Birthday Boy

Today was Andrew's fifth birthday. I had planned on celebrating his birthday with the four of us here at home. We have a joint birthday party planned for both boys for next Saturday with both Chad & I's families. We have done this joint birthday party for the past three years now. It works out well since the boys' birthdays are only 2 weeks apart and all of our family members have anywhere from 2 hours to 16 hours to get here!

This year, Andrew began asking if he could have his own birthday party and if he could have friends come too. So I decided to ask Andrew's new and very dear friend Tommy to come spend some time with us today. His mom, Karina and sister Anna came to help celebrate as well. We all enjoy spending time together so much and are very thankful for this new friendship.

I intended to keep it pretty low key; just some play time, lunch, cupcakes.... But then Andrew asked about decorations and what his cake was going to be. Decorating cakes does not come easy to me and therefore I do not really enjoy it all that much. I tried explaining that we would have decorations next weekend when our families were here and a neat cake. But I think he was feeling like this just wasn't special enough.

So I said I could put the first letter of every one's name on their individual cupcake. He liked this, so I went with it! I asked him what color he wanting the frosting to be for their initials and he said "chocolate". I asked again what color and offered some suggestions; red, blue, green, black.... "Black! I want black." Two weeks ago at the MOPS meeting I attend, we were given tips on cake decorating. I remember her saying that a true black color in icing can be difficult. Today it turned out a bit more purplish/grayish/black.

Tommy & Andrew as we sang Happy Birthday to Andrew

The birthday boy & I

Andrew's preschool teacher suggested bringing the mini cupcakes for Andrew's birthday treat. She said so many kids will just eat the icing off the regular cupcakes and so much cake is wasted. So I made enough mini ones for his class and then regular ones for us. Aren't they cute?! I have always liked mini things.

Andrew opening gifts with us this evening.

I think he had a pretty fun day. He really is such a joy (even though he and I tend to butt heads more than I care to admit-I do think it is getting better). I love how excited he gets about things like this - his birthday. Or seeing his friends. Or preschool Or going to story time at the library. Or an outing to the park. Or some tussle time in the basement with Dad. I love that when he and Carson are playing, he calls him "Bud" -even if he is upset with him, his tone just changes. He's a great little boy.

He has been telling us that when he turns 5 he will stay in his bed all night. (for the past year and a half he will start out the night in his room and at some point during the night come to our room and sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag) He told our friends today that now he can sleep in his bed all night! Before I tucked him in tonight, we went and got the sleeping bag out of Chad & I's room and put it away in his room. He seems happy about this, determined. So we shall see what the night brings!