Happy Birthday Drew!

On Saturday, November 6, we had Drew's 5th Birthday celebration at the Train Park. It was the same party Allen had last month with games, cake and ice cream in the party car, and rides on the train and carousel. It seemed to be a success!



Patrick made the cake - this time it was a dinosaur train theme. Each kid got a dinosaur as their piece of cake and they thought it was so awesome! (We had more but we had forgotten to put the all important Happy Birthday Drew on it so we had to improvise...they were just as easy to serve from the box!) I got to help this time - I decorated the train cars and came up with the sand and water ideas. It felt good to contribute!





Drew was so proud when his friends sang Happy Birthday to him!



And then his little brother promptly blew out his candle!!



All the kiddos...



This time it was a steam engine - perfect for Drew!







Such a stinkin' mess!



The obligatory family photo...this one was most difficult for some reason...

I'll catch up...

...someday...
Drew had a birthday...complete with another party at the train park. He's FIVE now...hard to believe. I have photos...I'll get around to it...

We're in California for a weekend getaway to celebrate Patrick's birthday and just have some family downtime before the holiday chaos starts. We've been here 30 hours and I have 100 photos...why do I do this to myself?!

Story #1:
Thursday we drove to Carlsbad, CA. We checked into our hotel, unloaded all of our bags, then drove over to the beach to introduce the boys to the Pacific Ocean, watch the sunset and have a nice dinner out. About 5 minutes after I took this picture, Allen was running around all excited about the beach, and was warned for the fourth time not to run or he might fall. So what did my youngest child do? He ran toward the ocean, saw the waves coming, turned around to run back and fell...face first...into the surf rolling in. Did I mention that the water is FREEZING?! We rinsed him off as best we could under the foot wash station, dried him with a roll of paper towels I keep in my car, and dressed him in a spare pullup that I keep on hand for emergencies (long story, but I learned my lesson the hard way on that one) and an extra t-shirt that happened to be in the car. Needless to say we did not see the remainder of the sunset nor did we have dinner out. A bath at the hotel, a pizza ordered for delivery and a movie wrapped up our first night. Ahhh...the joys of parenthood...

But it is a cute picture...

Awesome Fun

For Allen's birthday, Auntie Maggie sent him a Stomp Rocket. Greatest toy ever...especially for a kid like Allen!