It's official. Zach turned 4 last weekend. We had such a busy weekend for his birthday weekend, but we had a blast. On Saturday, we had his first birthday party with friends. We pretty much kept it to friends from his preschool. Turns out his class has 15 boys and 4 girls. The teacher said that on Monday's 3 of the girls aren't there. God bless those teachers! :)
We had the boys over for Power Ranger Training camp. I had a lot of fun coming up with activities for them to do to "earn" their Ranger badges. They had to complete 6 tasks, earning them a colored piece of the pie for each activity. They colored masks, decorated walkie talkies, crossed an alligator river, did hopscotch, bounced balls in a bucket and threw bean bags at the "bad guys" (or stuffed animals). After all that fun, we had cake and ice cream and opened presents. It was somewhat controlled chaos - okay, at times it was just complete chaos. :)
The boys did really well and I think they all had fun. I know Zach had a blast showing his friends his toys and his room, etc. We are officially not doing friend birthday parties except for every 4th year - 4, 8,12 and 16. It's just too much otherwise. Next year, I foresee a trip to the movies with one or two friends and a family birthday party.
Sunday was the craziest day by far. We let Zach "open" his birthday present from Craig and me which was a new (you guessed it) Power Ranger bike. He was pretty excited, but it's a bummer having a winter birthday. We turned on a space heater in the garage and he got to ride in circles for 45 mins or so before we were too cold to stand out there any more. He keeps asking every day to do it more and it keeps getting colder every day. Craig had to leave to go watch his friend Brad coach his Blinn College team to a national championship - winning in the last seconds by running back a 90 yard punt return (but I digress). Zach and I packed up and went to his first gymnastics meet. Dylan stayed with CeCe and got to take a nap. Zach did a little routine and did such a great job. I thought he might be too nervous, but he was a champ. He ended up placing 1st in his group (they divided them all up so they each got a medal, but he was first in that 3 person group). He scored a 9.5 and I believe was the 3rd or 4th highest score. He just missed a trophy by .1 of a point. I really was just proud of how brave and confident he was to get out there in front of a very large audience and do his routine!
After that, we headed to his preschool open house and saw all the projects he had been working on all semester. Then the finale was a birthday party with the family. He had a great time and got to open up more presents. He was exhausted and thrilled.
I will definitely post pictures as soon as I get them downloaded. We are too busy writing thank you cards, Xmas cards and making teacher gifts...but someday I will download my little Power Ranger/gymnasts pictures!
