Eleven

This concludes our annual Big Exhausting Weekend. Andrew's birthday is the 7th, so when you tie that in to the 4th, it makes for several days of partying which makes for endless days of cooking and cleaning up and making and wrapping and shopping and stuff. Whew! But am I cleaning my wrecked kitchen? No. I'm telling you about the mess. Maybe the birthday party fairies will come and take care of it while I blog.
Always, always, always I have hosted big, elaborate theme parties for my kids' birthdays. But as time is growing shorter and kids are growing older, we're slowing down with that junk. Drew's party this year was technically going to see Wall-E last weekend with some buddies. But on any given weekend this summer, we were only able to gather a maximum of two buddies. So last night he had another friend sleep over who had to miss the party. They stayed up late and played lots of XBox and watched movies and Emma and I served them brownies.
But today was the Actual Birthday. So we celebrated quietly and I must say, I rather prefer it at this point in my life. His breakfast of choice was IHOP - which was fine because Chris refuses to eat there and Chris had to go to work. So I took Sleepover Buddy and Emma and Birthday Boy to IHOP. People looked at me funny since I look awfully young to be schlepping around that many kids of such advanced ages. Children's menus are now a thing of the past for Andrew. He takes his new ordering responsibilities very seriously.

There was birthday cake to make (bowls to lick) and lunch to be eaten (leftover pizza from last night) and not really much else of importance. So we went and visited the ducks and swans at the lake. Emma is at art camp this week and next - it's an all day thing - so it was just me and my baby.

We loved these baby swans. Their parent swan (we suspect it was the daddy, but really have no idea) nipped at all the other birds, keeping them at bay so that his four babies could safely get all the bread they wanted from us. They made the sweetest little "peeweewee" noise.

We also la-la-loved these baby ducks.


Andrew picked Red Lobster for his family dinner out (How do I choose from so many great pictures? Sorry - I'm having trouble narrowing it down!) My parents and my grandma came and an aunt-less uncle and an uncle-less aunt, as their counterparts are currently out of town. We were loud and we ate a lot. It's kinda what we do.


We came back to our house for cake (marble cake, egg-free and dairy-free) and presents.


And wallowed around in the aftermath. Then Drew made Dad take him to whatever store was still open because he had a wad of birthday cash. It's good stuff. Oh - and those Transformers sleep pants? I made 'em for my boy.

It's amazing to think that I instantly became a mom eleven years ago today - at 1:00 PM, precisely. And that arriving precisely on the hour perfectly reflects the personality of my boy. I've learned much in spite of losing many of my brain cells, I've gained much and let go of much and I've managed to walk a kid through early childhood and bring him to the door to adolescence in one piece. That's pretty good, I think. He's an amazing person - smart, funny, responsible, and has an impressive sense of justice. I can't believe God let me have him for a little while to hold and cuddle while he was small, to read stories to when he was less small and to put my arm around when he was almost bigger and to walk next to as he gets all the way big. When he couldn't concieve of any bigger number, "100 much" was how he expressed anything that seemed huge. And I have to say, I love this kid 100 much.

DAILY BLISS: finally finishing that 4th of July dress