Eli's Birthday

We had a fun day on Eli’s birthday Saturday. In the morning the boys were very excited to have the chocolate milk that I had gotten as a special birthday breakfast item. And Eli surprised us by choosing to have cereal (what he has most every morning) for his birthday brunch, instead of the muffins we got.

After breakfast he opened his gift from us: several new animal toys.

Later that morning I cut Michael’s hair while the boys watched cartoons, and Isaac must have been pretty worn out from our game night the night before, because he fell asleep on the couch and napped for about half an hour.

Eli was excited to open his gifts from Nana and Papa that arrived in the mail right on time – he was excited about the new trains and asked if he could take them to bed with him later on.

Around noon we all met Grandma Bradshaw at Coldstone and she treated everyone to ice cream for Eli’s birthday. (I was such a kind Mommy – I let the boys choose whatever they wanted, not even worrying that Camden’s chocolate ice cream would likely leave a big mess or that Kolby’s peanut butter ice cream with gummy bears in it sounded like a rather unpleasant combination to me). [Actually, all the boys did end up being really clean and none of them spilled their ice cream at all, which was nice.]

After we got home, the boys took naps, and while they were napping Michael and I went to pick up his car from the mechanics. When we got home, we were glad to catch the Owens before they left – they unexpectedly showed up with a birthday gift for Eli – how thoughtful! The boys played together for a little while before we had to head out. Before leaving, Eli opened his gift from Grandma Faun, a fun book about a zebra that a friend of her had written – he also insisted on reading his new book later on that night and taking it to bed with him. We ended up going to Café Rio for dinner (did you know that if you dine in, you get free quesadillas for all of the kids?) Then we went to Toys’R’Us for Eli to pick out some gifts with his birthday money from Grandpa Dick and Grandma Debbie and from Grandma Faun. After the boys had fun shopping (and playing) in Toys’R’Us for a while, Eli ended up with quite a little stash of gifts: two new Disney movies (Wall-E and Sleeping Beauty), two new Eye-Spy puzzles, and three more of the plastic animals that go with his set. It did take a little explaining for him to understand that he was picking out what he wanted for his gifts (not looking for wrapped gifts at the store), but he was excited about what he got. We ended up putting together one of his new puzzles for family home evening last night, and the three older boys really enjoyed that activity.