Birthday Weekend Celebrations

The birthday celebrations continued this weekend. Saturday Zach and I took Zane to his first movie, Monsters University. I was slightly nervous about the sitting quiet and still for hours, but we had talked about how only big boys get to go the movies, and that you have to sit still, and not talk while the movie is on, all week. He was thoroughly prepared and did a great job. Before the movie he got to pick a game in the arcade to play. I was mostly trying to kill time, in hopes of missing some, if not all of the previews. This turned out to be all for not, but he had a good time driving a car with daddy.

 Oh yes, he was wearing his Sulley and Mike shirt.

Zane was very excited that Rowan wasn't coming with us. "Just mommy and daddy, not Ro." He couldn't wait to see Mike and Sulley and all the excitement got even bigger when he saw the Monsters snack pack at the concession stands. Of course we had to get that, a Sulley come and a little Monsters tub of popcorn. So much fun. As a side note, sometime between the last time I went to the movies (probably nine months ago) and now, the large sodas went from a large to an ungodly, unnecessarily large, size.

Once in the theater there were way too many previous, even after missing a few, and a terribly long, boring, unnecessary short feature, about umbrellas, before we actually got to the movie. You could hear grumblings of "where is Sulley? Where are the monsters?" throughout all of it. Zane did great through the movie, though it was about fifteen minutes to long. There was  a point, which seemed like a natural ending, with everyone winning, and the audience applauding, when all the little kids got up, thinking it was over. Then there were about fifteen more minutes, that were rough.  All and all it was a huge success and I was so proud of our big boy. He was beyond impressed by the "big TV." He loved seeing his monster friends, and the popcorn was a pretty big hit too. 

Today the celebrations continued with his birthday party with the Wamser clan. Lots of outdoor fun, splashing in the pool,  lots of struggle with sharing our toys (per usual for two and three year olds), great food, and I think a good time was had by all. Zane threw up twice, which is pretty much par for the birthday party course here. First time was due to his excitement over cheese, so he shoved the whole piece in his mouth, and vomited. The second time was after eating the cake (as he ate it I had a feeling I would be seeing that red frosting again). I had gotten silly string, thinking it would double as spiderwebs and the boys could spray it on things. Turns out it smells bad and Zane, with his very sensitive sense of smell/gag reflex, threw up, all his red cake, when he smelled it. At least we were outside and we could just hose him down. Above are Rowan and Ruthie taking in all the birthday fun with Ryan.

The Spiderman cake turned out much better than I thought it would when I went to bed last night. It darkened quite a bit, so it was actually red this morning. Zach drew on the spiderweb, which was spot on and Zane loved it. I still think I should buy the cakes in the future. The stress that comes with my kitchen being covered in frosting and the stomach ache that follows the cake decorating process, due to my lack of self control, are just not worth it. With that being said this year's cake turned out great and Zane enjoyed helping make it. I had planned on making Zane's favorite cheese dip, but apparently I should have let Zach make it, since he made it last time. I managed to screw it up somehow, but luckily Michelle brought dip as well, so every part of lunch was dippable. Zane was too excited about his cake to really eat anything, but enjoyed it for leftovers this evening.

Daddy left as soon as the party was over for yet another Arizona trip, while the boys and I cleaned up the house. Zane thanked me for his party, which was very heart warming, "thanks to my party mammy." (to doubles as for in his language currently). Then he informed me we needed to take down his decorations and pop all the balloons, because his party was over. I went with it since last year his birthday sign stayed up until around Thanksgiving. We have put the A and B from the sign up on our alphabet wall, so they are serving an educational purpose now.

It was a great day, though I was slightly sad that there wasn't any family here to celebrate with us. I don't think Zane knows any different. It would have been a party to him if it was just Zach and I. He felt loved and celebrated and that is all that matters, not how many people were here, or if they were family or not. Thanks so much to the Wamsers for coming to be part of his day. It meant so much to have you guys there  to celebrate with us.