The Big Day

While we had a family b-day party for Mr. Levi I wanted to make his actual birthday extra fun not only to celebrate his birthday but the end of summer. It was a blast even though dad had to work.

Started the day with balloons, streamers, and fun signs. I did it all late at night while they were sleeping. Needless to say they were quite surprised with it all.

Then for his free IHOP breakfast which wouldn't be complete without hot chocolate.

NOTE: on the way to the car from breakfast the boys decided to race to the car. Max, being in his boots, naturally fell over and scraped his knee. It wasn't that bad, a little blood but he was fairly traumatized and screamed. A lot. I put him in the car and he insisted no bandaid and because it wasn't that bad I let it slide. Bad idea. 20 minutes of his screaming and occasionally stopping for a few seconds then seeing it again and screaming almost had me running for home. But I pushed through, pulled over and I pinned him down long enough to get a bandaid on him so he at least wouldn't be looking at it.

After that he crashed because 20 minutes of freaking out tires you out and I thought we were in the clear. Not quite. We drove into seaside and parked which of course woke up the beast and he started screaming again, refusing to get out. So I decided not to let it prevent us from having a fun day and decided to wait on the beach and head toward the shops which I hoped would distract him a bit.

I thought the arcade would do the trick and we played a couple with a bit of screaming. I'm sure people thought I was beating and torturing him or something. Again, almost turned around at that one but air hockey saved the day. A game between Levi and I seemed to distract him from 'the pain' and he reluctantly joined in.

He even let me put him down for a bit so long as I held his hand so he could lean on me if needed. Man that kids good.

By the time we hit our favorite toy store he was good and distracted.

Levi was a good sport about the whole thing. I love you bud.

And we got some little dragons (Mr. Levi's been in a dragon and knights phase) along with a big puppet dragon for him and a small finger puppet one for Max. They were in heaven.

The last place we stopped was the candy shop where they got to pick whatever they wanted, toy cars with disgusting candy in them, and Max was finally in a mood to hit the sand.

One of the hilarious things amidst all the screeching and embarrassment was that Max insisted on having his boots on (we're going to be near water so of course he needed boots) and not only rolling up his pants as high as they could go but then pulling them up as much as he could while he walked.

Levi was more than ready to go.

We were lucky and found a really cool sandcastle someone left, just for us. Even had a moat around it, the boys were in heaven.

They started by setting up the troops.

and of course one of the boy's favorite past times, chasing birds.

Max finally went near the water

and even found a shell.

Now he's happy!

We stayed quite a while but eventually had to make the trip home which wouldn't be complete without a stop by camp 18. Mmmmm.

It was a fun drive. The boys and I have been listing to a favorite book series of theirs "The Magic Treehouse" which I highly recommend to anyone with kids this age. Levi loves those stories and could listen to them all day long so a nice long drive listening to his favorite stories, belly full of corndog. Life doesn't get any better.

Unless you add ice cream. Which we did. Our last stop was for his free ice cream at Stone Cold. He got strawberry and Max chocolate.

I just love these boys. My life wouldn't be half as fun without them.