I'll admit I stressed a little bit about Lincoln's birthday this year. I usually try really hard to make the kids' birthday different and special from all the rest of the days. By special, I don't mean we spend tons of money or anything like that, but we just try to do things a little differently, for example we usually go up to campus and have lunch with Aaron, which the kids love, and we don't do all that often. I'm still way too sore and very intimidated by taking all three kids out by myself, so eating lunch with Aaron was not going to happen. And I worried about how to make Lincoln's big day a special one.
Another tradition we have is to let the kids (if they are old enough to have an opinion) pick what kind of cake they want to have. My mom has this little book with a bunch of different animals you can make out of cake and it tells you how to cut them and everything. But this year, before I could get out the book to let Lincoln pick from one of those, he had already set his mind on a dinosaur cake...which then evolved into a dragon cake. So, I had to figure out how to make a dragon cake. Lucky for me, if you can imagine it, you can also Google search it, and find pretty much anything you want...even how to make a dragon cake. :) And even luckier for me, I found a page that had step by step instructions with pictures of every step. Perfect. 
We also decorated the living room (well, again, Aaron did while I fed the baby and shouted directions) with streamers and balloons.
Tuesday morning when Linc woke up, we gave him his new bike. We found this awesome bike at Toys R Us on a 50% clearance sale, so we got it for $20. I was pretty happy about that. Aaron let Lincoln help pump up the tires and oil the chain. Then we had Lincoln give his little red trike to Ivan as a present. (So that later when/if it becomes an issue of "mine!" we can remind Linc that he gave it to Ivan.)
Aaron took both boys outside to go on a bike ride, but after discovering that Lincoln didn't know how to use his breaks, thought that their time would be better spent in the parking lot learning how to stop. Linc enjoyed riding in circles around Aaron.
After that Aaron left for work, and I feel like I did a poor job of making Lincoln's birthday special all by myself. I did make him his favorite lunch, quesedillas, but I felt like we had a long afternoon stuck inside the house.
Granny Jan and Adelia on Lincoln's birthday
Thankfully, around 4:30 my mom came down. She brought my grandma, Granny Jan, who is visiting from Missouri, and my little nephew Graham, and my brother Tanner down with her. It was great to have them here. My boys especially love to play with Uncle Tanner.
When Aaron got home from work we BBQed hot dogs and bratwurst for dinner. Pretty simple, but we still aren't up for making elaborate meals around here. Besides, my kids ate every bite, so I'd say success. :)
We invited some of our good friends to come out back and do cake and ice cream and water guns with us. I was glad they came so Adelia and I didn't have to do squirt guns. We left that up to the kids and the dads. And they loved it!
I love this next picture of Ivan. He cracks me so much. I think he has the funniest/most expressive body language of any toddler I've ever been around. He's way into the water guns. Almost every day he carries one around with him where ever he goes. But when he's pretending to shoot it he brings it up really close to his face and hunches his shoulders and gets a really intense concentrating face and makes shooting noises. It's so cute! I wish I'd taken this picture from the front, but this will have to do.
Adelia was such a good girl too and slept right through all the festivities so I could take pictures.
2 comments:
looked like a very fun bday party! i showed zac the pix of linc on his bike, maybe zac will take interest in his bike soon...
I am still so amazed by your cake... Google or not! You are such a sweet mother, and your kids will remember that for years to come :-)
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