A Boy and His Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Birthday’

Note: This is a very belated post, and I intend to change the date after a week or so to move it back where it belongs.

May 14th was on a Wednesday this year, so James took the day off and we celebrated a bit just the three of us.  When we woke up we took pictures of him in his man’s shirt, which we do every year. We had a little adventure this year when James tried diffusing a bright light we were using with a shirt, which started smoking and caught on fire! We got it out and everything was fine. We got a few good shots too. We then went to the amusement park, a huge fish aquarium, and a restaurant at the mall. At the amusement park, Owen got to go on rides with us which he really likes doing. The aquarium was very cool, but Owen was far more interested in the moving sidewalk that moves you through the aquarium, which arcs over your head and is very long, and didn’t care much about the sharks and fish swimming over his head. He also enjoyed the giant sandbox at the end of the aquarium and didn’t want to leave it when were ready to go eat. We ate at Rain Forest Cafe and Owen loved that we were sitting next to the “bufferfly”. We got him a birthday dessert and he was very nervous and shy when they sang him “Happy Birthday”. He got a little practice on blowing out a candle though which was good. We then went home and later that evening measured Owen on the 2 x 4 that we keep track of his height on.

On May 18th we had a birthday party for Owen. He originally wanted a pink cake, but when we went to pick out a cake, he saw a truck cake. He immediately changed his mind and told me he didn’t want a pink cake, he wanted a truck cake, so that is what we ordered and we then decided to decorate with trucks as well. We also ordered subs from his favorite sub shop, Jimmy Johns. We invited a few more people this year then last; he had grandparents, cousin, friends, aunts, uncle, great aunt, great uncle, second cousins and us. He had two little kids there, and two big kids to celebrate with him. It was a lot of people in our little apartment.

The party went very well. Initially Owen was very nervous and told me he didn’t want people coming over. But, after they all arrived and had been there awhile, he took to playing in his room with the other kids and this made him very happy. We had him open his gifts and he was not thrilled about this part. He got pretty overwhelmed and I realized that I had made a bit of mistake by buying him so many gifts and having him open them all at the party. I should have had him open most of them on his actual birthday, and saved just one for his party. We asked everyone to bring a “green” gift, which would be either no gift or a used or re-gifted gift. Everyone followed our guidelines quite well, and Owen got a fascinating variety of gifts. From a jar of pennies, to two old model horses, to books, to old metal Tonka trucks. We got him a Marble Works, which is a plastic track you put together for marbles to travel through. Owen loved this toy the best and still plays with it almost every day. We got him a real metal tea pot too that he loved and he plays with it in his kitchen. It also can make one cup of loose tea, so we can make him decaf now when we make caffeinated loose tea with our tea pot.

We also bought a pinata this year. The little kids tried a few times to knock it down, but it was finally busted open by a bigger kid. Lots of candy and gifts poured out and each kid got to take some home.

We had cake and Owen blew out his three candles. He blew them out himself with much effort, but he had to focus on one at a time. After three breaths, and three very spit filled blows of air, he finally extinguished the candles. He then sat very quietly eating cake, and playing with the trucks on top of the cake. He would fill up the digger or the bulldozer with cake and then scoop it into his mouth. He really used that time to decompress from the event.

Overall his birthday went great, but next year I don’t think we will have a big party again. Owen is much better with very small groups, and the larger group was a little much for him.