max's 6th birthday

on the december 12, 2003 my life as i knew it changed forever and my sweet baby max was born. i had no idea i could love somebody as much as i loved him! i can't believe that was six years ago!! this has been a big year so far...he started kindergarten, lost two teeth and gained a new baby brother. on this birthday day we celebrated pretty low key...at home with the five of us and mimi and poppy. we let him choose where we would have lunch and he chose to stay home and have his daddy fix us all pancakes :) ....how sweet is that. daddy made the pancakes and i made the cupcakes...great combination mimi pointed out later!

poppy doing what he does best.....

max with his presents

yep, this was the year i've dreaded for six years....max got his first bb gun. it would've been much sooner had adam had his way...ughh. i've been promised thorough gun education and strict rules...i still hate it.

this picture i can appreciate. there is something special i suppose about a dad teaching his little boy how to shoot a gun...i just don't like that my little boy is old enough to do that. :(

anyway..... the next day we had a birthday party at river city gymnastics with all his friends. max's birthday is always so hard because of the time of year it is. i always feel like i don't get to put as much effort into it as i would like...like the obsessive attention to detail that seems to be fading now that i have three kids. so this year with a new baby and it being christmas bla, bla, bla i let max have complete control (within reason) of what kind of party, who he wanted to invite, where to have it and the cake...the cake was a hard one to let go of for some reason...i've always tried to make their cakes in the past or when impossible, go to great lengths to make sure they are completely, awesomely perfect by my cake lady...anyway the following is max's 6th birthdy party created by him!.....

in the lobby of river city waiting for friends to arrive. these are the buck and trotter cousins...asa and graham are about one week apart.

asa and graham...asa is actually the older one :)

maddie and her sweet cousin caroline jumping on the trampoline!

aunt kristin....the sign said just for children...

maddie and the pit

max and caroline on the pirate ship slide....one of the main reasons he chose to have his party here!

david, max and sam in the foam pit....good friends!

getting a little instruction before swinging from the high bar into the pit...

maddie's first attempt...

...maybe next time. (she actually did get the hang of it and drop many more times w/o help and loved it...just a little scary the first time)

and the birthday boys turn...he loved it!

as you can tell from his red face and sweaty hair he did this many times as well and had a blast!

aunt kristin and sweetest baby ever...asa :)

they have a really great system there of opening presents. the birthday boy sat up high on a mountain foam thing and then one by one each guest sat up there with him while he opened their presents. all the other guest sat in a circle and watched until their name was called. this was scott and kristin's turn :)

max and his friends scarlet and ana.

caroline, max and maddie

and here it is...we went to walmart of all places only because he told me he wanted a sponge bob cake and i thought i would not waste the cake lady's time on such. i let him flip through the book of cakes they have to choose from to find which sponge bob cake he wanted and we left with a dinosaur cake with a mountain of lava. i have to say it actually turned out better than i was expecting and tasted great! he loved it!

this was a great day, a birthday i'm sure he'll be able to remember...i'm glad i let him put his stamp on it :)