calvary is 6!

yesterday we celebrated calvary's sixth birthday and as always i struggled with finding the perfect way to make this day happy for him.  with my other kids, the bigger the better.  too much created excitement paired with the natural excitement of anticipation is the recipe for meltdowns for calvary but at the same time i want to make a big deal out of the day that he came into this world! 
this year we had planned to take calvary to the beach and then go to the pirate show. we thought it was the perfect plan.  calvary asked if we would take him to the lego store for his birthday and it is pretty hard to argue with someone that has a specific request...especially when that request is far simpler than the plan already in place.  kyle's mom and dad agreed to watch the rest of our crew and we planned to spend the day with calvary shopping for legos.  it also worked out perfectly because my mom and dad were supposed to be in town for my cousin's baby shower and kyle's mom and dad graciously agreed to allow us to have cake and ice cream at their house to finish off the day. 
we started the day with blue pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream.  after breakfast i decided that it was time for me to sing happy birthday to my boy...he didn't agree and hid under his bed and covered his ears.  thankfully i have learned not to take this kind of behavior too personally.  we eventually got everyone dressed and in the car...along with our cake...as we drove to kyle's parents house i noticed that calvary was getting increasingly agitated.  he mostly kept his head down with his hands over his ears...once we got to kyle's parent's house calvary declared that he was not getting out of the car.  i am pretty sure this had to do with two things: 1. he wanted to get going as quick as possible and 2. he wanted to avoid the inevitable attention and showering of affection.  we made him go inside and reminded him that grandmommy and grandaddy were doing a lot to make this a special day for him so we needed to be grateful...i am not sure how grateful he acted but he went inside :)
once we got into the car it was like a switch was flipped and calvary was happy and excited.  we made it to the mall and he was still all smiles.  we let him pick where we were going to eat and i told him he could pick whatever he wanted to drink...he chose sprite...he's never one to stray from what he knows.  once we finished eating we finally made it to the lego store.  he was just a blur of grins.  almost every picture i took of him has some blurry part to it because he couldn't make him stand still. 
a few employees tried to make casual conversation with him which he straight up ignored.  he was focused.  we shopped around and he eventually decided that he wanted to get ninjago stuff over star wars stuff and he was not satisfied with their selection...(it has been surprisingly difficult to find ninjago stuff).  we told him that we could go to more stores and he didn't have to choose from the lego store.  he started to play the games and we realized pretty quickly that we needed to make our exit before we had too much of a good thing. 
we made our way to the candy store where calvary loaded up on candy legos (of course) and candy corn (his favorite candy). 
calvary was ready to find his gift so we left and headed across the street to toys r us.  thankfully calvary found what he was looking for and he was ready to go...he started telling us he was ready to go home mostly because he wanted to put his set together.
kyle immediately set to work helping calvary get his ninjago set together and kyle's mom worked on cooking dinner (she really took on all the hard work for me and somehow i was still exhausted by the end of the day).  my mom and dad came over and we had cake.  calvary did awesome during singing and was being silly.  he opened his presents and gave everyone hugs.  we spent the rest of the evening putting together legos and hanging out until it was ready to go home and get to bed.  once we got home i still needed to measure calvary on the wall.  he specifically asked that we wait until  the end of the day so that he could have as much time to grow as possible.  it must have paid off because he had grown about 3 inches since his last birthday!  he is already taller than harper was when she was 7.  a fact that he is quite proud of. 

happy boy

pizza and sprite: to be expected

nothing but blurs and grins...

hold the box up to the screen and it shows what the contents look like once built and adds animation...

focused...

and frustrated.

more blurs and grins...

happily eating candy blocks and candy corn...

you know he is happy if oliver jack is allowed to be this close to him and his stuff.

angry birds cake

i love him.

more blurs...

and grins...

oh harper...it was bound to happen :)

overall, i would say it was a perfect day.  calvary was happy and i feel like we found the perfect balance between routine and adventure to make it a special day for him.  i am so thankful for him and i am so excited to see what this year has in store for him...