Porter's 7th Birthday

*This post has been edited. I woke up this morning and decided my posts have been lacking text (after looking through my blog book and enjoying reading all the stuff we had done), so I added some to this post, and am going to try to supplement my photos with more text in the future.

We woke up to an awfully excited 7 year old. He chose Cream of Wheat (one of his ALL TIME favorites) for the big birthday breakfast. I paid him $20.00 to not have a friends party (best $20 ever spent). One of the perks of a family party...you get to open presents first thing in the morning!

Another perk of a family party...adorable little helpers to help with all the cumbersome unwrapping.

This picture made me laugh because it looks like Maya is thinking "I wish I was getting presents (in a Veruca Salt -from Willy Wonka- voice)" which is totally not how she is. She get so excited for her bubby and she is a great sport about not getting gifts herself.

This guy needs to stop growing up. I miss my little baby boy. At least he is still one of the sweetest guys I know. I sure feel blessed to be his momma. One of the reasons we decided not to do a 'friends' party was because there are not a lot of kids Porters age here. He has one friend from church his age, and a few others in his primary class (who are a little younger) that he could have invited, but MOSTLY I just didn't want to put the work into it. So I said "How about I just give you $20.00 and we won't have a party with friends, since we don't really have any friends anyway." Well tonight my dad called to wish him happy birthday and Porter explained to Grampy that he "didn't have a party because he doesn't have any friends". Grampy did a great job of reassuring him that he "does have lot of friends, he just doesn't know it".

Just one grin, giggle, hug, or smooch from this little man can melt my heart.

Casey doled out the Birthday spankins, and judging from the grin on Porters face I bet you can tell this doesn't happen that often (What? DAD giving SPANKINGS? Never!)
'Rip it, tear it, rip it like a parrot'

Porter was such a nice big brother, letting Benny help him unwrap his gifts.

So one of his gifts was a huge bookshelf (may sound weird, but I swear it's legit). The thinking behind it was that he would have somewhere high to put his creations so the smaller Elmer's would be less likely to destroy them. I thought he'd be really stumped by the huge, heavy gift, but he looked at the box and said "It's either a bookshelf or a vacuum". Casey and I were both shocked he guessed it. In order to kind of play it off Casey said "Would you like a vacuum?" Porter said "YES, I could take it apart!"
These little weird toys are called Bakugans and Porter likes them for some reason, so his sister and the two babies got him a couple. (I despise trendy toys. Casey says my motto is "If it's not wooden it's not gooden")

Even though Porter was so good about letting his siblings help with the unwrapping, some people had a hard time with the idea of Porter getting ALL the presents.

Nana and Grampy came through with a LEGO gift card, and it even came with a magazine to order from. I have a feeling this is going to provide hours of deciding what to buy!

Grammy and Poppy hooked him up with this great coat (doesn't he look great in that blue?). They also sent some really fun books to read.

Daddy got him a really awesome tool kit of his very own (thus the bookshelf-he had to have SOMETHING to build). It didn't take him long to find an old DVD player and start disassembling it.

And dad even stayed home a little longer this morning to help Porter build his shelf!

A couple of hooligans wanted to leave the bookshelf lying down so they could use it as a pony corral. See Bennett in the background being a pony.

Alas, our apartment isn't big enough for a pony corral, so we had to finish it up and set it upright (much to the dismay of the ponies).

Then daddy went to work and we spent the day watching Duck Tales, making the cake, and organizing the toy room and the new shelf! Porter wanted Vanilla cake with Vanilla frosting (YUCK. If I'm going to slave away in the kitchen, you better bet there is going to be CHOCOLATE involved). So I convinced him that it'd be really cool to alternate layering chocolate and vanilla cake, and put a chocolate frosting (mixed with cool whip to appease the chocolate haters in the family) in between the layers. Then we frosted the whole thing with vanilla frosting, shook rainbow sprinkles all over it, and used a chocolate candy writer to write "Happy Birthday Porter". I can remember as a kid my mom decorated cakes to earn extra money. I always loved it because she would cut off the top portion of the cake and let us eat it. It was so so so cool! So for the first time I cut the top (and sides) off this cake, and even though I was tempted to eat the scraps all by myself, I decided to try to let my kids enjoy one of those moments I enjoyed as a kid. THEY LOVED IT!

Then we braved the rain and ventured out to McDonald's (where I sat, praying our Pediatrician wouldn't walk in) for the birthday dinner. Come to find out, it's not so much that he loves the food, but he wants MORE toys!

After finishing dinner we rushed back home and lit up that big hunk a cake!

Throughout the day Porter would walk into the kitchen and ask "When do we get to dig into that big hunk a cake?" After we all ate cake Porter decide he would try to make a deal with his dad. The conversation went something like this:

Mom-"Casey, you should serve this cake at game night tonight. I don't want it sitting around the house"

Dad-"OK"

Porter-"NO WAY, you'll have to pay me for it. How about $20.00."

Dad-"No"

Porter-"How about $40, I doubled the price."

Dad-"How about $10?"

Porter-"No Way!"

Dad-"How about 5?"
Porter-"OK, $10.00!"

Porter got his first lesson in Bartering 101.

I guess it was worth the wait.

Maya ate too much and gave herself a tummy ach.

I guess Dad did too.

Miles didn't get any cake so he had to make do with chewing on his fingers. But we did give him a french fry (salt and trans fats).