ethan's extended birthday

Ethan had kind of a weird birthday season this year.  His actual birthday came and went with calls from all his grandparents, opening presents from two sets of grandparents, his choice of dinner at home (hot dogs), but then pretty much the rest of the day was Sean's.  It was Sean's opening night of Beauty and the Beast, and he pretty much stole all the attention.

I did decorate Ethan's door the night before, so in the morning he had a bundle of balloons to battle through.  :)  He still has them in his room, they've lasted almost 2 weeks already.

Then, several days later, he was able to take the day off from school, hang with Dad and I for breakfast and a movie.

So cute.

Ahh yeah, Denny's hot chocolate hits the spot.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes for the birthday boy.

No, this is not what we saw.

This is.  (The Pirates! Band of Misfits)  And it was pretty funny.

  Goofing off in the theatre.

After the boys came home, we went to Golden Corral for a late lunch.  Good stuff!  (and we left stuffed too)

Then, a week went by before we were able to have Ethan's party.  With Dad in school 3 days a week, Mom in school 2 days a week, and Dad working every third day, it was a while before we could come up with a good day for the actual party.  Which wasn't really a party at all. . .

Because. . .

Ethan's been kind of a turkey at school lately.  Not bad, mind you, just kind of disrespectful and not wanting to follow rules or be redirected in any way.

Well.

We can't have that.

So, Ethan lost his birthday party. 

I know it sounds mean, but nothing was getting through.  We still had a cake and presents, but we didn't invite any kids over, it was just all low-key.

  He asked for this spiderweb (?) cake.

It's the tallest cake I've ever made at 4 layers.

My children have very odd taste in birthday cake design.

We gave away half of it to neighbors.

All three sets of grandparents got him water toys--he had asked for a slip n' slide (didn't get a pic), a big-kid one with a ramp.  He's not even big enough to build up enough momentum to get to the ramp! He got a remote control car, a kite, several fun homemade things from his brothers, a new Wii game, and some Wii accessories.

      

All in all, his birthday lasted a good week and a half.  And though he didn't get the big party, I thin he made out pretty well.

Can't believe he's 8 already.  Man, time flies.

The following are his two birthday cake blow-outs.  Bashas gives a free birthday cake to everyone on their mailing list (score!), so we had that one a couple of weeks ago, and then the homemade spiderweb cake for the party.