minutes after we get it!" I asked Bryce about it and apparently Will saw some plastic racecar at the hardware store that he wanted...you can probably guess what Bryce told him about it.

Anyways, back to the birthday. We picked up some party stuff at Wal-mart and then came home and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to Carl's Jr. and then took the boys up to Chuck E. Cheese along with Mollie and Bryce's dad and sister who were in town. The boys had leftover tokens from going to CEC in Connecticut and they each got free tokens for their birthdays so it didn't cost us anything. Sawyer was a little unsure and wouldn't go on any of the rides, although he did think it was great fun to stuff tokens into all the games. Will was as happy as he could possibly be. He skipped from game to game and had a grand old time. He even left without a fit because he knew that presents were waiting for him at home.

When we got home he blew out the candles on his R2D2 cake and then opened presents. He didn't end up eating any of his cake until Sawyer's birthday, when Will ripped off R2D2's head and started stuffing cake in his mouth. As long as he enjoyed it I guess.

A word about the R2D2 cake. Do not try to make any kind of formed cake out of Betty Crocker rainbow chip cake mix (or probably any cake mix...they aren't dense enough). The cake just crumbled and wouldn't hold any weight. I stuck a bunch of skewers in it to try to keep it upright, but it was pretty much hopeless. Also, there is definitely a skill to fondant which I don't have. The whole thing was a falling over disaster. (This picture was taken from a very flattering angle.) No, I did not draw on it with markers...well, I did...but they are "Gourmet food writers" with edible ink. Luckily, 4 year-olds are pretty easily impressed. Will saw it and said "Wow! That is awesome!" I don't think I'll be so lucky in 10 years.

After presents I tried to put Will to bed, but he wasn't having it. First he had to drag all of his presents up to his bed and then he kept getting out and asking to sleep in my bed. I decided that it was his birthday so why shouldn't "all his wildest dreams come true?" I let him get in my bed and watch Cars until he-- I mean, I -- fell asleep. I don't know when he fell asleep.