Birth Day Remembered

I'm a bit behind on posting, so forgive me! Kai turned 5 on March 30. I can't believe it! It was fun to remember the day he was born and go back through old photos. I feel blessed that the memories of his birth are pleasant.

The days leading up to his birthday are almost unbearable for Kai. There's so much that's unknown, such as what presents will I get, what will we do on my birthday? Even though I work hard to make his birthday more than about presents, it's still what he looks forward to. So this year, I asked his friends to bring a recycled or homemade gift, a book, or a packet of seeds to his party. I wanted his presents to be small and meaningful.

Kai woke up at 5:40 am on his birthday, ready to go! He and Tea share a room, so he woke her up too, and said, "Tea, it's my birthday and there's going to be lots of presents and I'll share them with you." He went into his old room, which is now the craft room and beneath a purple playsilk, he found some beautiful handmade wooden squirrels hovering over a felted acorn. There was also a book called Spring filled with stories songs and poems of spring. My friend Chris made the squirrels and I felted the acorn the night before. We then ventured to the kitchen where another silk hid a plate with a birthday hat, a bottle of Happy Kid flower essence and a red plate (his favorite color) for his breakfast. I made pancakes and spelled his name with them.

Jevon and I spent the entire evening before his birthday decorating the downstairs and wrapping presents. I made a birthday banner, which you'll see in Tea's birthday pictures and folded about 40 paper airplanes and strung them up (I didn't take a picture of that yet). Oh, you can only imagine how much Kai loved that! He said "Oh, it's so pretty down here!!"

Lunch was at CiCi's pizza buffet. I think we've gone out for pizza every year for Kai's birthday, so this was a must!! Kai ate way more than he ever does at home. Then to the Party Outlet for balloons. There were no jet balloons so we got a Lightening McQueen balloon and five regular helium balloons.

Kai's friends Isabelle, Henry, Logan, Savannah, Aubrielle, and Grant came to his party. They had a wild time and Kai was kind enough to give a paper airplane folding lesson! Kai could hardly wait for the present opening so we went ahead with that earlier than scheduled, but before we did that, I read a story of how he chose us as parents and a little snippet from each year for the first five years of his life. Let me just add a little sidenote here because it's such an amazing story. Just a couple nights before his birthday, I was putting Kai to bed and somehow we got on the subject of his birth. He said, "Mom did you feel my finger pointing at you?" "When?" I said. "When I was in heaven," he said. "Why were you pointing at me?" "I wanted you to be my Mommy! Did you feel my arms around you?" Did I nearly melt? Oh yes! What a surreal moment. That was the third conversation I've had with Kai about his birth or things beforehand. He's also told me what it was like when he was in my belly.

Present opening was a blast and Kai happily shared his gifts (this mama let out a big sigh of relief!)

Then onto cake--at least it looked pretty. It was a bit dry because Kai wanted a strawberry jam frosting with fresh raspberries and Sun Drops chocolate chips. The candles were extra long and quite lovely. And more wild playing and eventually the party was over. A fun day for Kai!!

Even though he isn't smiling in many of those pictures, he did have a fun day!!