Birthday Guy

Today was the big day.

Evan has been waiting and impatiently counting down the minutes till July 9th.

Yesterday, he woke up at 7:15am and said right away, 

"I can't wait for today to be over."  

Around lunchtime he said, 

"This is the longest day of my life!"  

Then before dinner he announced, 

"I'm going to get ready for bed right after I'm excused from the table."

 And there he sat at 6:05pm.  

He still went to bed at his usual 8:30pm but for some reason this helped.  Cute :-)

Then this morning he was the first one awake at 6am (he said he had been laying in bed since 5:30am!!).  We snuggled and decided to get some breakfast pancakes cooking while we waited for Chloe to wake up.

 

He was expecting a HUGE present this year since all he wanted was the Lego Sand Crawler set which is ginormous, but on the table this was what awaited him instead:

See his non-smiling face....  He was having serious issues with that teensy little box on his plate.  (Mom and Dad had a few tricks up their sleeves......)  I just told him that not everything is as it seems and he will not be disappointed.  He believed me right up until he picked that box up and declared, "There's nothing in it!  It's too light!"  He was so not happy, but I just repeated myself and got on with the pancakes. 

Chloe woke up as we were eating and Evan snatched up his gift box anxiously.  There was just a piece of paper inside.  A note.  We surprised Evan by deciding to do a treasure hunt for his real gift so the note told him what was up and gave him a clue where to look next.  He started to smile a little bit and ran off.
It all ultimately led to his gift hiding in the dryer where he gave it a shake and shouted, "I know what this is!  Legos!!!" and bolted up the stairs to open his BIG box!

Of course we got him the sand crawler -- we had to :-)  Evan declared the treasure hunt and the gift the best birthday presents ever!!

Guess what he did all day long, well, besides tell us how great of a day it was and how glad he was to get the only thing he wanted....

Here it is after my helpful (and possibly very anal) organizing:

We helped give him pieces but he did the assembly -- he was very,very serious about it being his job to put it together.

He finished it and decorated it with his little droid collection. 

 All day Chloe hung around the living room playing horses nearby our lego setup. 

While Todd and I took turns picking pieces for Evan, one of us spent time with Chloe.  It really helped her feel included.  During one of my times with Chloe we grabbed a box of ribbon, the scissors and some tape and headed to her room to decorate her bed.

She hung all of them but one and I'd say she was pretty pleased with it.

In the afternoon, Uncle Chris and Aunt Bryce dropped in to say happy birthday to Evan.  Here he is showing off his gift :-)

 He laughed heartily and called it: "the funniest thing I've ever seen.... it's ME!!"

We always weigh and measure for our birthday traditions too:
*weight: 43 pounds
*height: almost 47 inches

By mid afternoon, Evan was really tired from all that building.

Sand Crawler from Bree Monde on Vimeo.

It was a great day and maybe tonight he'll be able to sleep :-)