Ethan's 6th Birthday

So there's a funny thing about blogging and life- when you have a lot going on, there's a lot to blog about, but because you have a lot going on, there's not much time to blog.  This has been the case with us for the past couple months, which explains why I am just now getting to Ethan's birthday :-)

On May 4th, Ethan celebrated his 6th birthday... hard to believe that he's six already!  Since we were on the road, I took extra care to make sure that his birthday was extra special, and I believe that it was.  The night before, Jim put up streamers in the hotel room and I decorated his cake (i.e. I put letters on a store-bought cake since I didn't have a stove).  The room turned out great as you can see in the picture below.  Very fun!

We also took the day off from school since we could (how often in your life do you get to take your birthday off?).  We spent the morning watching Playhouse Disney and playing at Chick-Fil-A and the afternoon playing cards (I had taught Ethan a few card games on our trip since he was Wii-deprived ;-)  That evening we went to Chuck E. Cheese.  We thought that it wouldn't be too crazy since the parking lot wasn't very full, but when we walked in, it was overwhelming!  We got used the noise level eventually and had a great time. 

(Ethan wearing his birthday crown and jumping for joy as he scored in air hockey, Micah with his favorite game of the night, Verity enjoying the freedom to crawl around in the indoor playground, Micah not sure what to think about Barney, and Ethan intent on winning the derby)

Paul, one of Jim's co-workers, joined us for the evening, and had some fun playing pinball and a touchscreen bubble-popping game.  Here he is, poised for action.

I had some great coupons that let us get more tokens than we could use in an evening (and stay sane), so everyone was able to play as much as they wanted, which was fun.  I even got to play Skee-ball :-).

After we had our fill of Chuck E. Cheese, we went back to the hotel to open presents.  Here is Ethan with his new Mario shirt and a new puppy (which is named Sandy for the color of her fur).

So even though we were on the road, it was a very nice birthday, and we all had a great time!