Happy 4th Birthday to Joel!

Joel's birthday is today, but as far as he is concerned it was Saturday when we had his party. He decided a couple of months ago that he wanted to have a pirate birthday party, so we obliged.
It was a lot of fun, and Steve really got into this theme. He even helped with the cake decorating! Joel liked licking the beater and batter bowl. Can you tell?In our family, the birthday boy or girl gets to pick out the meals for the entire day. When I was making the grocery list I asked Joel what he wanted. After I bought it, he changed his mind. I told him that was too bad. He started to have a fit that morning, but then something changed and he was excited about his waffles and the "little meat" (aka canadian bacon).
I don't have pictures of lunch because I was busy getting ready for the party, but that was chicken nuggets and tater tots.

The party started with getting the guests dressed in their pirate gear, complete with tattoos, and then they went into the backyard to play in the pirate ships. (Steve made these and he did a great job! They are even still in one piece.) After everybody got arrived, we split the kids into teams and they had a cannonball fight. I think that was everyone's favorite game.They also got to decorate some treasure chest picture frames. Somehow we managed to lose two of those finished crafts by the end of the party. We found one while cleaning up, but still haven't found Kate's. (Sorry, Melody!)We had the obligatory "pin the ..." game, which was Pin the Patch on the Pirate. One of the kids kept trying to put the patch on me. The winner was the second one to go and she just went straight to the right spot and put the patch right on. She was so fast and sure I was wondering if she could see through the blindfold. No one else got that close, though.

Steve helped me make the cake by kneading the colors into the fondant, rolling the tentacles out, and rolling out the fondant for the octopus body. I had never worked with fondant before and would not have been able to knead the color in myself (at least not in the amount of time I left myself to finish the cake). Thanks, Steve!


Then it was time for opening the presents. Joel seemed to be making exceptionally quick work of the presents. I couldn't even get pictures of the last few. After he opened the last one, I figured out why. He was looking for one certain present that he had been asking for for a couple of months. It had been purchased by Grandpa and Grandma but was going to be opened after the party. Instead, Joel burst into tears and started crying that he "didn't get my golden knight! I want my golden knight! I was supposed to get a golden knight!!!"* I was mortified, but the other moms around just laughed/smiled/understood that he was being a 4-year-old. I tried to convince Joel that he had other presents to open later, but he wasn't even listening. I asked Grandma to go ahead and bring out the present. When he saw it, he immediately calmed down and said, "Is this my golden knight?" with such expectation. He was very excited when he opened it and saw that it was. He even carried the box around for the rest of the party. He started putting it together that night and played with it most of the day on Sunday, too.
*I would like to add that he started acting tired just before the party, so that was part of the reason for his outburst.

While dinner was cooking, Joel opened (the rest of) the family presents. He was very excited about them all, especially the tattoo that Evan gave him.
He also liked his knight dress-up set, so that he could be a golden knight.
He hasn't been allowed to take baths recently because most of the water ends up on the bathroom floor. His last gift from us was some bubble bath, bath paints (made by Steve) and some time in the bathtub before bed. It was a great ending to what had been a (mostly) great birthday celebration for him.
Yesterday Grandma took us out to eat. When the waitress asked if we were going to be wanting dessert Steve said no because we had some birthday cake still at home. We told the waitress it was Joel's birthday, and she was sweet and talked to him about it and told him Happy Birthday. Somehow I got around to asking if they did birthday stuff, and she said she would check. A little later she came back with a little piece of warm chocolate cake topped with a little vanilla ice cream served in a wine glass. Joel's eyes got big and he asked if it was for sharing. I said, "Oh, do you want to share it?" He usually is very good about sharing, but this time he emphatically and enthusiastically said, "NO!" He gobbled down every little bit as fast as he could. I think it was the first time he had his own dessert at a nice restaurant, and he thoroughly enjoyed it!