March 10 Celebrating Aidan

Tuesday: Aidan's 9th birthday is not until tomorrow, but since I am leaving for a 9-day stay in Florida and have too many things on my list to do in preparation for that trip, I asked if I could celebrate Aidan's birthday a day early. Everyone was on board with it, except Aidan! He thought he should be able to open his gifts today and still have me come over on his actual birthday. I will take that as a compliment that he likes hanging out with me. 

I was at their house at my usual time, the kiddos came home from school, we played a few games together and ate snacks, but we agreed NOT to open presents until Dylan and Kelly came home from work. I kept the gifts in my car so as not to torture poor Aidan while he waited.

Here are pictures of what followed:

These first two pictures are of the LEGO remote controlled robot gifted to Aidan by his Uncle Shane.

"Uncle Shane gives the BEST gifts" was Aidan's introduction to zooming this cool remote controlled robot all over the place. Aidan said it took him quite awhile to build it, and he seemed so proud that he was able to put it all together. 

Here is our darling Erin eating her cinnamon toast while we waited for the parents' homecoming ...

Erin and I played a few games of my 3-D chutes and ladders game ... we had so much fun.

Aidan and Erin played a game of it too.

Our young Gregory was in his typical playful mood ...

Aidan and Erin absolutely love their little brother. This is Aidan hugging the daylights out of him! I love these pictures!

The parents arrived home--YAY! Now, we are just waiting for everything to be ready for Aidan to open the gifts from his grandma.

The troops were VERY restless while waiting, so I organized a game of "Animal, Animal" to see if any of the kids wanted to play. I could not believe their completely positive response! Gregory finally got to be in charge of calling the animals ... I believe this time the animals were from the rain forest and he decided they should be PYTHONS ... so here are Brendan and Erin pythoning it on over to Cal. Aidan declined to play, because he was very focused on those unopened gifts ...

Aidan looks a little bit tired in this picture ... but isn't he such a handsome child?

I made Aidan a kind of "fancy" card, 8 pages of pictures and memories from 2025 for him to enjoy, including THREE riddles!

Aidan opened the smallest gift first, because he already knew what it was ...

He opened the biggest and heaviest box next because he had no idea what was inside. I took a chance with this gift, but after watching Aidan build at the museum last summer with these wood "planks", I thought it would be a hit--and it was! In fact, ALL of the kiddos wanted some.

The Paper Airplane kit was a request from Aidan, so it was no surprise. It looks like it is a nice kit.

We relaxed a little bit afterwards, and then it was time for their family to have dinner. Aidan's party isn't until Friday and I will be in Florida at that time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO AIDAN, who announced that he was officially "grown up" now. Oh my!