On July 22, Tanis turned 13. How in the world did that many years fly by?
He was given the choice of having a family party or a friend party and had a hard time deciding. He finally settled on a friend party and then the ball was suddenly back in my court.
I wasn't sure when to do his party. I was worried about the baby coming early and then I KNEW I didn't want to have a party after the baby was here, so I was left with really only one option. The Friday before his birthday. Plus, I just wanted to get it over with so it was one less thing to worry about.
We let Tanis invite 4 friends and he knew exactly who he was inviting. Because we had just got home from camping the Sunday before and I was so slow, we didn't get invites out until Wednesday, so I was quite surprised that there was only 1 friend that didn't make it.
...Seriously, some of the best boys in the neighborhood...
We started off the night by just letting the boys play some video games. After about an hour we decided it was time for gifts. The only reason we cared when we did the gifts was because we had one we wanted to give Tanis that the boys could play that night. Tanis has some really nice friends and was somewhat spoiled.
...From A.W...
...MAGIC Cards...
...From T.B...
...A MarioKart Lego Kit Thing...
...A box of M&M's...
...He also returned a video game he had borrowed, which made me laugh...
...Santa came early (actually it was the only wrapping paper I had)...
After the boys played the new game for about a half hour (come on, we all knew they could immediately after opening it), we did cake and ice cream. Tanis wanted a 'summer fun' type theme, so my plan was to just to draw suns on the cookies and cupcakes. They didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but I think they worked for the most part.
...Love the photo bomb!...
On Tanis' actual birthday, we had an easy going morning/afternoon. I felt bad that we didn't do anything major, but he did get a party a few days before and that wore me out more than I thought it would. During the day Tanis kept talking about going out to dinner. He is the king of indecision (gets it from me) and could not decide where he wanted to go.
When Eric got home, he was ready to go. He was tired and just wanted to get food and get home to relax. Tanis really wanted to go to Burger King, but I wanted to make sure he knew he could do something a little more formal if he chose. He went back to indecision and Eric pretty much told him he had till we got to the car to make a decision. So, he set his heart on Burger King. The only real reason, I think, is because they have one of those fancy drink machines where you have tons of choices.
I was a bit frustrated with his choice, because I wasn't in the mood for a burger - but I made the most of it and actually tried a salad that I ended up really enjoying. The kids all had fun at Burger King and Eric was nicer than I was going to be and got them all kids meals, except the birthday boy, who is now a teen and doesn't have to have a kid meal anymore.
...Ignore her hair. She had fallen asleep prior to leaving and wasn't about to let me do her hair without a fight and I wasn't in the mood for a fight...
After we were done eating, I gave Tanis his other gift. Eric had accidentally taken it to work with him (it was still in his work bag from the weekend), so I didn't get a chance to give it to him or wrap it ahead of time. I just left it in the store bag and stuffed it into my purse. Tanis didn't know what I was doing when I handed him my purse, until I told him to look inside of it. Then he was thrilled. His Dad chose extremely well for this kid.
When we got home, Eric had to reset up all of our gaming systems so Tanis could play his new game. Our old X-Box's cd drive had died months earlier, so the kids had been stuck playing downloaded games. It also meant they couldn't play any Kinect games. Well, Eric decided he wanted an X-Box for his games and it wasn't fair to me to not have a way to play the few games I had either, so he found a good deal on a used X-Box for us. We had kept it in our room and brought it out occasionally, but we really didn't want the kids using it.
I'm not sure why Eric decided to let the kids start using 'our' X-Box permanently, but he did and so he spent the night behind the TV readjusting cables and I got to vacuum behind it and cleaning up that way. When all was said and done, Eric and I were exhausted and we just watched Tanis play his new game for a bit. We then called it a night and hoped our kid enjoyed his birthday.
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