Family Fridays: Father's Day and Fourth Birthday

Aaron and his "pizza baby"

This past week has been a busy week of celebrating for us. We started celebrating on Saturday night by going out for Father's Day early, because the Western restaurants we like on this side of town are closed on Sunday. We went to the Chicago Coffee pizza buffet. I always forget to take pictures while we're there because we start talking to friends, but we had a lot of good pizza. The boys ate so much this time that Aaron declared he grew a pizza baby in his tummy.

Sunday we talked to some family back home, ate a lot of special food here, and the boys had fun reading and playing with daddy. Aaron and I made lemon meringue pie together for Nate. I was pretty happy that it turned out really well, since we only have a crank mixer and meringue is tricky at high altitude. I'll have to post the recipe soon.

Then Thursday was Aaron's Fourth Birthday and we celebrated Andrew half birthday (he's now 2 1/2 years old) at the same time. We were getting ready for the birthday on Wednesday and with all of the ice cream and cake being made, the presents being wrapped, and other stuff going on the boys were way to excited to think about sleeping until really late, when they both crashed on the couch.

On Thursday the boys woke up to balloons all over their room and in the dining room with cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Then they got to talk to both sets of grandparents on Skype and hunt for and open the birthday presents from them. They were so excited. Aaron was thrilled about all of his presents even exclaiming over his new shoes and shorts.

We had a Chinese friend come over for lunch and the boys had fun playing with her. It was kind of funny because immediately she remarked about the quality of the balloons we had. We told her that our parents, who do think it's funny to send us things like salt and balloons, were gracious enough to include a ton of balloons in birthday boxes for the boys, so we're set for balloons for quite a while.

She left a little after lunch. Nate also left after lunch to go to his Mandarin class. The boys spent the afternoon using their new things from the grandparents. They played with their new trains, colored in new coloring books, read new books, and even went swimming in the bathtub so they could both play with their new bath toys at the same time.

Afterward Aaron picked out the biggest clothes he could find to wear, which ironically was a 5T Thomas long-sleeve Thomas shirt that was a Christmas gift from my parents, that he has been refusing to wear for months. The reason was only that it is not exactly like his old one. But now "he is 4 and bigger and needs bigger clothes" and loves it. Good thing they got a large size, as it will be good for next winter.

After Nate came back we went to KFC for ice cream and playing. Then around behind Walmart to ride the silly rides and play the silly wack-a-Mickey game. This was a small part of their present from Great-Grandma.

Back at home we had macaroni and cheese for dinner, which is a huge treat here in China. Then the boys opened their presents from us. We gave them blankets and games, and I made Aaron a stuffed Tux the Linux penguin. Super Tux Kart is one of the boys favorite games and Nate downloaded and compiled the source code for the new version so the boys could play parts of it for their birthday, before it is even released. They thought it was pretty cool to be able to play even part the new version of the game as they have been awaiting its release. Then they colored Tux and Mozilla pictures. After that we had cake and ice cream. Aaron asked for a Tux racing cake that I think actually turned out pretty cute, and Andrew wanted a Blob Salad cake. They have interesting Open Source taste in computer games.

Throughout the day, anytime he was calm enough to sit down, Aaron was reading the new books he received for his birthday. He basically read through all of his new books on his birthday, including an almost 200 page collection of Curious George.

And the boys, and their parents, slept very soundly that night.