Jake's Party

Here are some pics from the big party yesterday with Jake, his sister and his cousins. It was a real fun-filled day for everyone, especially for the parents when all 4 kids went down without too much of a fight.

Actually, the only one who gave us any grief was...you guessed it...

the birthday boy himself.

To be honest though, we knew he was exhausted and after one trip down the stairs to tell us adults that "he could hear us", we told him we'd be quiet and to go back to bed. He followed our advice promptly and perfectly and we all enjoyed the rest of the evening.

Especially Dave and me. We trounced Jennifer & Kristin at a good game of spades.


Here are all the cousins starting the day off at Red Robin for some pizza and burgers.

After Red Robin, we all made our way up to Lokomotion for some go-carts, bumper boats and arcade games. Here is Jake, getting buckled in and looking a lot like Racer X.

Here he is, showing off how easy it is to drive with one hand. Can you imagine him in about 10 years waving to all the cute girls? Calgon...take me away...

Here's old Slick. He'd spent too much time waving and not enough time watching the road and ended up slamming into the guard rail, stalling his car along the way.

This is me, the concerned father, laughing at how my son just crashed into the guard rail. Can you not see the concern etched into the crevices of my skin? Me neither.

"Hey Dad...I saw you laughing at me when I crashed in my go-cart. Let's see how long you're laughing after you taste my red-hot lazer!!"

Once the Lazer Tag was done, we all got into a great water gun fight on the Bumper Boats. Side note here: see how our family would look if we had 4 kids instead of just 2? I'd probably have a lot more gray hair and yet a lot less of it overall.

Finishing up the night at Noodles Italian Restaurant, here's Mr. Cakeface, determining if he wants any more icing or his Thomas the Train that sat on the cake to begin with.

My wife asked "why we could never get a serious smile picture with our kids?" I'm still trying to figure it out but I think we can attribute a lot of the liveliness to the amount of sugar he consumed yesterday.

Thankfully, the birthday celebrations are over and the excitement has begun to subside. Here's hoping we can regroup (Jennifer and I) before Saturday gets here when we start it all over again for Kaitlyn's sleepover.

I'll thank you in advance for your prayers.