Happy Birthday, Andy!

Can you believe that Andy is now seven? Where did the time go? And who is this tall, handsome dude in my house?

Andy had, i think, a lovely birthday. He started off as bat boy and buddy at Joey's baseball game. He likes being included in the games. We actually gave him the option to not go, but prep for his party instead, and he chose to go help his Joey. That's our birthday boy!

We gathered for cake and ice cream in the back yard after lunch. We had an awesome Darth Vader piñata (our theme today was Star Wars Ninja Pirates), with candy, super balls, parachute dudes and ninja dudes in it. That was hit. I am definitely doing the piñata thing again next year. Maybe I'll have time to make it myself, though- they're a little pricey.

Joey was the one who broke the piñata. It was pretty cool.

Andy decided to try the dark side out for size. Well, at least Darth's helmet and face from the piñata. He had spent the morning asking if he could wear it, and we kept telling him no, but we hadn't planned on it failing catastrophically. Since it did, he got to wear it after all.

So we spent an afternoon in the yard, defeating the Evil Bubbles of Doom, playing with moon dough (which I recommend- it is pretty cool stuff) and general hub-bub of wild playing-with-our-friends. It was pretty awesome. And I periodically punctuated the frenzy by adding more sugar.

We had ice cream sandwiches of different flavors (neapolitan was a favorite), candy in the piñata, and of course, cake. Andy asked for a yellow cake with chocolate icing. Nearly blew me over. He doesn't usually like chocolate. He got it, and ate it, so hey, I'm not complaining. I put the ninjas on the cake since the rest of the decor was Star Wars, with a splash of pirate tossed in. I hoped the blue marchmallow stars would be spacey enough to connect it. Who cares, it all get eaten, marshmallows being bonus. And everyone wanted a ninja.

Andy got lots of cool stuff. He still has a couple things he didn't open, but we wore him out. He'll have fun opening them in the morning. He got plenty of awesome legos, nerf guns, Star Wars stuff, and these weird little plastic things with faces that come off. Seriously. No clue what they are called, but they sell them alongside the trading cards. He's been wanting them for weeks.

So, Happy Birthday, my little man. We love you.