Alex's 5th Birthday

Yesterday was Alex's 5th birthday. Since it's so close to Christmas, we try to make it fun for him. We also take down our Christmas decorations the day after Christmas so that it won't be Christmas anymore, it's Alex's birthday.

Alex was very excited when Ben told him happy birthday in the morning. He told me, "Ben said happy birthday to me because it's my birthday already!"

After making the boys clean up their toys in the morning, which took much longer than it should have, we took everyone to McD's for lunch so they could play on the playground. They didn't think it was very funny when we were almost there and told them that it looked like McD's was closed and we'd have to just go home. They had a really good time playing and eating at McD's and weren't even upset when we said it was time to go.

When we got home, I got started on making Alex's birthday cakes. He wanted cupcakes and a round cake. He told us on the way home from McD's that it's a cake when it's round and has frosting on it. He didn't know what it would be called if it were rectangle without frosting. Alex helped me do the cake mix and then kept asking me later if they were done yet so he could eat them.

Here are the finished cakes, kind of my own version of a cake wreck, since it ended up going a bit lopsided and the frosting was melting on me. Alex wanted a blue cake with a lion on it, but I didn't really have time to do a lion, so I just did a blue cake.



While I was letting the cakes cool before frosting them, I wrapped the presents Chris picked out for the boys to give to Alex for his birthday. As I finished, Bryce took Alex to the store so they could let Alex pick out his own birthday present. He ended up picking out a nerf-type tommy gun and had wanted to pick out something for his brothers, so he decided to use half of his birthday present money to go in on a present for the family. He's a very nice and thoughtful kid.

This is what he picked out to get everyone. They're like the rock 'em sock 'em robots, but more fun since they move around:


After Bryce and Alex got back, which was just as I finished frosting all the cakes, we had Alex choose what they wanted to eat for dinner (he chose dinosaur chicken), then let him unwrap his presents and then we sang happy birthday to him so he could blow out his candles and we could eat his cake and have root beer floats.

Alex seemed to really enjoy his birthday, and enjoys being a big 5 year-old.

Here's what Alex looked like when he was 2 weeks old:


And here was Alex on his birthday with his cake:


Here's Alex and his presents:




Here's Alex blowing out his candles while we were singing to him:


Here, they're ready for their cake:


Chris, Alex, and Ben enjoying their cupcakes:


Daniel is enjoying his cupcake: