Come, Mommy

It was a fun weekend here at the Menagerie House. Kevin’s birthday was on Thursday, so after school the boys and I did a quick shopping trip to pick out their presents for Daddy. Liam decided to get Kevin a new Yankees cap (his old one, a favorite, was lost a couple of months ago), and never one to be left out of the action, Kieran picked out a Yankees’ T-shirt for his Daddy.

We got home and wrapped up the gifts, and then the boys decorated the birthday cake.

“I know Daddy will wove his cake – it’s wemon, you know!!”

After Kevin came home, we had dinner, and then we had our cake and ice cream. Here is Liam putting the candles on the cake.

(Yes, we had a bit of a heat wave the last week or so – it’s been in the upper 80′s with humidity to match – but the heat finally broke today.)

Is this not a textbook picture of a “Made with love by young children” birthday cake?

A candle for each decade was about as close as we got to specifying which exact birthday this was.

And here is our birthday boy…

…and the loyal Casey, mooching around for fallen bits of birthday cake. The saddest day of his life occurred when the boys learned to eat dessert without spilling a bit, I tell you.

And then Kevin opened his presents, and we spent some time all playing together until the boys’ bedtime. Kevin loved his shirt, and the cap was a big winner, too, as he’s been feeling a bit strange without a baseball cap to wear around the house.

The rest of this weekend was a winner, too – since we live very close to Six Flags, we have always gotten season passes to the water park. It’s wonderful just to be able to pop over for an hour or two in the heat of the day and then come home again. This year, though, Liam has gotten tall enough to ride a number of the rides in the amusement park, and there is now a “Wiggles’ World” for the nursery-school set, so we decided to get the combination pass that is good for the water park, amusement park, and safari all together. So on Saturday we went over to the amusement park, rode a few rides, and had a pizza lunch before deciding we’d had enough of the heat. The boys loved riding in the Wiggles’ Big Red Car, and Liam and Kevin rode one of the intermediate roller coasters – it has a runaway mine train theme. Liam was thrilled and scared at the same time about riding it, and although he’s proud that he actually did it, I have a feeling it will be a while before he asks to go on another roller coaster. However, the big Ferris Wheel was a hit – the boys loved looking out and seeing all the places we’d been in the park, and even being able to see over to the water park was exciting for them.

Then today, Kevin took the boys back for a swim at the water park while I stayed home to enjoy some peace and quiet, pay the bills, and finish up some loose ends on some fundraising work I’ve been doing with Liam’s Waldorf school this winter. Liam’s last day of school is next Thursday, and so he’s quite excited about that. There will be a party, of course, and the kindergarteners will be putting on a puppet show for their parents and siblings. I’ll definitely post about that later this week.

So, all in all, it was a fun family birthday, and a great first weekend of summer around here. I always love summer – it’s nice not to have to be anywhere in particular most mornings, and just being able to do fun things with the boys is great. Hopefully I’ll get lots of blog material out of our adventures!