5 Seems To Be A Handful

Just in case you haven't heard, which seems highly unlikely given all of Laney's promotion, but just in case, Laney turned 5.  She told everyone that turning 5 made her, "just a bit smarter" and, "she could do quite a lot more now".  These days she turns on and off the English accent without even blinking an eye and she was very English when she spoke of her birthday.  Throughout the day we were reminded it was her "special day".  She even wore a princess button with a big 5 on it.  Oh me, oh my!  She is a definitely a handful. 

Just like Owen, Laney awoke to balloons - pink of course - and presents.

  

For the past two plus weeks, Laney and the boys have been collecting conkers (horse chestnuts) from school.  I think they are up over 200 now and when I asked what they were going to do with them they said, "paint them".  I guess that stuck with Laney because when I asked her what she would like to do for her birthday she said she wanted to paint the conkers.  With visions of 200 painted conkers rolling around the kitchen I suggested the pottery painting studio - we were both happy.

After a morning of painting and a fish and chips lunch at a local pub we headed home to play. 

Oh to have the power of being the birthday girl...

Owen found the whole tea party thing a bit, um, a bit tedious.

At least he tried, right? 

A little cake decorating, dinner and the finale.

Happy birthday sweet Laney - just remember mom/mum has 2 hands.

7, Seven, Seeveen

Lucky number 7.  Hopefully he knows how lucky we are to have him around.  I think he does, but just in case we tried to show him. 

We let him decorate his own cake. You might think I have gone mad, but really it is genius. Think about it, what kid doesn't want to decorate a cake? That and I'm beat. It was either hours making a Pokemon cake or facing the clean up after 3 kids emptied the cake decorating box - I chose what seemed to be the lesser of two evils.

He woke to presents (yes it was still very dark outside) and chocolate bouches (they are Brioche, but Spencer called them that once and it is hard to even remember the real  name now).

We took him and a friend to London.

We took him and the real friend to the Natural History Museum.

We hoped this would be a sure hit with Owen given his love of nature and animals. After all the kid gives half of his earned allowance (taking care of Penny dog) to the WWF to save the wild cats of Russia. Thankfully seeing all of the dead stuffed birds did not freak him out.  The steak tacos Spencer ordered at the Mexican restaurant, however, were a different story but the birds were okay.  Actually thinking about it now I wonder if he even knew they were real? 

Then again maybe he did and felt better after reading this (ha):

Anyway, back to the birthday...There was the ride on the tube.

A meal consisting of beans and Sprite.

This was a lucky camera shot and is very reminiscent of the powdered sugar incident of '08,

but Owens will be Owens.  I think he now knows you can't blow bubbles into Sprite in a bottle. 

A Lasagna dinner and cake (no more Sprite).

He got a few extra few pages of Diary of A Wimpy Kid, a mega tuck in and seven kisses goodnight. 

Goodnight.