The big birthday post

Alex's birthday started off with a little gift of a new Match Box fire truck (he looooooves fire trucks, or any kind of truck for that matter). He carried it around all morning and even posed with it for a quick birthday picture.

Brendan was more than happy to give Alex sweet birthday kisses too. He was so excited for it to be Alex's birthday, mostly because he knew he'd get to play with all the new toys too.

It was a busy day full of making a cake and frosting from scratch, running to the store to get eggs for the cake (how did I forget that I was out of eggs!?), cleaning my kitchen after making a mess baking that cake, getting Brendan to and from school, wrapping presents, and trying to enjoy some time to play with my boys. When Chris got home, we headed to Chic-fil-A for dinner and let the boys run around in the play area before heading back home for cake and presents.

Just before I moved that cake to the cake stand, Alex got his grubbing fingers in it. I was pretty proud of that cake though. I used a recipe that I found on Pinterest and it turned out super delicious. I don't think I'd use a chocolate ganache frosting again though- it made it a little too rich even for this chocolate lover. I'm kinda wishing I had gone with a plain chocolate buttercream instead. Oh well, the Goober still loved it.

He got a good chunk of frosting and thoroughly enjoyed it.

He started off doing pretty good with the cake- not as messy as I thought. Then I turned away to do something else and when I turned back...

 He had cake all up his arms and in his ear. Dirty Alex strikes again.

But it was his birthday so it's allowed and even preferred if he gets dirty eating his cake. I'm glad he liked it!

After cake, it was time for presents!!! Brendan was looking forward to this all day and he was more than happy to help Alex out when needed.

Alex was excited about Grandma and Grandpa Near's gift even before he opened it. He loved the Toy Story wrapping paper!

They were so excited about the helicopter, we had to force them to move on or we would have been there all night.

Grandma and Grandpa Lubniewski got him a giant Tonka truck with wheels almost as big as his head. And that thing is heavy, which means that he hopefully won't be able to throw it (he has a problem with throwing toys right now... sigh).

I got Alex his first pair of Chucks and he was so excited. Seriously, he loves shoes. He plays in my closet with all my shoes every single day and he's had numerous melt downs at Target when we walk by the shoe section and we don't stop so he can look at all the shoes. So the shoes made his evening. And the socks that went with them too. They match Brendan's socks that he got for school so hopefully now we won't have any more tantrums about not being to wear Brendan's cool socks (Alex is so weird sometimes... I just love him).

But the big gift of the night was this... a new bike.

 We had been talking about getting him a balance bike for a while and Chris scored one for a steal off of eBay (gotta support his job!) and it arrived just in time for his birthday.

He probably would have slept with it if we would have let him- so it's good to know that he loves it. He's a tiny bit short for it (sorry boys, that's my fault for passing on the short genes) but I know that won't stop him.

The day after his birthday we headed to Boondocks and celebrated in style.

 There was plenty of mini golf playing. I lost my ball by hitting it into the water on the second hole, so that was awesome.

There was plenty of this going on since Alex didn't quite want to follow Chris' coaching and hit the ball correctly and lots of picking up balls and dropping them in different places and all sorts of inventive playing. But it was fun and the boys enjoyed it.

 We got to go on go-karts, which was super fun. I hadn't driven one in probably 15 years and Chris was much better at it than I was.

Even though this outing was for Alex's birthday, he was too little to go on the go-karts and the bumper boats and he was so upset. He screamed and cried and kicked the whole time Brendan and Chris were off doing fun stuff and we just had to sit and watch. I felt so bad for him but there was an awesome play area for little kids inside, where we spent a good amount of time, a huge arcade that the boys loved and scored a ton of tickets, and even a good 4-D movie experience that was way more fun than I thought it would be. So overall, it was a fun day and by the end of it, we were exhausted. Alex took a super long nap when we got home while the rest of us chilled on the couch, too tired to do much else.

So happy birthday to Alex once again. We love this little guy and even though I don't want him to grow up, I can't wait for what this year has to offer.