Happy Happy Birthday!

Aj is 4 and had quite a spread of birthday fun. We gave him the choice a few weeks back to either have a birthday party with friends or go on a special day trip with the family. Much to my surprise, he picked the trip. We planned a great day in Bozeman, where he got to pick his restaurant for lunch (kids meal at Wendy's), attend the dinosaur museum, and get to choose his own ice cream flavor at Baskin Robins. It was a huge success!

Big Mike (the most complete t-rex in the world!)

Aj loved all the dinosaur bones, but what he said he enjoyed more was the planetarium show about the moon. It was pretty cool to see how kid friendly they could make those things!

They had this really cute and fun interactive Dino Maze. At each turning point it would ask you a question, and if you got it right you wouldn't come to a dead end. Inside were all these fun little activities to do. Such as...

Dino prints (memory foam in the mats)

Build your own dino

Climb through the sedimentary time periods

fly like a pteradon

They also had a fun discovery play area where the boys spent most of their time.

After all was said and done and it was time to leave we let him get a squished penny of big mike!

Of course nothing is as thrilling as staring at endless choices for ice cream. I think it took aj about 3 rounds of walking back and forth between the freezers at baskin robins to finally decide that he wanted the chocolate peanut butter (a boy after my own heart).

For his actual birthday we had a nice relaxing day with lots of fun. The day before he got to pick out his favorite cereal at the store to have for breakfast. He couldn't decide, and since they were on sale I let him get all three. :)

We enjoyed breakfast and presents and then walked daddy to work with Aj's newest and most favorite gift combo ever! Helmet (Thanks Gammie and Potts!), safety pads (Thanks Grandma and Papa!) and bike. He was in heaven! All the way he kept telling everyone he saw that he had a new bike and it was his favorite color.

He also got a monster card from Great Grandma Collier and a game from Andy 

For lunch he wanted mac and cheese with hot dogs in it. Who am I to argue? that is still one of my favorite lunch items! We had lunch and then I unveiled his secret special birthday cake. THE DEATH STAR!!!! I won't lie, it was a nightmare to put together, but totally worth the reaction he gave when he saw it!

I even tried to add authenticity by putting in a few action figures of my own (these spaceships are not to scale)

You would think that would be enough birthday for one little boy, but we decided to have a little mini party on the side that weekend when we were in Utah visiting all his cousins. Sadly daddy had to stay behind for this one.

Games first! Aj made up a monster tag game and taught everyone how to play. 

Cupcakes, of course!

Gifts (Thanks Katie, David, and kids for the gift!)

 After all was calmed down most of the ids just played around outside. Eventually Audrey came in and told me that Andy and Addie had been wrestling for about 10 minutes now, and it was nothing but laughter coming from them. Once a crowd circled up it turned into a last man standing wrestling match between cousins and siblings. (don't worry, no one was hurt in the taking of these pictures)

 I had told Aj earlier that day that he could come with me to Scheels to ride on the big ferris wheel. As I announced our departure everyone jumped on board and we ALL headed out for a ride.

What a fun birthday (birth-week is more like it) for this not so little guy . He smiled through it all and we had a blast putting it all together. No, it wasn't a giant elaborate party like the last few years, but it was fun, enjoyable, and exactly what he wanted. Besides, what is a giant party without 33 kids from Law school? Miss you all!