Birthday Celebrations!

The boys have the burden and the advantage of having birthdays near holidays, so they seem to get multiple celebrations since we always seem to be near extended family right around their birthdays. Matt's is right before Thanksgiving. The celebration began at school.

The Montessori school the boys attend has something called the "Celebration of Life" where the kids go through a ceremony with a song, and then the parents provide birthday treats of some kind. The parents are invited to the ceremony if they can attend. I was lucky enough to be able to be there for Matt's.

They begin at their birthday month.

They circle around the calendar once for each year and share something about that year of their life as well as a picture of them during that year.

At the end of the ceremony, they blow out the "candle" and make a wish.

One ceremony down, more to come...

Matt chose to stick with his Halloween costume, and requested a Lego themed party. We were having it at an indoor swimming pool, so we really just had the cake and favors to customize.

I came up with this huge Lego cake. Turned out pretty tasty and not too bad on the food coloring end of things. I tried out the spray food coloring, which seemed like a good idea. I covered most of the counter near the cake, but am still finding red when I wipe down the counters in the kitchen. Oops!

The boys had a blast with the big slide!

Well, not ALL the boys. Jonathan tried it once, but wasn't in the mood for swimming that day.

He initially smiled when Nick caught him, but he was done after that.

Still smiling!

The boys' friend Logan had a blast jumping in to his dad. One time, he caught him off guard he was so excited to jump!

I unfortunately didn't take any pictures after the swimming, but here's the video of the kids singing Happy Birthday to Matt!

We brought home the gifts and the boys had a blast opening everything together.

The plan the past few years has been to catch the train exhibit at NorthPark mall the weekend of Matt's birthday. It happens to be the opening weekend of the exhibit. This year, the boys had fun, but it just wasn't the same as the last few years. The exhibit was much smaller.

Matt actually wore his hat during the exhibit this year.

Couldn't get everyone looking at the same time.

What you say, Mommy?

This is the reason for the plexiglass, tiny hands!

I have fond memories of school field trips to this mall for art/sculpture scavenger hunts. It's so fun to watch the boys play around at the same mall.

The celebrations came to an end, at least in Dallas. We still had our Thanksgiving trip to Oklahoma ahead of us.