A Big Day for a Big Boy!

It's pretty rare that our kids have their birthday party on their actual birthday.  Jacob's first birthday was like that--on a cold, rainy June day--but I don't think we've had one since.  And you know what?  I sort of feel like it's for the better, for so many reasons.  First, it's a lot to cram into one day.  Second, parties are a lot of work for me and even though I love creating something special for my kids, it's a lot of time away from them on their big day.  Third, it's so much more fun spreading out the celebrations and making it more than just one day.

But this year, Craig had Carter's birthday weekend off, so it seemed like a good fit to have it this weekend--meaning, either on his birthday or the day after.  I feel like Saturday parties are easier for family coming in from out of town, but harder for me because an extra weekend day to prepare is always helpful.  Complicating matters was that we don't get Jacob's basketball schedule until the Thursday or Friday before, so we had to plan a party ahead of time and hope Jacob's games weren't at the same time.  They had rarely been later on a Saturday afternoon, so we hoped that was a safer option.  Good thing, too, because we ended up having Jacob's basketball games almost all of Sunday afternoon!  We knew we had Carter's game on Saturday morning, so we already had to work around that.  On the bright side, my parents were able to come in for the game and get a two-for-one deal on the day!  I had such a busy work week that I couldn't take a day off to prepare, so in the end it was a mad scramble to get ready.  I was up rather late on Friday and used every available minute (and then half of the party) getting everything prepared.  I'm not sure I'd recommend cramming everything into one day, but it was a pretty good one!

We did start the birthday celebration a little early by letting Carter pick our Valentine's night dinner, which ended up being Red Robin.  The next morning, we had to be up at a reasonable time to do last-minute party prep (mostly cleaning), open presents, and be sure we were out of the house on time to get to Carter's game.  It wasn't easy, but we (mostly) pulled it off.

Carter was excited to open presents!

He got two new figures for his Treasure X King's Gold Tomb that he got for Christmas...

...plus a Call of Duty Lego-type set (he got a different set for Christmas) and two new Beyblades.  I made a last minute decision to order a new box of magnetic tiles for him.  He enjoys building with them, but he either likes to go big and runs out of tiles, or two or more of us try to build at the same time and run out.  One of our favorite brands had new style tiles--these have less plastic but have a cool jewel-cut pattern on the plastic face--and the price was more reasonable than in the past, so I took advantage and bought a new set.  Anything to encourage use of stuff we already have, I guess!

He seemed pretty excited!

His last gift was a total crapshoot by me, and only ended up being a birthday gift because it sold out at Christmas.  I saw it on a best toy list and thought it might be a lot of fun, especially since he likes gumballs.  It's a gumball machine maker that uses STEM principles to build all sorts of stunts and obstacles to retrieve your gumball.  Once we showed him what it did, he thought it sounded pretty cool!

After that, it was off to his game!  We met my parents there.  His team had another rough one despite finally having all their players for the first time in a few weeks.  Carter had a couple good shots (including his second in two weeks that bounced on the rim a couple times and then bounced off), but it looked like he was going to get shut out again when he went off the floor after his last second half shift.  But then one of his teammates got hurt, and I think his coach sent him back out since it was his birthday.  And then he got a prime opportunity, shot it, and boom--his first basket!  It was so exciting!  For a kid who claims to not like basketball much these days, he looked pretty pleased with himself!  After the game, his coaches brought in cupcakes (complete with a candle) for each of the three (!) birthday boys this weekend, and Carter passed out his own snack, birthday cake Rice Krispies treats, which we figured would be easy to take home since we knew there would be the normal snack handout.  But who knew there would be cupcakes, too?!

After the game it was back home for a quick lunch (well, I never ended up eating) and a lot of last minute prep.  I had an entire cake to decorate, which would have been enough.  Thank goodness my mom was there to cut cheese, wash fruit, and mix up my broccoli rice casserole.  It ended up a little hectic with ordering food and getting out snacks and Craig forgetting his wallet, but in the end we had a nice little party.

And, of course, there was cake...

Clockwise from top left - Pig, Steve, TNT block, Creeper

Carter wanted a Minecraft cake, and Pinterest only had a few ideas to offer.  Most of them used a ton of fondant or a bunch of Minecraft figures, and a lot of them looked like a combination of Carter's Spider-man cake from a few years ago and his dinosaur cake last year--squared off, stacked cake with green grass and brown sides--along with rice krispie treats (which are hard to replicate gluten-free) and blue jello to create a full landscape.  We only had Lego Minecraft figures, too, so probably not the best plan.  I wanted to do something different and found a fondant version of this cake.  I liked that it had a bunch of different elements of the game, and the squared off images seemed easy to recreate.  In the end there's a lot I would have done differently (better measuring more than anything) but in the end I think it turned out cute.

I later added Carter's name on the pan and a "7" on the unbalanced bottom of the TNT block (ugh), just so I could easily remember what year this was from.  After a very tasty meal and a quick gift opening (a bunch of cards (including a rather large bill from my parents that he waved around) and one gift (a bunch of Playmobil police stuff from Craig's parents), it was on to actually eating that cake!

He had a pretty great day as a whole, despite all the busyness, though I think it was a lot to take in since he did escape into his room with the tablet after a while.  He did spend part of the party going back through his gifts from us, testing out his Beyblades and digging out the Treasure X figures from the "magic rock" they're buried in (sort of like kinetic sand but messier and with bigger pieces).  After some serious cleanup I pretty much collapsed on the couch in exhaustion from a very long week, and while I was there he set to building his giant robot with magnetic tiles!

Almost as tall as him!

It was definitely a busy day, but it was a good one.  I do sort of prefer filling their actual birthday with activities with our immediate family (presents, dinner, and maybe something fun) and having a whole other day to celebrate more with our extended family, but I think it made for one extra fun day for the birthday boy!  Luckily, he still has a couple gifts coming (one from Uncle John in Oregon, and another from Craig's brother's family, since they couldn't make it due to an out-of-town hockey tournament for two kids and play practice for the other two).  So at least he'll get a little bit of an extension.  This week is also winter break, so we'll have a whole week to play with his new toys and recharge a little.  That should go better than last year, when he had his tonsil surgery at the beginning of break.  We have plenty to fill our time, though, from Carter's annual well visit to three days of basketball camp for Jacob.  Craig goes on the road on Friday and Jacob has a tournament starting sometime near the end of the week.  Thank goodness a few other things are taking a week off, but it'll go quickly, I have no doubt.

But all in all, it was a successful birthday for Carter and I'm now adjusting to having a seven-year-old!  Crazy...but good.