Isaac's Birthday

Wow, we have had such a busy and fun week. Last Wednesday Isaac turned 5!!!We started out the day with our traditional birthday muffin.You see the idea is to wake up the kids on their birthday with a muffin and song. Of course, Isaac, being our early riser, beat us up that day. We had to send him back to his room and come in later with the "surprise". He still loved it! We read Dr. Suess' "Happy Birthday to You!" and Gabe gave Isaac his first gift.... his very own carabiner, because Isaac is now an official rock climber!! We spent the rest of the day at the McKenna Children's Museum in New Braunfels with some friends. Lots of fun. Then that evening we took the family to the Rainforest Cafe. Isaac had gone to one before but he was too young to remember. So this was like his first experience with Rainforest Cafe,and what a wonderful experience it was. This place does not skimp on the decor!! All the animals come to life every 15 minutes and there is a lightning and thunderstorm every 30 minutes. Isaac was in awe. Julia, not so much. She hid her eyes from most of the animals except the butterflies and she made us cover her ears when the storm started. We enjoyed a great dinner and then shared the volcano dessert. WOW!!! It was four large wedges of brownie leaned together to form the volcano shape. The inside was filled with ice cream and the top was whip cream. The whole thing was drizzled with hot fudge and carmel. YUMMY!!! Isaac even let the staff sing him 'Happy Birthday'!

Saturday we had Isaac's birthday party: An Outer Space theme! I think it was by far my favorite party so far. I had so much fun!!! Our rule for birthday parties is that the kids can only invite one child per year of age. This year Isaac insisted that there only be "big boys" at his party. So including Isaac we had 6 little (er um, I mean BIG) boys training to be astronauts in the backyard with a rocket landing, comet toss, and the moon walk(bouncy house).Once thoroughly trained, Gabe and I took all the astronauts on a space adventure. Gabe built a rocket with a control panel for each child. We hung a sheet up in front of the rocket and used the 3D space projector Isaac got for Christmas to project some pretty cool images of outer space. It was so fun listening to their dialog and how they added to the role play. One little boy kept saying, "Beep, beep, beep. The button of mass construction is going off!!" Boy that got a laugh! After an eventful flight in outer space, all the boys put on the jet packs I made them and we flew over to Mars. I turned Isaac's room into Mars with red everything. We played with Mars sand(moon sand - that stuff is cool) and then saved the planet from an incoming meteorite. (huge foil ball with candy within each layer) They all got to take turns unwrapping the meteorite until it was all gone. Then we flew over to the moon (Julia's room) Everything was white, silver and blue. I made "moon rocks" for the kids to find. They were little astronaut toys hidden within a baking soda rock. Once each boy found one we took it to our "lab" to investigate the moon rock. The lab consisted of a bowl full of vinegar. They enjoyed watching their rocks sizzle and fizz to expose the toy inside. After this, we flew back to our rocket and came in for a landing on Earth. SO MUCH FUN!!! The party ended with cake and gifts. Isaac decided that he wanted all of his friends to help him open gifts so it was just one big frenzy of laughter, excitement, and whirls of wrapping paper. Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to add. Gabe made an astronaut cut out. All the kids (and Gabe and I) posed behind the cut out for a genuine astronaut photograph. Big hit with the kids!(and the adults!!) So that wraps up our celebrations of Isaac's 5th birthday. Probably more than you wanted to know, but it was so fun I HAD to give you all the nitty gritty details! Enjoy the pictures!!

**Let me clarify: The gift to Billie from Gabe was a walking stick unipod, not a new camera!!