Happy Birthday, Zach

Is my baby really five already?  We celebrated Zach's birthday last Thursday, March 25th.  We've set the standard (as many have) of celebrating at school with a treat and then hosting a party on the weekend.  Kids know how to celebrate all week long!  Zach requested doughnuts, so I hosted a quick little 'happy birthday Zach' on the playground, candle and all.  Ah, candles in a doughnut; it doesn't get any better than that.  Or does it?  His schoolmates were so sweet and devoured the treats with gusto.  It was perfect timing since they could run off the sugar overload on the playground.  Thanks Mrs. Dominquez and Ms. Onsager for allowing us to celebrate with Zach.

Thursday morning, before school Zach opened the prized box that has been sitting in our dining room for over a week.  Who was the box from...none other than Nonnie.  Since she lives in New York, she is wonderful about mailing packages to the kids.  Leave it to a grandparent to also send wonderful gifts and goodies for Olivia too. She gave them lots and lots of goodies, can you tell by the candy trail?  I wasn't sure I would get Zach out of the house with his new Star Wars Lego set.  Alas, he knew what the rest of the day held for him, so off we went.

Dave arrived home very early with a surprise.  A new 16" bike for our big 5 year old.  We thought he was 'cute' on his miniature bike, aka the clown bike', but he deserved a big bike seeing that he loves to ride.  He and Garrett logged many rounds at our neighborhood pool parking lot Saturday. Garrett gave him a huge Air Hogs plane that will be great for the park - we need lots of space for this one...

Hurley Haywood, a recently retired Porsche race car driver and family friend, mailed Zach a special Brumos racing car for his new slot track.  Hurley is Zach's hero, so you can imagine how excited he was to receive that present!

Soccer practice was scheduled for Thursday night with rain looming.  After waiting and waiting, we decided to go ahead and have a leisurely dinner at Zach's favorite place, FIGO.  He proudly announced "I know how to spell FIGO.  F-I-G-O, it's easy."  Well, it's not only easy, it's delicious!

This year, for his birthday party, we hired a group called Club Scientific, to host at our house.  We've had some rough weather over the last month, but Saturday turned out to be beautiful.  We were able to shoot balloons, alka seltzer rockets and air pumped rockets over our house (and many neighbors houses).  The backyard was filled with over 25 kids and many, many parents.  The kids were taking all of this 'science stuff' in.  As the company logo says "Science Can Be Fun".  Again, I think all of the adults and kids were just happy to see sunshine at this point, so playing outdoors put the icing on the cake.  Speaking of cake, there was a little mix up at the bakery.  I had a Spider Man cake sitting in my shopping cart, with "Happy Birthday Zach", but we didn't order it.  Zach was very specific that he wanted the Hot Wheels cake.  The bakery was quick on their feet and redecorated the yummy vanilla with strawberry filling cake and I was out of the door to host a party.

Zach is very lucky to have so many friends and family that love him.  All 5 years of him..... He has been saving for a SCX slot car race set and with the birthday gift cards, he will get it.  Thank you everyone!  Of course, he loves his Legos too.  He really wanted a pet pillow like Olivia received for her birthday, so Liz, stepped up once again and delivered the Penguin Pet Pillow (being balanced on their heads in the photo).  He is now named Hockey.  I'll have to figure out where this name came from, but  unfortunately, his Hockey has been taken away for bad behavior.   I think behavior will turn around quickly seeing that he loves this Penguin Pillow.  Why do moms have to take all the fun out of things?!  In order to get our kids to behave like normal human beings - that's why :-)  Happy Birthday, you crazy 5 year old!