birthdays.

We now officially have a 7 year old. Gosh, those 7 years went quick! Carter has been lucky to spread out his birthday celebration over about 10 days. It started the night before his birthday with a dinner out to the Old Spaghetti Factory. I think this was the 4th year in a row we've gone there to celebrate, he just loves that place!

 My parents and my sister-in-law came up to celebrate which the kids loved. It was a chaotic dinner with a squirmy toddler but luckily the kids know the routine at this point so they happily ate while Matt and I stayed busy with Simon.

 We came home to open presents and have some dessert. Carter chose homemade apple crisp for dessert!

 And his reaction to his new Harry Potter shirt. Ha! This kid just cracks me up sometimes. When he is passionate about something, he gives it his all. And this is such a good example. He is so into Harry Potter everything right now and gets so, so excited when he sees anything with a Harry Potter logo on it.

 The next day, on his actual birthday, I took Carter and Lucy out to a movie and lunch.  It was a great morning with just the 2 of them. We try to have date days with the kids every month and even though our schedule gets busy, spending a little alone time together is so, so good.

 The following weekend we had a combined birthday party for both of them. Lucy turns 5 in just 4 short days and as much as I want to celebrate them individually, let's be honest...this month is busy for everyone and trying to coordinate 2 parties, while inviting most of the same guests just seems silly. Plus, they chose a venue that I told them would only work if we combined their parties (kid parties aren't cheap you know!). They happily agreed as long as they had their own "theme" So, Carter had a Harry Potter birthday (duh) and Lucy chose a Frozen party.

 We went to Pump it Up which is basically a huge warehouse full of bouncy houses and inflatable obstacle courses for kids of all ages to jump, climb, slide and play in. We had 33 kids (yes, 33!) and some really great friends/parents too.

 Kids just love this place. We've been almost a dozen times for various birthday parties and it just never gets old. Plus the staff take care of set up, clean up, entertainment and even pictures so it's really pretty easy to just show up and let everyone have fun.

 Lucy's special Frozen cake!

 Carter's Harry Potter cupcakes!

 The whole group (minus about 3 kids who weren't really into pictures at the moment)

 We decorated the party room with half Frozen/half H.P. which was perfect. Somehow the kids convinced me to pass out party favor bags too, complete with H.P. wands (gold pencils), Elsa stickers and candy canes!

 Such cute friends!

 The 2 little boys enjoying a snack together. Ben and Simon are 7 months apart and love trying to keep up with the big kids.

 The 2 birthday kids!

 After 2 hours of playing, eating and celebrating the sugar crash came quick and we were all tired. We packed up the very generous pile of presents and headed home! It was such a fun party and really reminded me of how blessed we are with some truly amazing friends. Happy Happy Birthday to my 5 and 7 year old!