The Boy

Absolutely obliterates shoes. We're on our 4th pair of the school year.

Our Will is a go-getter. Has been from Day 1. And his energetic enthusiasm makes him pretty fun to celebrate each year.

He saw Dad lying here and 2 minutes later he came back in this twin get up. Serious devotion.

Summer is sort of his jedi-in-training. He gets her in all kinds of non-baby-friendly situations.

No one craves all this birthday hoopla more than this dude. He eats. it. up.

Girls helped him finish and launch his baking soda/vinegar rocket. That thing can FLY.

When he emptied the breakfast-for-dinner serving platter onto his plate we laughed and told him there was no way he could eat 4 eggs and 2 monster pancakes. Turns out someone was wrong.

And to top it all off we had nine 9-year-olds over to spend the night. (We've always had a no sleepover rule, but caved recently for a once a year birthday deal. I'm curious - how do you handle the sleepover thing??) Not sure I can describe THAT kind of chaos. It was sort of a relief not to have to prep with a creative cake or fun games/decor (definitely un-wanted this year) but the FOOD and the NOISE consumed and created by that pack of adrenaline. Wow... Funniest part was this moment:

That's seven electronic devices among the 10 of them. Seriously, boys are boys and this is a techy world we live in. I learned next time to have them all handed over at midnight because they kept 'em up til 3am and the sun woke the tent-sleepers up at 5am, so... gnarly night.

(Summer had a blast with all the wild attention.)

Bottom line: Will proclaimed it "the best birthday ever."

He chose to "nerf" the candles out. Actually burned some bullets.

An hour after the last guest left a friend dropped off her three little girls to stay with us a couple days so it was a memorable, sleepover-soaked Halloween weekend, but now I'm ready for a nice long nap!