Fifth Birthday!

After a couple of years of hiatus from blogging, I'd like to start up again in celebration of Jack's fifth birthday.

Five years.

I can't imagine that all that time has slipped by. But then again, I can't imagine what my life was like before I had him. What in the world did I do with myself before? Remembering life pre-Jack is very much like remembering someone else's stories -- it doesn't seem like me that all those things happened to.

The weekend before Jack's birthday, we headed to Lincoln to spend a couple of days with Grandma and Grandpa. Jack had asked to go to Morrill Hall to see the fossils with his dad and me.





When we came home, we broke out the new sled that Grandma and Grandpa had given him! He started out being a little skeptical, but ended up having the best time ever. At one point, he yelled, "I'm the happiest boy in the whole world!"



Grandma and Aunt Sue made him a birthday feast of ham and scalloped potatoes, and everybody except Uncle Scott came over for dinner on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, Uncle Scott went with us for a very nice Sunday buffet. Everybody made it a really nice birthday visit, and Jack had a blast. He even got to help make the frosting for his cupcakes.



On February 11th, 2008, Jack, Jim and I started the day by heading to our favorite place for breakfast -- Dunkin Donuts. We all had our favorites, and headed right home to get ready for Jack's school day. Both Jim and I participated at the Little Red Schoolhouse so that we could have fun with Jack and his friends on his special day. We took strawberries, angelfood cake and ice cream for snack, and Jack took his KU football and his football helmet for show-and-tell.

The kids prepared their bags for Valentine's Day, and Miss Stephanie helped the kids make crayon-shaving wax paper hearts to hang in the windows. We all had fun, but by the end of the day Jack had started getting pretty grumpy. We should have predicted what was about to happen.

For dinner, Jack had requested going to CiCis for pizza buffet. He didn't eat very well, but we just thought he was excited to get home to his presents. We came home and opened his presents, but he seemed pretty out of it.



We got him ready for bed, and he fell asleep on my lap in the big chair. At about 8:30, he got pretty restless in his sleep, opened his eyes a little, and threw up. He ended up throwing up just about every 20 minutes or so until almost 4 o'clock in the morning. We were both completely exhausted, miserable, and slept much of the next day.

After he got better (and I got sick and then got better), we finally were able to have his birthday party. This was the first party in which Jack got to determine the guest list himself. He invited several friends -- Alexander, Quincy, Anika, Sarah, Amelia, Pippi, Willa, Aya, Diego and Bela, and Luke and Katie. There were a few who couldn't come to our re-scheduled party, but there were enough here to make for a very nice time.

Jack wanted a Winnie the Pooh theme, and he had spent many hours over several weeks preparing some beautiful decorations for the party. He made several signs with the characters' names, some drawings, and some felt posters. We ordered a Winnie the Pooh cake from Target and had lots of games and crafts for the kids to do.





First we had painted some small terra cotta pots with a red stripe around the top, and Jack had written "HUNNY" on each of them. We filled them with honeybee graham crackers and hid them around the house. The children played "Find the HUNNY pot" and ate the crackers. Then they each got to pretend to be Rabbit and plant some flower seeds in their pots.



Next was Pin the Tail on Eeyore. Jim had worked hard over the previous week to make a beautiful felt Eeyore and tails for the kids to use. We also played the Where, Oh Where is Eeyore's Tail song from the record that was used for my fourth birthday party in 1968. I thought that was kind of a nice touch.



After the game, we all played a Kanga, Roo and Tigger game of Freeze Hop. Jim and I snapped some pics of the kids while they were frozen.



The kids then went on to make some fridge frames that I had dyed pink and on which I had written (per Sue's suggestion) A Pig-ture for You. The kids put Piglet and Pooh stickers on them, and we put their pictures in them for them to take home.

Next, the kids had cake and ice cream, and Jack then opened his presents.



The final event was the triceratops pinata. Even though the kids whacked on that pinata as hard as they could, there was no way that sucker was opening, so Jim had to break it open while the kids scrambled to collect the goodies that Jack and I had filled it with.

Jack seemed happy and satisfied with his party. Jim and I were happy and relieved it was over.

I'm sure Jack's fifth year will be as wonderful and as full of new accomplishments and discoveries as his fourth year was. And I can't wait to experience each one of them right along with him.

And I'll try to be better about blogging them. *grin*