Birthday Celebration #2

We got to celebrate Natalie's birthday again today. Instead of the usual "birthday party", we invited a couple of her friends to spend the day with us. One of the friends she wanted to invite started school today, but the other two each received this cool little package, if I might say so myself. Natalie has been enjoying playing school with her friends, so this package has a "Teacher's Planner Book" and "Teacher's Grade Book", a Dry-Erase Board, Dry-Erase Markers, and assorted pencils.

One of her friends, M, is the one that she has been friends with since M was 6 weeks old when they were in the same "class" at daycare. She has a brother A who is Alex's age that Alex has been friends with for the same amount of time, when they were three years old. Their mom dropped them off on her way to work, which was around 7:30AM. When Natalie's good friend A arrived around 10AM, they all proceeded to play with the school goodies, including Eric. He got his very own dry-erase board and markers, which he LOVED.

We waited until some time after 11AM to leave the house since the Fiesta Texas waterpark doesn't open until noon. Even then we had to wait 15 minutes in the heat until they let us all in. Natalie had requested to go swimming, but our neighborhood pool isn't open on Mondays. I wanted to do this today since I'm off work today. The girls had a blast. Natalie usually has fun at the pool or at the waterpark, but she had even more fun because she had some pals her age to play with. As far as I could tell, they all got along very well. Each girl kept asking to do one more thing because they didn't want to leave. They spent a lot of time in the Lazy River and one of the tube rides as well as the wave pool. They also enjoyed the kiddie area where Eric spent his entire time. There were some slides in the kiddie area and we finished out our stay there. The boys had asked to leave about an hour before the girls were ready.

We had a coupon for free ice cream from Coldstone Creamery for Natalie's birthday so we used this as an excuse to go there after the waterpark. Eric had "white ice cream" today. At first we thought he meant the vanilla ice cream, but of course he wanted something fruity--the lemon sorbet. He followed Natalie's lead and got gummi bears mixed in with his ice cream--yuck! Natalie got her usual chocolate ice cream (with gummi bears). The girls all wanted the "medium" size but I convinced them that was too much ice cream. Usually only Anthony gets the medium or "love it" size. This time he got the cheesecake flavor. That boy has been stuck on cheesecake lately. Patrick, Alex, and I got shakes.

We had to get home to drop A off because she starts school tomorrow. The rest of them start school next Monday. It's been tough getting back on the school sleeping schedule this week. We're so used to the more relaxed pace of summer, even if it means later bedtimes for all of us. Tonight, Alex and Natalie played with their friends until about 7PM. I couldn't say "no" with less play time in the near future.

I have to end with this photo. There was some great light coming through the window at Coldstone Creamery, so I took the opportunity to take some photos for my photography class. If I had been able to get Eric to turn a little more to his right, the light would have been perfect. If I had been able to stop him from doing his "cheesy smile" the pose would have been perfect too. Notice his rosy cheeks. Yes, we spent a little more time outside today than we had planned, but at least we all had fun.