More Birthday Party :)

After the Easter egg hunt crowd thinned out, we went ahead with the one party activity I'd planned. Marcus popped out of the woods dressed as Swiper the Fox, the "villain" from Dora the Explorer, and stole the birthday cake. Aunt Wendi was dressed in a Dora the Explorer T-shirt, and she led the kiddos through a series of clues hidden all over the park in a search for Swiper and the cake. At the end of the hunt, Swiper was apprehended by the crew of preschoolers, the cake was recovered, and it was time to sing Happy Birthday.

We tried to light candles, but it was too windy, so the group sang to Ethan and then Caleb. I admit, I wasn't too disappointed that the candles wouldn't light...I am not a big fan of fire and preschoolers in close proximity. Caleb and Ethan were both pretty stoic during the singing. I thought Ethan would be excited to be the center of so much attention, but he just studied the faces around him with a hard-to-read expression. Caleb generally does not like to be the center of attention, so his lack of expression did not surprise me. It was funny, though, when, right after the singing stopped, Caleb's good buddy Matthew leaned over and said, "Caleb? Are you happy? It's your birthday!"

Everyone played on the play ground a while longer after cake time. After all the guests had headed home, I took Caleb and Ethan to McDonald's with our BFF's, while Marcus headed home to work on a presentation. We decided to wait and open the presents after the boys had taken their naps, rather than at the party. After naps, we spent over an hour leisurely opening presents, playing with some of the toys, and even writing thank you notes as we went. Despite the curve balls thrown that morning, the boys' birthday bash turned out pretty well.

Birthday Party!

We gave the boys another joint birthday party this year (I wonder how many more years I am going to be able to get away with that?). This year, the weather cooperated and we were able to have the party outside at a park. In invited all of the kids in our church small (large) group plus two more from Marcus's work, and 17 of the 18 were able to come! Glad I had plenty of party favors :)

The boys are really into Dora the Explorer right now (thank you, Netflix Instant Queue), and they wanted to have a Dora party. I talked them into making it a Dora and Diego party, for obvious reasons. I didn't do much to keep the party on theme except having a Dora & Diego cake and balloons, but I'm pretty sure nobody noticed that everything else was from the Dollar Store :) And instead of doing a goodie bag as a party favor, I decided to buy all the party guests cute little sun hats from Old Navy, blue for the boys and pink for the girls. The kids looked so cute wearing matching "explorer" hats.

I have to admit, the party didn't go off without a hitch. I pulled up at the park about an hour before the party was supposed to start, and the parking lot was completely full. My heart sank when I realized that another group was using the park for an Easter Egg Hunt that same morning. Thankfully, there were two small, unclaimed picnic tables, which I covered with our party snacks, cake and balloons. The Easter egg hunt was scheduled to begin at 10:00 am, exactly the same time as Caleb & Ethan's party. Also thankfully, the Easter egg hunt went very quickly, and our party guests were almost all late, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The park was still very busy the rest of the morning, but the party went on.

More pictures and stories from the party in tomorrow's post :)

Funny Ethan

Ethan is such a funny kid. He makes me laugh out loud regularly with his shenanigans. So here's a post devoted to a few Ethanisms.
　
THE EATER
Ethan LOVES to eat. His teachers at church and his caretaker at the Rec Center say that he asks for snacks the whole time he is with them. And I know that he eats all day long with me. The other day, he skipped his afternoon nap, and then fell asleep on our way to Wednesday night church. I carried him in asleep and laid him in the nursery crib. I knew he would be a basket case when he woke up, but I hoped that he would sleep the whole hour. Sure enough, he woke up about twenty minutes later, completely inconsolable. His teacher and both children's ministers couldn't calm him down, but, thankfully, our good friend Mr. Al was teaching another class nearby, and he knew exactly which buttons might pull Ethan out of his meltdown. He gave Ethan a choice: "Calm down, go back in his class, and eat a snack, or keep crying and go find Mommy." Ethan choked back a couple more sobs and pointed to his classroom saying, "snack."

THE BLAMER
When anything bad happens in Ethan's world, it is always someone else's fault. The other day at a restaurant, Ethan was sitting in a high chair and he banged his head forward onto the table, completely on his own. But he immediately turned to his right and yelled at Wendi, who was unlucky enough to be seated there, "STOP DOING THAT! THAT HURT ME!" He can trip over his own feet running through the house, and amidst his wails on the floor can be heard, "BUBBA DID IT!"

THE LITERALIST
For about three months now, anytime someone addresses Ethan with any appellation other than his name, whether affectionate or inciteful, Ethan takes it literally and promptly disagrees. I say, "Come here, Buddy." And he replies with, "I not Buddy. I Ethan." He does it with adjectives, too. "Ethan, you are so cute," evokes "I not cute. I Ethan." And, of course, Ethan shoots down all name-calling with the same discussion-ending phrase: "I not _____. I ETHAN!"

THE DISTRACTOR
When Ethan does something wrong and he is being scolded, he interrupts the scolder with an excited look on his face, points off into the distance, and says something like, "LOOK, A BIRD!" or "OH NO, A BIG BUG!" Of course, there may or may not be a bird or bug or whatever else he has cooked up to distract the scolder, but his expression is so convincing that it almost always succeeds in delaying the scolding, at least for a few seconds.

THE REBOOTED COMPUTER
Ethan regularly falls asleep in the car seat, the stroller and even his high chair. Once he's asleep, there is only one way I've found to wake him up. Talking to him, picking him up, and even tickling him yield no results. I have to pick him up and set him on the ground standing up. As soon as his legs are supporting him, his eyes pop open and he is completely awake, and even in a good mood. It is funny to watch, because it looks like someone flipped a switch on to convert the lethargic, sleeping baby into a fully-functional, running and talking toddler, with absolutely no transition time. I want to get it on video tape soon.

I'm really glad that God made kids cute and funny...if they weren't, I'm afraid hardly anybody would procreate, and those that did would not be nearly as happy.

Bedtime Chat

The other night, Ethan fell asleep for the night in the car, so Caleb and I enjoyed a one-on-one bedtime routine. Caleb requested a book about Jesus, so I picked one off the shelf called Jesus Blesses the Little Children. I'm not sure exactly why his interest was so piqued, but he was hanging on every word I read. After a few pages, he interrupted me with a frustrated,

"Why can't I sit on Jesus's lap and hug him like those boys and girls (pointing at the picture)? Why he not ever, ever come down and see me like that?"

I told him that Jesus is in heaven, building a beautiful house and park for Caleb and all of the other people who love Jesus, and that, when the right time comes, Jesus will come down from heaven and take us to see the amazing things he has prepared. Caleb asked a few more questions, like how old we would be when he came to get us, and what if somebody died before Jesus came back. So I had a great little theological discussion about the incarnation of Christ, the resurrection, and heaven with my just-turned four-year-old.

And, the next morning, he woke up all excited because he had had a dream that he was flying. It was so real to him that he begged me to help him go back to sleep so he could fly again. He's been talking about that flying dream every since. It has been his go-to conversation topic for the last couple of days, especially with anyone who hasn't heard about it yet:

"I had a dream I was flying. I didn't have any wings, but I just flapped my arms and flew around in circles. And Jackson and Addison and William were there watching me but they couldn't fly. I told them to flap their arms like this, but it didn't work. But I was flying around and around and around!"

Spring Day at the Zoo

The weather was gorgeous yesterday, and the boys and I spent the middle part of the day at the Birmingham Zoo. It was so fun to have them in shorts again after a long, extra-cold winter. Apparently the sun and excitement was a little too much for Ethan, because he conked out in the stroller during lunch.