Alex Makes 7

He's had a birthday, shout hurray!  This kid had the double fortune of having his birthday fall on the first day of school.  What kid WOULDN'T want to celebrate their big day by going back to school after a summer filled with fun??  Hahahaha.  Poor kid -- he handled it much better than expected, but that's probably only because we let him open his presents on Saturday.  And since Gifts are his love language, that made for a pretty sweet deal.  ;)

 {He got lots of Mario-centric presents, in case you were wondering.}

We were going to have his full-on birthday party last Saturday, but when we convened for Scripture Time that morning and outlined our day, we realized there was still way too much back-to-school and other stuff that needed to be done, and spending hours that day making his cake and then going to Chuck E. Cheese to party was just not going to be a top priority.  But since everyone had already picked out his presents, I happily acquiesced to wrapping them real quick and letting him rip into them before we left for our errands.

 {He also got a joint birthday gift with Jane of an Echo Dot for their room.  They've been talking about saving up for one all summer, so I thought I'd throw them a bone. :)  }

(I think Jane may have been more excited about this than he was.)

(Our honorary "Kid 8" made this sweet birthday card for Alex and included 7 jolly ranchers in it for him.  Alex was pretty happy about the bonus gift he got.)

When Monday rolled around, it was easy enough to devote the time necessary to making this year's Mario-themed cake (since everyone was at school and Isaac was happy to be left to his own devices -- and by devices, I mean electronic devices), and I was able to throw together a Mushroom cake that was an absolute mess underneath.  I realized afterwards that I should have taken pictures of the process, because the finished product makes it look like I'm MUCH more competent than I actually am.  The cake was extra crumbly and broke coming out of the pan and the icing was thicker than usual and harder to spread, which made for a mess of a construction.  None of that mattered, though, because once I rolled out the fondant and covered it up, you couldn't even tell.  Haha.

 The Cake.

The inspiration.

Once Scott was home from work, we headed on over to Chuck E. Cheese for the promised birthday extravaganza.  Truth be told?  It was fun.  Hahahaha.  I haven't enjoyed Chuck E. this much since I was a kid.  The location here is super clean, though, and has never been very crowded when we've gone, and adding to the fun was running around trying to get the most bang for our buck with our 60-minute card of unlimited play.  {They've done away with tokens, in case you were wondering.}  By the end of the evening, the kids had earned a total of over 1100 tickets.  Which helped to make all of Alex's dreams come true when he was able to pick out a prize that used up 1000 of them.  Jane was MUCH less than enthused by this turn of events, but hopefully, by the time her birthday rolls around in a couple of weeks, she will be able to get back at him by using up all the tickets for HER prize.  Hahaha.

 {Fun Fact -- Skee Ball is my favorite.}

 {I'd have to say that Ethan enjoyed this outing a lot more than he was expecting.  And he REALLY enjoyed feeding all the tickets into the Muncher.}

 The Prize -- An inflatable pirate hat and hook.

 Totally worth it!  Hahahahahahaha.

By the time we got home, the day had stretched out a little too long for my first-day-of-schoolers, and the kids from Sophie on down were in various states of emotional meltdown, but we pulled it together enough to sing happy birthday and cut the cake before hauling everyone off to bed.  All in all, I'd say it was a pretty successful family party.  ;)

 Happy Birthday, Alex!

(This popped up in my Google Photos and I had to include the comparison -- 1st birthday vs. 7th.)