July 9

Happy birthday to my sweet boy Caleb! Four was a rough year for us, but we made it through and I can already tell that five is going to be so much better!

We celebrated last night with birthday cake and presents with the family. At 6:40 this morning, Caleb woke up to balloons in his doorway:

(I'm no fool; I was sound asleep when this happened. Luckily, Chris was prepared with the camera and took a picture for me.)

Caleb informed me later that at first, he thought the balloons were "villains in my doorway, but I ran through them."

Then, Caleb, Daisy, and even Lily had birthday  cake for breakfast. 

(Judging by the piece on the blue plate in the foreground, so did Chris!)

Lily was a jerk about her morning nap (side note: she slept through the night last night, and the night before. She just hates me for one nap a day, apparently?), but instead of fighting to make her sleep, I loaded the kids in the car and we went hunting for birthday cakes.

Our goal was five cakes for Caleb's fifth birthday. 

(Side note: Chris' 33rd birthday is in a few weeks, and we are seriously considering attempting to find 33 cakes in one afternoon. Are we insane? Possibly.)

Cake #1

The party hats were Caleb's idea. He was worried that we weren't really supposed to be there, because it was a synagogue and it was a weekday and he thought we were only supposed to go to church on Sundays. That poor boy is so worried about doing the right thing!

Cake #2, outside an historic church and cemetery. Caleb still has his party hat, but Daisy has ditched hers.

Cake #3, at an auto museum. Lily was getting tired of the whole thing, so I had to give her my car keys to keep her still. Caleb has party hat in hand, but not on his head.

Caleb was super-excited about this old car in front of the museum. 

Lily was mildly interested.

Daisy was nowhere to be found.

Daisy?

Funny boy.

Cake #4, at the Butterfly house. Our whole cake-hunting expedition only took an hour and a half, but everyone was hungry, hence the apples in Lily and Daisy's hands. Lily may only have two bottom teeth, but she's learning how to put those things to good use!

After cake #4, we had a picnic in the park and played on the playground for a little while. Then we headed home, where Lily settled in for a three-hour nap. Knowing we had the baseball game ahead of us, I tried to get the big kids to nap. They were not interested.

Then I pulled out my big bargaining chip: "Do you want to nap with me in my big bed?"

I didn't think it would work, but it totally did. The only problem was that Caleb and Daisy both wanted me to snuggle them, which is kind of challenging. Eventually we figured out an acceptable snuggling arrangement, and all three of us napped for two hours, snuggled up in the big bed.

It was beautiful.

My well-rested five-year-old!

Then Chris got home from work, and we were off to Star Wars night at Busch Stadium!

Cake #5, at Busch Stadium.

We loved our bleacher seats at the last game we attended, but by the time I tried to buy tickets to this game, there were no more bleacher seats available. Boo. We ended up in the nosebleed seats, which were just fine. We had a stunning view of the stadium!

Caleb and Daisy spent a lot of time covering their ears.

Lily didn't mind the noise.

We headed down to see Fredbird, and Caleb and Daisy were the last kids in line to get to see him.

(We bought three tickets to the game, since Lily and Daisy don't need them yet. Three tickets = three shirts; we chose size medium for Chris, small for me, and youth medium for Caleb. Oops. Daisy thought there would be a shirt for her! So Daisy wore Caleb's shirt, and Caleb wore mine, and no one had a shirt that fit. But they make lovely dresses!)

While we were looking for Fredbird, we also found Darth Vader! 

We had to wait in a long line to see him, and Caleb was excited. Then it was our turn, and he was super-shy.

After a few seconds, Caleb warmed up, even giving Darth Vader a high five. We wandered around, looking fruitlessly for more characters, and eventually left sometime after 8:00. Now we're all pooped, and the kids got to bed two hours past bedtime. I'm done with celebrating and late nights for a while!