Party Central

Turning 6 mid week has it's Advantages and Disadvantages.

Blueberry Muffins for a birthday breakfast......
Advantage:)

Made by Dad.....
Advantage (for mom anyway:)

Hearing the phone ring @ 6:30AM & 7:00AM.....
Disadvantage:(

Grandmas on the other end with birthday wishes....
Advantage:)

Opening Grandma Slocombe's gift (a Bionicle) while on the phone with her.....
Advantage:)
Grandma Jenkins bought Zach and early present (Power Miners Lego Set) when she came to visit in the fall.

Homemade Brownie Pops to share with my class @ snack time......
Advantage:)Having class sing you Happy Birthday in English, Arabic, & Spanish....
Advantage:)

Having one classmate that doesn't eat sweets....
Advantage:) for Ethan that is.

No birthday party because it's a school night....
Disadvantage:(

Backyard Treasure Hunt for family present (Crystal Skull Lego Set)
Advantage:)

This years birthday was all about Ben 10 so the cake was an Omnitrix.
This cartoon boy superhero is all the rage here among elementary age boys.

This was Zach's cake and guess who had to make it.......yes me. Of course Chris had a field job that had him working nights (the story of my life). So again cake duty was diverted to me. Actually this was an easy one and I had a fun time using new tips and creating crazy colors. I was pretty happy with the results.

On to the Weekend!

Chris has been wanting to take the boys camping for quite some time and it just hasn't worked out. So when his night job got canceled due to equipment failure they loaded up the chariot with gear and headed up the street.

Our neighbors across the street have these Jebels behind their house.
Which made the perfect back drop for .....

...a father and son camp out birthday party, not Zach's, but our neighbor Julian's.
The evening was filled with Jebel Exploration, Orienteering, Knot Tying, Hot Dog Roasting, and Marshmallow Melting.

Moms and Sisters (Nyah, Julian's sister & Isabel, below) helped with the set up....

but then went inside for a makeup party of their own.

I know Chris enjoyed the Dad time even though he was on very little sleep. Another good thing that came out of the evening was that all the Dads and boys are eager to start a scouting troop here again....run by the dads not the moms (yeah!)

The morning after Chris wasn't sure if there was more sand in the tent or out of the tent.

After putting all the camping gear away and washing the smoke smell off the boys we then got ready for all those boys and a few girls to come over and celebrate Zach's birthday at our house.

Aliens attacked our backyard and left their.....

Alien goo (cornstarch and water) all over for the kids to play with.

If you've never played with this concoction it is sooooo cool. It looks liquid but when you pick it up it dries then will ooze down again like a liquid.

Next we wrote secret messages with invisible ink and had them developed.

The last game was a race to see which Ben 10 team could kill the most aliens first. We had two teams line up. We sent one player from each team across the yard where they had to pop a ballon with and alien face on it. They then had to run back and tag the next player.

Enough with the fun let's eat cake!

It was a bit breezy and difficult to keep the candles lit.

And open the presents. Zach's friends were very generous he got some great stuff including:
money, remote control cars, (mini) pinball machine, Ben 10 Wii game, Lego stuff, Ben 10 paper pack.

Zach also got a very coveted gift from his Aunt Lauren....a Star Wars Lego Encyclopedia.
"THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" was all he could say!

There was some jumping on the trampoline, a Clone Mineral (gift bag wrapped in tinfoil) Treasure Hunt, and good ole plastic bubble blowing fun for the rest of the afternoon.

Happy 6th Zachary.