The party was great! We did exactly one of all the scheduled activites, which was to pull out the gift bags, and have the boys put together their lego pods. A wonderful time was had by all, and the grown-ups got to hang out & chat because I let go of any need to organize things. The boys were completely able to entertain themselves, and I figured, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

His new get-up here came from our friends in Chesterland, and he had a blast with it, when I finally allowed him to open it up. I figured that a single sword, shield, and mask set wouldn't help maintain peace at an indoor party for 4 boys.

We bought him the Lego Viking fortress, which was a huge hit. We began putting it together last night, after sushi with Nana & Grandpa. He finished most of it on his own this morning. It was quite a lot of fun to put together with him. He has a good sense of fairness, and we would each work in mirror image of each other. He would wait for me to finish, before moving on to the next part of the instructions. Now, the whole fortress is complete, and accompanied by various other lego creations. Above, on the little table, stand the Bionicle team. They are the beings that the Vikings must defend themselves from. He wants to try & film a stop action animation about it tomorrow.

All in all, I must say that it has been a fantastic birthday weekend. 

Happy Birthday Sun!!! 

Here is the cake before I took it out of the pan this evening.... 

The Sunchild has been working on his birthday party all day long. We put together goody bags for his friends, wrote a list of activities and a plan of action, and baked his cake today. We also talked about what if some of the activities don't go over all that well, and how we could just move on to the next activity. (He has 7. It's a two hour party. I think we have some wiggle room.)

We made Lego bingo boards, and sorted the pieces for playing that. This evening, he told me that he thought they could play Battleship, too. He is going to work on the set up for that game tomorrow while I am at work.

We also bought Twister. He & I played it yesterday, and were giggling madly by the end of it. I think it is a bit trickier than I remember. It probably has something to do with being taller.

The cake is baked. It still has to be assembled, which will happen tomorrow night, after we get home from sushi at Otani's. Nana & Grandpa asked the Sunchild what he wanted for birthday dinner (and considering I have to work all day, it will be nice to eat out), and he said sushi.

I am still trying to wrap my brain around the reality that he will be six years old tomorrow. I told him this afternoon, that six years ago today, I was already hard at work, birthing him into this world.

Now, I must go deal with the cake.

Yesterday was a very atypical day for Ohio, in January. The weather was in the 50s, and so we headed to theNature Center at the Chagrin North Metroparks in Mayfield Village. We went for a walk outside, watching the raindrops hit the duckpond, and on our way to the Visitor Center, we realized that the Nature Center was open.

The Nature Center has a lot of hands on activities for kids. They also have several rescue owls, who have suffered various injuries, and cannot be released to the wild. The Center is staffed by volunteers, and has a wonderful birdfeeder & lookout window. We learned a bit more about recognizing different birds, and also about a tally-sheet project through the University of Cornell. We hope to become more involved with that in the future.

The visit was quite a hit. The Sunchild has requested to make it a regular part of our educational adventure. 

Ancient History has become the latest trend in learning around here. The Sunchild asked me to reserve some materials from the library on Vikings, and we have read a book & watched a video so far. When I was at the library, I picked up a couple of other books as well. This morning, we read Discovering the Iceman, which talks about a mummy found in the Alps in 1991. The body was approximately 5300 years old, and very well preserved. The Sunchild found the story fascinating, and was very interested in the timeline presented at the end of the book.

Luckily, I also got out a more general book on ancient civilizations. He has been flipping through it this morning, and found inspiration for a new Lego creation.

We spent some time today sitting down with a book from the library called Oak Tree. It is a lovely work about a year in the life of an oak, and the web of life that surrounds it. The book had lovely drawings, and each animal that was mentioned got a side blurb with additional data. The Sunchild, upon the first time a size was mentioned, immediately got up to get a measuring stick. It was fun to watch him look up the size for each animal, and begin to get a handle on what an inch actually looks like.

Here is the Sunchild looking at his model Lego Racer that he submitted to Cap Toys for their window display. The larger works in the background were built by a local high school teacher who works Lego models in his spare time. Does anyone recognize the red building?

Mr. Cap gave the Sunchild a 10% discount on his purchases that day, due to his submission of an item for display. This piece of information was very exciting for him, as he was already planning his next submission, and is hoping to get a discount in the future, as well.