Max’s 6th Birthday

Max has been counting down the days until his birthday for MONTHS!  I’ve never seen a child so excited for his birthday to arrive.  Turning 6 was a big deal for him!

He chose to have a Jurassic World theme for his birthday party.  He’s never seen the movie, nor will he for a long time, but he loves dinosaurs!  (I find this hilarious and ironic, as Max was beyond terrified when we went through the dinosaur exhibit at Indianapolis Children’s Museum two years ago.  Keith had to take him out of the room because he was so upset!)

As usual, Grandma P made his birthday cake.  Jessica is off to college (!) this year, so Grandma had to go it alone.  She still made a wonderful cake, and Max loved it!  The smaller dinosaurs on the cake are from Grandma S.  When our kids stayed there for a few days earlier this month, Max found the dinosaurs and decided they would make great cake decorations.

So far, our children have had a special friend party when they turn 5.  All the rest of our birthday parties are family-only events.  We were missing a few special people this year, due to heading off to college, work schedules, and sickness, but we still had a nice group to celebrate Max!  That’s what our outgoing little guy wanted – a whole lot of people to come to his party!

Max knew in advance that he would be receiving Skylanders Trap Team game from us, as he was with me when I bought it.  It was on clearance, and I had a $10 coupon, so I couldn’t pass up the deal.


He also received a Jurassic World Lego set, a Super Soaker gun, several characters and traps for his Trap Team game, a kindergarten workbook, two Funny Gears sets, a Toy R Us gift card, cash, and several dinosaur puzzles.  (Plus, Kevin & Annie gave him his presents a few weeks ago – a ginormous inflatable frisbee and a checkers game.)

It’s a little crazy with all the kiddos around!


Lance and Jensyn having a cute moment…


checking out the presents


Woohoo!  Max was excited about this one!


Jurassic Park birthday banner, a bunch of spiral decorations
left over from previous parties, and his fun dinosaur cake…


lighting the candles and singing ‘Happy Birthday’


after the candles were blown out…


fun on the trampoline, playing with leftover boxes and bags

The party was on the 23rd, the day before Max’s birthday.  We wanted his actual birthday to be special, too, so we saved the Trap Team game for Max to unwrap on his special day. 

On his birthday, Max picked to stay in his jammies all day.  I told him we’d take the day off of school in honor of his birthday. He also chose homemade pancakes for breakfast and Kraft mac ‘n cheese for lunch.   I told him I would make whatever he wanted for dinner, and he told me, “I want pizza.  With sausage and pepperoni.  And red peppers and green peppers.  And I don’t want you to make it.  I want it to come from a restaurant.”

I emailed Keith at work, and he told me to go ahead and order the pizza since it was Max’s birthday request.  So we had our pizza dinner, gave Max his present, and spent the evening playing Trap Team.  We ended the day with leftover cake.  It was an all-around nice day!

Max, I’m not quite sure where the past 6 years have gone.  In my mind, you’re this little guy…

…or maybe even THIS little guy….

Somehow you’ve grown way-too-quickly into an amazing, fun-loving, energetic, dramatic, and mischievous six year old with a great big heart.  We miss the baby you once were, but we love the boy you are growing to be.  We pray that you’ll continue to face the world with a smile on your face, excitement in your eyes, and love for Jesus in your heart.  We love you, Maxwell Corbin!  Happy SIXTH birthday!

Seven

Let’s go back in time for a moment.  A little over 7 years ago, this very exhausted couple welcome their first child into the world on the day after Christmas.  (Little did they know that 3 years later, they’d have THREE children and still be just as exhausted, ha!)

 

Now we have a seven year old.  I’ve had a month to get used to that, and it still seems impossible.  Alex has done a whole lot of growing up, but he’s still our baby!

With his birthday so close to Christmas, we wait until mid-January to do a family party.  We still have to acknowledge his special day, though.  This year, we had a pretty lazy day – the girls of the family went shopping in the morning, and then the guys of the family went to see a movie in the afternoon.  In the evening, we had Alex’s favorite food – pizza – and we gave Alex our presents for him. 

This year, he got a Captain America pixelated t-shirt, Nutella & breadsticks snack cup, and the much-wanted Skylanders SwapForce game.  After receiving the game, he wanted to pose for pictures with his siblings.

Alex’s family party was last weekend.  He picked a TMNT theme this year, which really surprised me.  I thought he’d go for Skylanders! 

The party was simpler this year because we didn’t do the cooking – since  was TMNT party, we HAD to have Alex’s favorite food – pizza!  We found a good online deal AND a coupon code for Pizza Hut, so we sprang for pizza.  Along with that, we had chips, veggies & dip, and fruit.  (Thanks for the fruit, Deb!)  Grandma S always does pigs in a blanket, but we skipped that this year since we had plenty of pizza.

Party Highlights…



presents – Transformers socks, Ninjago Legos, Switch & Go dino, Skylanders characters, Super Luigi U video game, basketball shirt & shorts, Ninja Turtles book, and Donatello stocking cap


Yep, all 3 kiddos have Ninja Turtle shirts (even a pink one!) that I found
on Target’s website for dirt cheap with free shipping!


sweet Lance looking on in the middle of the chaos…


Cailin popping bubble wrap…


Alex’s last super-special cake – Jessica is heading off to college in August, so the amazing cakes by Grandma P & Jessica are coming to an end.  I’d say they went out with a bang, though – a TMNT Pizza Cake with cookie crust, candy toppings, and rice krispie treat ninja turtles?  You can’t beat that!




Here’s a picture of the pizza – cookie dough crust, gummy soldier green peppers, gummy bear onions & red peppers, round red gummies sliced thin & topped with crushed red velvet sprinkles (pepperoni), and chocolate cluster sausages.  What imagination!

futile attempt at a cousins picture with Lance,
but there were too many distractions!

Seven.  Not sure how we got this far, but you are turning into one wonderful young man, Alex! We hope and pray that you will continue to grow just like Jesus did – in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and men!  We love you!

Max’s Friend Party

Over a month after his actual birthday, we finally had Max’s friend party!  He wanted to invite every boy in his co-op preschool class, plus his friends from church and our neighbor boy.  Not everyone could come, but we still ended up with 13 kids (including our 3) for a fun-filled afternoon.  We kept with the Avengers theme from his family party.

(11 kids pictures, 2 little ones are still running around…)

I didn’t get very many pictures, and most aren’t the greatest pics, as it’s a little crazy having 13 kids in the house!  I had an organized plan in my head, but in the chaos, it was easier to just go with the flow!  (We had a toddler who choked & got sick all over the kitchen floor…how’s that for chaotic and scary?!)

Thanks to two wonderful grandmas, my job as ‘party planner’ was much easier.  Grandma P had made a bunch of cupcakes to go along with Max’s birthday cake several weeks ago, so we froze those and saved them for the friend party.  Grandma S heard my plan to make felt capes for the kids, and she kindly made them all for us!

When the kids arrived, we had hotdogs, Avengers go-gurt, veggies & dip, grapes, chips, and juice boxes.  (We also had water bottles and pop for grown-ups.)

After that I set out bowls of glue, foam brushes, and felt shapes (stars, lightning bolts, hearts, flowers, and each child’s first initial).  The kids had a free-for-all with decorating their capes.  All thoughts of this being an organized activity went out the window, but the kids had fun anyway

After that, Max opened the presents from his friends.  He got an Avengers first aid kit (fun idea!), a Spiderman mask, a Captain America costume, a remote control truck, some other fun toy monster trucks, a McDonalds gift card, a Spiderman puzzle, Avengers coloring book, and Avengers tattoos.  What a spoiled boy!

cupcake & ice cream time…

I’d purchased a ‘pin the chest emblem on Iron Man’ game, but it contained 8 stickers…that wouldn’t work with 13 kids.  I thought about doing it in two rounds and just taping on the stickers, but ended up just skipping it.  The kids were having fun just playing together, so I didn’t feel the need to pull them away from their fun.  My kids can play it for fun sometime.

They ended with some outdoor time to play.  I asked them all to stop & post for a few quick pictures (like the one at the top of this post.)  If you’re wondering, Max is on the swings with a Spiderman mask.

my favorite random picture – the kids were still getting organized,
and I accidentally snapped a picture.  Jensyn’s grin cracks me up!

Each child went home with a fun bag of party favors & their superhero cape.  My kids were so excited to put together those favor bags…light-up red & blue bracelets (clearance sale from 4th of July), ten color Avenger pens, Avengers note pads, Avengers crazy straw, Avenger backpack zipper pull-tabs, and Avengers fruit snacks.

So Max, you celebrated your 5th birthday in Virginia, had a family party at home two weeks later, and had a friend party 3 weeks after that.  How’s that for really stretching out your birthday?  Happy FIVE!  We love you, big boy!!

(Now I have 1.5 years to recover before Jensyn gets HER five year old friend party…)