theYoakums.net

trip home from the hospital

He asked for a super hero birthday party, so I said how about Spiderman?  (Maddox had just had a Spiderman b-day party, so I figured I could get the Spidey hook up from Steph)  Jake loved that idea, so that’s what we did.  On Wednesday he and Derek had Nido in the morning, so we had a little party with their teachers and friends.  I made cupcakes, popcorn and jello.  They sang happy birthday to him and his teachers got him a new book.  It was fun, and Jake loved all the special attention.  Who wouldn’t?

Derek

We decided NOT to have a Peruvian style birthday and just invited our teammates over for dinner, cake and ice cream–Spiderman style of course, on Thursday evening.  Mainly because that would have required a lot more work and we were not prepared for it in a lot of ways.  A small party we could do, though.  We thought it would be fun to have a bean bag toss, because I found a $10 plastic bowling set and our kids are getting old enough to actually enjoy carnival games.  And since I have such a creative and talented husband this is the kind of bean bag toss that he made (out of cardboard and paint).

Also, I thought we should have a fun adult game, so I asked Wes if he had thought about making a washers set.  Well, he went all out, and made a for real deal game that will last us a long time.  Besides being fun for fellowship, it will be a good ministry tool for us to use, too, when we invite people over. (We hope to get a ping-pong table soon, too.)

I found a really great little party store close to our house to find all kinds of things people need for parties, so that was good.  Among other things, I found some fun letter candles to use.  What I did NOT find was food coloring for the cake.  I’ve only seen two kinds of frosting so far–chocolate or vanilla.  So I used both for the cake and couldn’t do anything too fancy this time.  Which in a lot of ways was a blessing, because this is the first time in four years that I was done with Jake’s cake at least two hours before the party.  :)

Jakob was really cute as I was getting things ready for his party.  He was noticing all the little details and would say things like, “Wow, Mom.  Thanks for putting a spider web on my cake, it’s so cool.”  (He also decided exactly where he wanted his letter candles to go on the cake.)  Another thing he said was, “Those Spiderman masks look so great on the wall.  You are making our backyard the coolest backyard ever!”

So even though our little party ended up being a little more work than I had anticipated, it was totally worth it, because Jakob enjoyed every second of it.  He got lots of new presents and is having a blast with them.  He has Wes’ engineering brain for sure.  His favorite toys are the ones made for ages 5 and up, because he loves to build things and put things together and take them apart.

Gran and Grandad were able to watch him open presents.

(That’s a sticker on my head.  We had sticker jewelry prizes for the girls.)

We love you, Jake, and are so glad you had a happy birthday!