(As a side note, before I start – here I sit again, at Evergreen Hospital on 6/4 – waiting as Joel hopefully has his final arm surgery.  I definitely prefer the lighting to this little cubicle over the lighting we have at work. This seems to be the only place where I get a couple of hours to myself to fill you in on past events…..)

WOW – we did it.  All of us survived the boys 4th birthday and the weekend of overwhelming events and fun.  Joel wasn’t sure that we could pull it off but I had confidence.  Because the boys’ birthday happened to fall on Memorial Day weekend, their birthday fun spanned three days.  Thus, you will get posts detailing out what exactly happened over those three days.  I don’t believe I could have done it all in two.  We definitely needed the WHOLE weekend and I’m also glad that kids rarely remember what occurs when they are 4.  This would be a bad precedent to have to follow.

That said, the weekend before their birthday, I made Joel move furniture around with me.  I knew we would be frantically finishing up stuff before the boys’ party with friends and I wanted to level-load our preparation activities.  We needed additional floor space in order to facilitate a guest list of ~15 kids (preschool class) plus ~15 parents.  Thank goodness we already had a daycare like setting downstairs.

Tuesday night – while grocery shopping for food, the boys conned us into buying them early birthday presents – fancy matchbox cars.  On the one hand, I really like shopping at Fred Meyer because you can find everything in one shopping trip – food, clothes, toys, household goods, furniture, etc….  On the other hand, the boys know exactly where the cars are and insist on inspecting what’s available during every visit.  After you read all three posts, I do want you to know that because we bought them an early birthday present, our goal was to hold something else back.  In the end, I not sure that worked out the way we justified the early purchase.  Hindsight would tell me not to fall for that trick again.  Especially because these cars didn’t work as well as the boys had hoped and led to many tears and frustration.

On Friday night, we had the boys help us stuff gift bags for their friends.  We thought this would be a good activity, one in which the boys would learn to give something they liked (matchbox cars) away to others.  Hmmmm – once again, hindsight would be useful to have before you start an activity.  For the most part, the stuffing of bags worked.  EXCEPT for the fact that the boys expected to keep some of the cars.  Oops.  Sometimes, we suck as parents.  Duped again.  Two more early presents went to the boys.

Joel and I did such a good job of staging everything for the party and getting everything set up just right, that when the boys woke up around 6:30am the next morning wondering why their friends weren’t at the party yet, not only did we then have to find stalling tactics to keep them busy until 9:45am, we had to figure out how to keep them from playing with the staged toys.  When we saw one of their friends arrive early, I made Joel chase Kristen and Cooper down the street in order to get them in the house before 10am (when the party was to start).  Thank you Malin for the Lightning candy tins, belts, and shirts (which they look totally cute in).

Finally, everyone but two parents and 3 kids arrived (due to colds).  The house was a buzzing with activity.  Dexter kind of watched other kids for a while and did his own thing.  Occasionally he’d interact with others.  Nicky interacted much more.  The train track was a hit, as was the fishing game, pin the funnel on Thomas, throw the bean bag in the basket, books, and more.  Thank goodness I went with Joel’s suggestion of pizza at 11:15am.  It was around that time that I could feel a restlessness overcome the kids.  Everyone sat down for food, then cake.  Each boy got his own cake.  Nicholas had a monster truck jumping over cars.  Dexter had workers and construction vehicles.

Saturday also turned out to be a gloriously sunny day.  Once again – we were lucky.  I opened the deck doors after food and we all went outside.  Let the sugar kick in while the kids were running around outside.  This is when we also opened presents.  Even though we said gifts were not necessary, most everyone brought something.  The boys loved every gift, for about 20 seconds and then Nicky would turn to me and ask where was the next present.  Around 12:30pm, the parents decided they were done, and the party ended.

With the house quiet once more, Malina gave her present to the boys.  More Legos!  Thank you Malina.  Nicholas insisted that I come up and stay for his nap.  Of course I fell asleep on the floor of their bedroom for a good 20 minutes before rejoining Dexter and Joel downstairs.  The boys played with their new toys the rest of the day while we tried to restore order to our home.

That night – Joel and I stayed up until midnight, prepping our gifts for the boys. After many a moment of going back and forth – knowing that we totally overdid their presents and thinking of holding back some before deciding to just go for it, Joel turned to me and said, doesn’t this feel like Christmas?

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