Jack's Birthday Celebration(s)

In case you didn't see my last entry (way below the millions of pictures), I changed the title of my blog to The Better Late Than Never Blog. Yeah, this is one of the reasons why the title fits so well. I am just now sharing Jack's birthday celebration pictures. So here goes:

We had presents and cake with just us on Jack's birthday and a big friends party the following Saturday. Here's a picture of my big beautiful 4 year old with his token (you'll see why later) birthday cake on the day of his birthday. I love that sweet smile!

And here he is pigging out on cake. Much of the time he just eats the frosting... of course.

And here's the birthday boy getting in a before bed wrestle with his little brother.

And here's the Jack on the day of his birthday celebration with his friends. I think the hat lasted all of about 2 minutes. We had 6 friends over for his birthday - 3 boys from school (Ben, Will and Nathaniel) and 3 girls we regularly have playdates with (Teagan and then 2 sisters, Angela and Leah). We were a bit worried about it being chaotic with 7 kids running around and expected at least a couple of meltdowns but it went very well (despite me having to tell one child that we don't say "what the hell!" in our house :) and we had ZERO meltdowns! Honestly, I most expected one from my own emotional child but it was a fun tear-free day.

We had my friend Lori make Jack a crocodile cake because he's been pretty obsessed with crocodiles much of 2010. The cake she made was AMAZING! I love Jack's expression here (as well as throughout the party) when we had him come see the cake for the first time. It's that special little smile and giggle you get when he is so genuinely excited and surprised about something.

The opening of presents was utter chaos of course. But Jack got some wonderful presents from all his little friends.

The kids thought the cake was really amazing. Jack was a pretty disappointed because I carved up the tail and wouldn't let him eat the crocodile's head right away. We had family coming over the next day for a small celebration so I wanted to save it till then. Again I love his expression here - pure excitement and wonder!

With preschoolers it's kind of hard to think of what to do with them at a party. They are a bit young for most party games (not to mention it's asking for a Jackie-meltdown) and Jack's birthday is March so going outside is tough. So we thought of to blow up a ton of balloons (OK 72 balloons and John blew all of them up but one) and put them in the basement with the gift boxes. It was a bit hard to come up with a theme around a crocodile so we did somewhat of a pirate theme. Here is Jack leading his friends down to all the balloons.

They had tons of fun just running around kicking and batting the balloons up into the air. It was a good way to get out some energy :)

Gradually they discovered the gift boxes sitting on the trunk with a big stuffed crocodile "guarding" them.

Eventually one of the kids (probably the oldest, Angela) got the idea to push a bunch of the balloons into the little closed off hallway off the family room so they could really be in a "room" filled with balloons. This is where many of the kids spent the next 45 minutes.

Jack got the idea to collect bunches of the balloons in a big box and then dump them into the little enclosed space all at once. He was quite intent on his job :)

But would still join in the fun once the space was filled again.

I love this picture and I love these girls! The 3 girls had a great time together. Good thing too since 2 of them have separately talked of marrying Jack or having him as their boyfriend, so things could have been kind of awkward.

Oh my sweet Jackie! I'm so glad you had a wonderful birthday celebration. You are such a special boy and worth celebrating!