A Birthday

Well, Blake turned 14.  I'm not sure who gave him permission to do that, but it happened before I could do anything about it.  Not that I would change anything, but gosh how does 14 years go by so fast?

He's such a great kid, and is growing into these teenage years with grace.

I'm thankful that he's still very much a kid.  He's never been one to scoff at something because it's "for little kids", and he has not once, ever, not wanted to do something that the whole family was doing.  Maybe that will still come, but in the meantime I'm enjoying his pleasant, resourceful nature, his company, his help, and his playful sense of humor.

He really wanted to have friends over on the day of his birthday.  So we cleaned up the basement and invited his four closest guys over.  They hung out down there for the afternoon, we had pizza and cake and ice cream, and then I drove everyone home in the evening.  We attempted to claim our free slurpees (the perks of your birthday being 7/11), but the location we stopped at had given out all the small cups, so we paid for big ones.  I don't think the boys minded.

Blake is a huge J.R.R. Tolkien fan, and is, to put it mildly, consumed with excitement over the release of the The Hobbit trilogy.  We're counting the days until the next one comes out (143 from today), and LOTR, and Tolkien in general, is a daily topic in our home.  So for his birthday we got him this and this.  He loved the book so much, that he immediately used a gift card from my sister to buy the other one in the set.  So, given all that Hobbit-ness, I couldn't resist a few playful touches to his day.

(Jessica has this document available for free!  Just check out her party themes tab.)

All in all, it was a great day.

Next up:  A certain little girl is turning one soon.  What to do about that...