We celebrated Mathis’ 7th birthday in January, the same day we heard the baby’s heartbeat. An exciting day all around! Mom’s birthday box was filled with all the makings for a great party, which was a huge blessing, since I wasn’t exactly on top of things like birthday party decorations!
Since our visit to the Birmingham Christmas Market, Bard had been craving bratwurst and convinced Mathis it would be a great birthday dinner. Yum! The birthday boy himself … I’m sure we cut his hair sometime shortly after this!
We covered the table with white paper and Mathis spent a couple of hours decorating it. Turned out to be a great idea and has been in great demand since :)
The centerpiece … I wish you could appreciate the details of the battle going on in the drawing.
Each plate was designated :)
Things dads do that make kids laugh and spit their milk out …
Chocolate cake with Nutella for icing (and dueling pirates) … not fancy, but certainly yummy!
The highlight of the night (not captured by camera) was when Jackson took the number seven candle and snuck behind my chair to take a big bite out of it. Not what he expected :)
Don’t you love how Kate is holding his head still for the picture :)
Fun, fun … for inquiring minds, the chalkboard we used for Sword Club at church. We just took it off the wall and popped it into the back of the van. Then it hung back up on the wall with that on it for a couple of weeks :)
Doesn’t he have the sweetest smile :)
Jackson’s birthday was just a few weeks later, but he threw up the night before so we decided not to tell him it was his special day. We’d been talking about his birthday approaching and we were sure the big kids would remember, but somehow it worked out that they didn’t. Bard and I felt like we were sneaking around all day, but we knew it would be more disappointing for him to know and not be able to celebrate, so we pushed it back another week.
We started the night off with glow sticks outside … lots of fun! It wasn’t easy capturing the kids in motion. It pretty much went like this … here one second …
gone the next :)
The lighting was so nice we decided to try me and the kids … they were still in glow stick mode, not sure where the birthday boy was!
The awesome cake made by a friend from church :)
Opening Mathis’ present (can you tell Jackson has turned away from Mathis to keep him from opening it himself?)
helpers :)
Trader Joe’s cookies and milk … thank you, Walls!! He took the ABC cookies y’all sent to some friends house and was so proud to share his birthday cookies. These we had squirreled away in the freezer from Christmas.
playing with Kate’s horse that she re-gifted to him :)
