Evan's Birthday

Evan's birthday...what a good reason to have a day of fun :) We were going to wait to celebrate at dinnertime because Wednesdays are busy for Jeremy, but Sam and I woke up early and decided to surprise Evan by decorating, blowing up balloons, putting out most of his presents, making "The Birthday Donker", and setting the table (Evan got to use the red plate, which caused me to have to make an actual breakfast that he could eat on it instead of our regular fare of cold cereal...I made pancake balls because the last time I made them he acted like Bob in "What About Bob" and went on and on about how they were THE BEST THING he had EVER eaten and what a WONDERFUL and BEAUTIFUL mommy I was for making them and could he have them EVERY DAY).

"The Birthday Donker"--Evan acted so mad but he's the one who started the tradition.  I told him that the tradition when I was growing up was birthday spankings, so he shouldn't complain.

We generally did things he liked--built with Legos and played games and even went to The Red and Blue Ball Store (for Flagstaff friends--Babies to Kids/Booknest but we call it The Red and Blue Ball store because of the Rokenbok set they used to have that transported red and blue balls but they don't have it anymore but we still call it The Red and Blue Ball Store and we will always call it that because we like traditions).  In the afternoon, we picked up Evan's favorite big best friend, CJ (she's in college), and went to a park that has forts in the woods near it.  We played make believe stuff, my favorite!  (the kids like it, too, don't worry:))

Evan with his buddy, CJ.

Then we went to youth group where Evan sat on the Hot Seat (as per FCF Youth tradition) and then we had mint chocolate chip cupcakes.

On Friday (a few days later), we had Evan's actual birthday. It was Robin Hood themed.

Satchels filled with coins and candy jewelry.

Evan said: "This guy is yelling, I WANT TREASURE!"

Lundgren birthdays will always have cardboard at them as long as I am around.

It was fun and I'm sure he liked it, but I was off of my game somehow. Here's some conclusions I came to:

--Don't host a birthday party a couple of hours after the brand new renters of your house visit for the first time. It will kind of take away the focus of the day and will probably cause you to not get much sleep the night before which never makes for a happy mommy.

--Even if you are trained as a special ed teacher, don't have 10 children of varying abilities try to do crafts together or follow rules to games that involve strategy. I should have done like another birthday mom that week and just had an Angry Birds themed party and let the kids throw things at other things. That would have been gone better, I think.

--Don't forget to serve water to the children. Have another adult there to help. Don't let them start licking the frosting off of all the cake decorations because chaos will break out and it will get a little gross. Don't...(I could go on, but maybe I should sum it up with "Don't try to be Mom-of-the-Year, just let them PLAY!") But Evan had a good birthday and is already pestering me about next year's...

On a much calmer day a week or so later, playing with his dino excavation kit...great present Aunt Kendra!