Birthdaypalooza 2013 Part 1

Sorry for the delay in birthday posts, but BIRTHDAYPALOOZA is so intense around here, I have to get through it before I can blog about it.  ;)  We just have a blast celebrating our kids' birthdays.  It's such a fun time to bond as a family.  I really feel like this is a time to strengthen their love for each other, and celebrate each kid in a way that can be hard to do sometimes in a large family.  I really want my kids to know how special they each are to me.  Also, these young birthdays are just so fun and I know we only have so many to celebrate like this.

As per the norm, the birthday kid gets to wake up to decorations of their favorite color - for Parker it was blue balloons and streamers.  This is such a simple and maybe silly tradition, but it's amazing how excited my kids get over it.  I think it's one of those little things that they really appreciate.  One thing I didn't get around to this year was birthday crowns, and my homemade sign was sadly damaged after two years hard use and wouldn't stand up to another.  Maybe next year we'll get back on that.  ;)  We also had a steady stream of birthday cards pouring in all month from great grandparents and they added a fun touch to the decor.  Some of them even sang and added party music to the festivities!  This photo was actually at Andrew's birthday and by then some of the cards had just plain been loved to peices...this isn't even all of them.  Pretty crazy huh?!

Parker as the man of the day got to choose the meals.  For breakfast it was fried egg sandwiches and smoothies.  We spread the presents out over the day, opening presents of clothes and rockets from Grandpa and Grandma Morgan in the morning, Wii games and a board game from Grandma and Poppy in the afternoon, and after a dinner of lasagna we opened some books, (Homer Price, The Indian in the Cupboard, and My Father's Dragon - which he finished the very next day by the way) SkipBo cards, and Duck Tales on DVD from Mom and Dad.

Parker is getting so so big, and is in the stage of not really loving to have his picture taken, so there were a quick few snapped while opening some presents.

 Are you getting as big of a kick out of Drew's face in this one as me?  The whole fam was excited to finally own some Duck Tales.  It's a favorite around here.

And in this one, note Floody trying to get to his brother's presents.  He has been a scooter for quite some time now and we had to keep moving the presents and wrapping paper out of his way.

 ....and coming back around the other side.  Isn't he cute?  I should also mention here that Parker is the WORLD'S BEST BIG BROTHER.  He just loves baby Noah and dotes on him in the sweetest way.  Even when Noah is getting into things he shouldn't, Parker always has a smile for him and something nice to say.  He's told me we should have ten more babies in our family. ;)  He added that he would say a "million-dy" except that he thinks we only have room for ten more in our house.

 One thing that made Parker's birthday really fun was making his cake.  I usually let the kids choose their cake.  In the past we've done dump trucks and pirate ships, but Parker is a more traditional man.  He specifically requested a tiered cake.  Seeing as how we are up to our eyeballs in cake by the end of July, I didn't go for fancy from scratch this year in an effort to conserve my cake making strength.  And since he'd chosen a simple design I let him come and pick out the flavor of the mix with me.  Oh boy!  He was thrilled with all the choices.  He chose a strawberry cake mix for the top and bottom tiers and a pineapple cake mix for the middle.  Then he went hog wild with the frosting.  There was some choose your own flavor variety of plain frosting where you just by the can and mix in a powder, (of which there were tons to choose from!) for flavor and color.  The blue you see was cotton candy flavored, and the purple was a white chocolate raspberry.  It was a bit of a flavor overload. :)

We had a lot of fun making the cake together.  Parker is such a big independent boy and loves to help me cook and he wasn't about to be left out of this!  I pretty much assembled the cake and let him do the rest.  I don't think he's ready for Cake Boss yet, but I think it was pretty awesome anyway.  And I loved that he was willing to pose for a picture with me when it was all ready.

 After cake and presents we got the kids to all line up for a picture.  You can imagine what it was like to get a semi-decent shot out of six of them.  I actually think every single one of them was hilarious, but maybe in a 'only a mom could love' sort of way, so I'll only post one.

So how do I feel about my big boy turning 7 you ask?  I don't like it one bit!!  :)  Okay, okay, he's really super fun to be around and I love having real talks with him and he's a great helper, but could somebody slow this growing up thing down please?!  You'd think with five others around I'd be happy to have some of them grow up, but it just makes my Mama heart ache all the more.  In a good way of course.

A few things about Parker right now......as I mentioned before he is super serious.  I love this about him.  He really listens to what he is taught and takes it to heart.  He tries so hard to be good, and his role as big brother and example is always on his mind.  He has learned to be patient and kind.  He's the kind of kid that keeps me on track.  He is often the one to remind me that we haven't done our scripture study for the day, or reminds me of a prophetic quote if I lose my temper, or otherwise make a mistake.  He makes me want to be a better Mom.  He loves to learn new things and has such a good attitude about our homeschool most of the time.  I just can't say enough good about this boy.  He was definitely meant to come to our family as the oldest.  And if all of this wasn't high enough praise, Paige has decided she wants to marry him when she grows up!  Of course, no seven year old is without a silly side, and one of his favorite things to do is play video games with Dad.  Or do anything with Dad really, as he is the hero around here.

We all love our Parker Dean Machine and hope that he felt just how much on his birthday!