Captain America Birthday

We moved directly from moving to the end of school to closing on the old house to Declan's birthday. Thankfully, Mike's allergies stayed under control through most of that. Unfortunately they blew up on D's birthday and he spent most of the day hiding from the outside and quite miserable. We were so grateful that they didn't blow up earlier - but man, he was disappointed to feel crummy on D's day.

But don't worry. It was still a great one. Quinn and I made a red velvet chocolate chip cake that morning (after Mike had saved the day and found the box with the round cake pans!) and decorated it like Captain America's shield. We also made a batch of chocolate cupcakes - because you can't have too much cake! We were very proud of our cake decor, especially the star. It's notable because we couldn't find our icing tips, so I made a star with a basic ziploc bag. Not too shabby. Both D and Fiona were impressed. 

After a corn dog lunch, three of D's 7-year-old buddies and his favorite 17-year-old buddy came over. It was still supposed to be blazing hot, so I had only invited everyone for an hour. We had the pool out and a bunch of squirt guns. For the first fifteen minutes, it was going so well that I thought "shoot, I should have gone longer than an hour." They all started melting with about 5 minutes left, so my gut feeling for timing was the right one.

The boys had the best time squirting each other - and loved so much that there was a big boy there to play with them. They eventually ganged up on Jack - who was giggling like he was seven again. Jack is just the best and the sweetest and was having just as much fun as the little boys. We paused for cake and a discussion about our favorite superheroes. Then the boys grabbed their rollerblades (D had told me multiple times that all he wanted for his birthday was a rollerblade party and a fish) and tried out some ball hockey on the new driveway. Then D opened presents and the party was over. Easy peasy.

We even got a bonus that D's friend K's big sister is good friends with the girls. So T came with to play with the ladies during the party. We spent the rest of the day playing with D's new football, eating a delicious birthday dinner of spaghetti, eating more cake, and watching the second Harry Potter movie. 

Oh - AND the birthday boy lost yet another tooth on his birthday. Right during dinner. He bit and it hurt. He showed it to Mike and M plucked it right now. D didn't even know it was gone. In addition to party guests, the tooth fairy also visited on D's birthday.

My favorite part of the day was when D's friend Andrew asked if Jack (the 17yo friend) would come to his birthday party too. So sweet. And just my favorite that Jack, who will be a HS senior this year, has never missed a friend party of Dec's. Their friendship is the absolute best. [Although this year, J drove.his.own.car to the party and I had all the feels about that. He was D's age when I met him!]

Dec marks the first birthday celebrated in the new house. And we all agree - it was a good one.