Celebration

Michael's birthday party was outstanding. I couldn't possibly say better things about the place that we used for his party. The children had a wonderful time for 90 solid minutes. The activities were perfectly designed for the age group. They alternated structured games with free play and changed the activities available for free play each time. They did a nice job of making Michael feel special as the birthday boy without making the rest of the children feel left out. Michael will remember his party happily for a long time. Here are some scenes from the party.

King...

Last night, Michael was having a conversation with his grandfather about the animals he's seen at the zoo. Michael rattled off a long list concluding with gorillas. His grandfather asked, "Have you ever seen a movie called King Kong?" (The answer is no.) Michael thought for a long moment and replied, "Well, I know a song about King Kong." I thought to myself, "Really?"

We all let that sink in a bit, and then just moved on to another topic of conversation. Michael seemed to be thinking. Then he started singing:

"Old King Kong was a merry old soul and a merry old soul was he..."

Everyone cracked up. Parenting is such fun sometimes.

Waiting

My husband's parents are in town to celebrate Michael's birthday with us. We went to dinner last night to kick off the festivities in style. The children were getting a bit impatient while we waited for our food to arrive. Grandma taught Ava to use her iPhone to take pictures and that was a huge hit. Michael immediately wanted to "play". I pulled out my phone and showed him how.

I kid you not. In five minutes he took 271 pictures. He took extreme pride in the fact that he had taken about 30 pictures in a row of his Grandpa's arm and I have all the shots to prove it.

At the end of the meal, the children were waiting again while the adults finished up. They took a few more pictures, but that wasn't going to do the trick a second time. Grandma picked up Ava and they went for a little restaurant tour to talk about all the pictures they could see. It was sweet to watch Ava in her Grandma's arms chattering away happily. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but she had a lot to say.