Erik's birthday festivities

I really thought I'd taken pictures of all the fun we had with visitors in April and May. Hmmm, I'll have to hunt for those. In the meantime, Erik did get around to having his fourth birthday and we let him alone dictate the day's activities, free of interference from a certain older sister who lovingly meddles. He requested the train park and Yumberi frozen yogurt. Easy enough.

















I figured I might as well throw him a birthday party, too, while I was at it. It's hard to tell if Erik or his mom loves Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs more (we do like the book, but I'm referring to the film), but our shared fanaticism made for an easy party theme choice.

Vicious winds prevented my vision of dangling food and rat-birds from coming to fruition, but the beauty of it all was that... no one cared. Not a one. Why didn't someone tell me seven parties ago that no one cares how a party looks, sounds, smells, and acts like a Martha-Stewart wanna-be-party? I know, I know, you all tried.

Not that there's anything wrong with extravagant birthday parties, if you're not making sacrifices in every other aspect of life in order to pull them off. Okay, lesson learned.

So ERIK. He loved his party just as much as every previous one. Maybe more. I will do (almost) absolutely anything to procure that toothy magic, but it's very comforting to know it's not nearly as hard to do so as I'd made it.








Yes, I free-handed Flint Lockwood for our pin-the-spray-on-shoes-on-Flint piece of entertainment. Unfortunately, I forgot all of the shoe cut-outs at home, but again, no one cared. We improvised and used it as a target for a rat-bird toss.

Erik even invented his own rendition of freeze tag: the tagger had a toy piece of peanut brittle for tagging/freezing and someone else had a toy syringe for unfreezing/administering the peanut allergy medicine for all the "Sam Sparks'" experiencing anaphylactic shock. If you're not well acquainted with the film, you might be a bit confused. Also, you really should see it. Really.

Don't forget Steve's gummi bears!

Party was a confirmed success when Erik fell asleep while Kyle was offering him bedtime story choices. Do I love anything more than that slumbering face? It was a happy birthday indeed.