Happy 6th Birthday Daniel!

We have a six year old!  How did that happen?  As his Grandpa G. commented, Daniel is now officially more than a handful.  While he is often a blur of activity, Daniel is also a very snuggly member of the family.  He does not ever get enough of "pick up highs" from Dad and Mom, and has even started trying to hug Sophie in that same picking up style.

Daniel loves to make and build things out of anything and everything, but his favourite toy is definitely Lego.  It certainly came as no surprise when he asked if he could have a Lego theme for his first solo birthday party, and his Lego-loving Dad was eager to be part of the planning.  To replicate one of their favourite activities at Legofest, Keith built this race ramp which he and Daniel painted and decorated together.  They even made a trip to a craft store to find just the right embelishments.

 The party was basically a LEGO building playdate plus cake, but it seems everyone had a great time.  While the boys headed straight for the race ramp, Sophie enjoyed making her own lego figure pictures with googly eyes, glue, markers and stickers.  I suspected that the boys would only want to play with the actual lego, but Daniel had asked if we could have a craft, so we had the art table ready.  We also had a selection of lego figure pieces for everyone to build their own lego figure which could ride in their race car and go home with them at the end of the party.

Keith helped the boys create their lego vehicles which they could race down the ramp.  They also made up stories about their cars and drove them all around the basement.  It turns out that under the ramp was a fun place to hang out.

What would a party be without cake?  Daniel's Grandma S and Auntie Melissa made this amazing Lego cake.  Yes, all those big pieces are chocolate cake.  The "bumps" are peanut M&Ms.  The platter and border was made out of actual lego, but everything else was quite edible and delicious.

Eventually the boys gave the Lego man craft a chance, but only because I would't let them race back downstairs until everyone had a chance to eat their cake.

To ease the sadness of leaving a Lego party, we handed out these cute marshmallow pops to our guests.  They were very easy to make, and the kids loved them.

Daniel thoroughly enjoyed his party, and has been enjoying building and playing with his new lego sets ever since.  Welcome to being 6, Danny boy!

A Whole New World

Daniel's first day of kindergarten was this past Wednesday.  He has been super excited about going, especially since the big kindergarten open house at the school last spring.  Our calendar has seen a lot of use as Daniel regularly counted to see how many days were left until he started school.  On Wednesday morning, he came upstairs singing and kept on all the way through getting ready.  After breakfast he asked, "The doors open at eight, right?"  I assured him that we did not, in fact, need to be there when the doors opened, but would be sure to leave early enough to account for morning traffic and still get to school by the time they actually began supervision at 8:15am.  

Here he is standing eagerly by the front door, wearing his favourite hoodie (Thanks Grandma!) and Batman backpack.  It was raining so hard that even Daniel agreed that he should probably wear pants instead of his favourite red shorts, but they were in his backpack just in case the sun came out later (it did not, but he busted out the shorts mid-day anyway).  

The lighting was better on the front step (protected from the rain), so I made him pose for pictures there too.  You can't tell in the picture, but the rain was in fact torrential that day.  Rubber boots had not been at all on my back-to-school shopping radar, but apparently they should have been.

Daniel was pretty sure I could just pull up to the school and let him out, but I stubbornly insisted we walk him in.   I could tell he wasn't convinced that was at all necessary.  Keith met up with us just as we were walking in the school so that we could all see him off on his new adventure together.  Daniel's teacher met us at the hooks and explained to Daniel and another student the three jobs they had every morning when they came to kindergarten: hang outside stuff on your hooks, check your mailbox, and "pop" the smart board balloon with your name on it to let Mrs. H know you are present.  Once the jobs were completed, they could choose a station to explore at until the whole class arrived.  Daniel quickly settled into the Lego table station and looked at us like, "You're still here?  Seriously?"

Thankfully he was willing to take a short break from Lego to give us each a hug and send us away.  Sophie wasn't sold on the idea of leaving Daniel behind, but happy to have Mom and Dad to herself for a few minutes before Keith had to get back to work.  She and I made a quick trip to a nearby store to buy rubber boots for Daniel so that he didn't get soaked at recess.  We snuck them over to his hook without being seen, then headed home for some girl time.  It was very quiet without our boys and I found myself checking the clock throughout the afternoon.  Daniel will attend school for full days, but only on Mondays, Wednesdays and alternate Fridays.  By the time he came home with Keith he looked like this:

Yup, pretty tuckered out.  It didn't help that the Tour of Alberta bike race ran that afternoon and traffic took much longer than usual.  This kid was out cold.  We managed to rouse him right after this picture, and he regaled us with anecdotes all evening.  The next countdown is on; day 2 is on Monday.