Calvin's 8th birthday

Having Calvin's birthday on the 28th so close to Dec 25th really helps us get the house stripped of all things "Christmas".  Tree got taken down, garland down, whole house vacuumed, Christmas legos packed up and put away...this is a huge effort, but well worth the "fresh look" again without all the red bows and candy canes.

Calvin last-minute decided he wanted a Minion-themed birthday.  These are little yellow creatures featured in the movie Despicable Me, which we've seen...but the little Minion characters became rather popular after that movie came out because of their humor and silliness, so there seem to be Minions everywhere.  Calvin drew a picture of the cake he wanted and the types of food for each meal...and wrote them on a note for me.  I think I have a picture of it.

Waffles for breakfast, PBJs for lunch, breakfast sandwiches for dinner.  This is so typical Calvin!  Triple layer cake, each layer getting smaller from the bottom up, alternating yellow/blue.

I surprised Calvin with a Minion shirt/hat combo and I didn't expect it to be such a HIT!  He wore the shirt and hat combo all day, never once taking off the hat.

He also specified blue/yellow streamers on his door - two blue/two yellow/two blue/two yellow in this pattern.

All the kids planned "yellow and blue" clothes for the day!  So clever!  Of course, Eli is in his swimsuit.

We didn't have any "plans" for the day.  A nasty snow storm ripped through Cedar Falls making travel or outdoor play pretty impossible.  I spent a lot of the day baking/decorating the cake, and in hindsight, wish I'd had the time/energy to do it the day before and make more of a point to create a fun day for Calvin, because the day got a little squirrely.  We stayed in the whole day, and we enjoyed the foods Calvin requested, but the kids acted a little bored and a few more fights broke out over things than was normal. I was frustrated because they had gotten all these new toys and weren't playing with them!  Violet put up balloons and streamers which kept falling.  How do you instruct a kid to do a better tape job?

Anyway...the day turned for the better when Rachel came. :) My fingers were blue from food coloring the frosting and cake batter.  I was cooking hashbrowns, frying eggs, toasting english muffins, baking bacon, and setting the table.  Dave had taken the girls out for an errand and Calvin earlier had gotten a chance to help decipher where exactly the decorations on the cake would go.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  The meal was delicious, the thickcut hardwood smoked bacon from Sam's Club was a smash hit, and Calvin was a happy boy.

We got Calvin a huge thick book of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, a big book of Curious George stories (I LOVE that he can read!) aaaaaaaand "the ghost dragon" Lego thing he had been dyyyyyyyyying for for months and months.  He was absolutely enamored with his gifts and couldn't stop exclaiming that he HAD the ghost dragon now, finally, finally, finally!!!!  It took him two days to assemble it.

a delivery driver from Flowerama braved the snow storm to deliver some birthday balloons from Grandma and Grandpa Hardinger!  Eli was enamored with the spiderman balloon. 

excitement over blue food coloring

a little more...a little more...not enough blue...

of course he beat me.  Better memory at age 8 than at age 34!

confident little bugger

"the Minion cake"