Birthday Fun!

On Jack's actual birthday the kids and I stopped by at school to have lunch with Jack and bring his classmates some bead necklaces. 

It was fun to see Jack with his friends and see how much he really has come out of his shell this year.

He is really quite a popular boy!

Later that night we meet Daddy at work and then headed to The Boeing Flight Museum. The first Thursday of the month is free admission so we thought that would be a fun activity as a family. The first thing we did was check out the planes that were outside and then ate dinner at a picnic table. While eating we were able to see the Sounder train go by and watch a bunch of planes land at Boeing Field. The kids loved that! 

Owen has been playing a computer game called Company of Heroes. He loves it! Tanks, machine guns and missiles. It's really gotten him interested in history and war. Plus he's has this new fascination with being a pilot! It was fun to show him all the fighter planes...plus they had a model of an aircraft carrier and he loved that. We are actually planning on taking the kids to tour the carriers in Bremerton this summer.

We actually have a whole list of things to do this summer...our bucket list. When I was reading things off the list Jack actually said he wanted us to cross off the flight museum. I thought...great...that's what we were planning for your birthday. The actuality he had a great time and even said he was happy that we went. 

This experience was really good for us to learn how we are and are not going to handle the kids at Disneyland. I forgot the stroller so we just had to walk around. Michael carried Zeke on his shoulders some of the time, but that started to get uncomfortable so we let him walk a bit. Ella is the hard one to keep under control. She is such a wanderer! I'm pretty sure we are going to end up having her wear one of those puppy backpacks with the leash! I've always hated those things...we have one and all the kids used it to wear their puppy like I would wear a baby, but I've never used them as a leash. She needs it! 

So we introduced the kids to the buddy system. Another thing I picked up from the Duggar family. Their buddies are a bit older than our buddies are, but I can't change that! The kids did really well and they actually took pride in being each other buddies. We had them hold hands and then we talked about how the older buddy needs to help the younger buddy when they need it. Of course this was the first time so there are some kinks to work out...like Jack walking faster than Zeke and pulling him down, but that will come with time. We are going to work on the buddy thing all through the summer so they will get more and more used to it. Of course we are going to use an umbrella stroller while were in Disneyland, but this will come in handy some time I'm sure. 

On our way home Jack asked if he could open one present since his birthday party wasn't until Sunday. I told him it wasn't even wrapped yet and he said he didn't care he could just close his eyes. So I presented him with his Explorer Kit. It's all about, bugs, travel and season. It has a field journal, game, cd and stickers. He loved it! I would say it was a great birth-day!