He asked for chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. We made them in a shape of a Z and a 6. And we let him open a few presents before Jesse went to work. He had a long list of Lego sets he wanted - following in the footsteps of his Lego-loving brothers. He received two sets as gifts and bought one more with birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa.
He spent time in the afternoon playing the Wii, which he rarely gets to play on school days. And had lots of time to play with his new sets.
He asked for his favorite dinner - sweet and sour meatballs with rice. And for his cake this year, he wanted the Hawaiian Islands with a volcano. Not sure where he came up with that one, other than the fact that we put a map of the U.S. under the vinyl on our table so they can start learning geography and capitals, and Hawaii is right where he usually sits at the table. It was a fun, easy cake to make.
He opened the rest of the presents that evening and had fun putting another Lego set together as he got to stay up a little later than usual.
A few other fun birthday things that happened were a little over a week before his birthday, we went to pick apples (more on that in another post soon). That evening as we drove home we stopped in an old part of town that has a fun hamburger restaurant (not a chain) with a train depot nearby. We had dinner there and told them his birthday was coming up. They brought him a huge sundae to enjoy. He was SO excited to have all that ice cream to himself.
And his soccer practice after his birthday, I made sugar cookies decorated as soccer balls for his team. They sang to him and enjoyed the cookies.
I bought this shirt at Target for just $6. It wasn't til I was about to wrap it that I found it is an interactive shirt. You download a free app for the iPhone, Zappar, then you choose the item. So in this case this particular shirt. Then you hold up the phone to the shirt and it becomes 3-D, then you can select the different characters from the shirt and move them around. So you could line them up next to you or on the wall or wherever and take a picture. So it would look like Superman was standing next to you. Kind of fun.
Awhile back from some event, the kids got these little finger lights. Zach really wanted some for his birthday. We ordered a set of 40 of them for $7 from Amazon. We only gave Zach 10 for his birthday - we're saving the rest for when those get lost or burn out. He promptly shared them so each brother got 2 or 3. They all put them on their fingers, turned off all their lights and had a little disco party with them. They are quite bright and fun.
Zach is developing quite a personality. He is very imaginative and is usually calling us "Holli" and "Jesse" because he is visiting our home as Superman or Harry Potter. He stays in full character and will not let you call him, "Zach". He is settling in to homeschool. He sometimes says he wishes he went to school, but that is usually when he wants to play and I'm telling him to get some work done. I remind him that if he were at school he wouldn't get to play with his toys, and he'd be gone all day, and then have homework after he comes home. But most of the time he loves it and writes me notes how much he loves homeschool. He is fun to teach. He is eager and a quick learner and I love having the time with him. He is having fun playing soccer again this year and asks quite often why he can't start cub scouts yet. He is an avid reader. He figured out how to use the home phone and loves to call Jesse or I on our cell phones when we are not home, and also calls Grandma sometimes. He likes to write letters too. Zach is a wonderfully fun kid and we love having him in our family.
