6 YEARS OLD!!!!!!

Shade finally made it past the 5 year mark... The little stinker! He absolutely refused to stay 5... At least he makes an adorable 6 year old.

Since Shade has been having a hard time adjusting to school this year, we decided to make his birthday really special (he says the days are really long and he misses Olive and I a lot). For his daily homework assignment (starting Oct 1st), he is supposed to read at least 10 minutes each day. So I got him some books through his class book order that I knew he would like. Then each October day before his birthday, he got some "birthday books" to read that night (which actually worked great to get him excited about reading, one night he actually read for a whole hour!). Then came his birthday.

We had asked him if he wanted to have a friend party at the park, or a family party somewhere else. He chose a family party and chose Chuck E. Cheese (although he kept asking Kellen and I if we liked Zap Zone better than Chuck E. Cheese, I suppose trying to validate his decision). So we planned a day together as a family, which was perfect since it was General Conference anyway.

We started by letting him sleep with us that night, since it was the last night we would have our little 5 year old :( He had mentioned a few days before that he wanted breakfast in bed. I told him that he got up before us everyday anyway, so he would have to stay in bed until we brought him food. He told us we just needed to get up extra early then... :) What he wanted for his birthday breakfast: blueberry waffles with whipped cream and orange juice (although he asked me if it were my birthday if I would rather have orange juice or milk...). So we made that for him with some bacon, and let him eat in our bed. He liked it for awhile, then realized he was eating in there alone, so he came out to join us for breakfast. Then came presents.

He said one thing he wanted was a balloon for his birthday. So Kellen bought a bunch of balloons to blow up. I was in the bedroom wrapping presents and blowing up balloons when Shade came in. I had about 20 balloons blown up. His eyes got big and he got a huge smile on his face. I told him to get out. Then Kellen hid the balloons in a different room, and Shade could not find them. He looked under the bed, in the cooler, and all the other rooms. Kellen told him that since he had seen his present, we had to pop them all :) But then Kellen got up around 4:30 am (unknown to me) to blow up more balloons, and then filled up Shade's room with them. There must have been over 200!

After breakfast, we told Shade to go get dressed. He didn't like that idea, but we dragged him over to his room and opened the door, and both Shade and Olive went crazy! So many balloons! And to make it more fun, some of the balloons had small treats in them.

After that, we went on to the wrapped presents. One of Shade's favorite TV shows is the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT). One day when we were at a bookstore he saw TMNT Legos. He could not get those out of his mind, and kept asking for those for his birthday. And now that he is in karate, he likes ninja stuff even more. So he ended up getting a lot of ninja stuff. We ended up getting him the TMNT Legos, as well as a TMNT book, shirt and poster. Then his Aunt Cristi upped the ante with a TMNT hoodie, puzzle, book, and stickers. He also got a game, wooden race car and a water gun.

The rest of the morning was spent playing with presents and balloons and watching Conference. Then that afternoon we hit Chuck E. Cheese. We ended up getting a bunch of free extra tokens and ended up with 100 of them. It took us quite awhile to burn through all those tokens, but it was way fun. Kellen and I liked the basketball games the most, Shade liked the video games the most (no surprise there), and Olive liked the small slide she could do by herself. We only ended up with 370 tickets, but we figured it was more about having fun than getting tickets.

When we got home, we had cake. Shade had requested a raspberry flavored TMNT cake... ?! Where do you get one of those without having to pay a ton for a special order? So I decided to try and make one myself. I just put some raspberry jello powder (sugar free) and raspberry chunks in some white cake mix. Then I put some sweetened cream cheese mix in between the layers. Then I frosted it with light whipped cream. It took me awhile to figure out how to separate the different colors (I cut up some licorice), but I think it looked okay. Especially since I am not a cake decorator. And the flavors actually turned out okay too. But most importantly, Shade loved it! Leonardo is his favorite TMNT. But also, since I made it, it was a lower sugar cake which I was able to enjoy too :) After cake, Kellen took Shade to the Priesthood Conference session. I know Shade is technically too young for that, but Kellen wasn't going to leave Shade on his birthday. They only stayed for a little while anyway.

But overall, it was a great, memorable day! We sure love having Shade in our family! He is such a good, smart, loving, handsome, and awesome kid! I am the luckiest mommy in the world!