No longer waiting for life to happen: Turning 9

W turned nine on Saturday.

He was excited to get another How to Train your Dragon lego set.

And the book on dragon species was a major score.

Then, after a quick breakfast, W, Nini and I headed just up the street to hike Slate Canyon with the cub scouts. It was the perfect morning for it. Cool, breezy, overcast, a few tiny sprinkles of rain. And of course, I forgot to grab the camera in our rush to get out. The boys (and Nini) learned to identify a few trees and we hurried home to get ready for W's birthday party.

One of the nice things about having two boys is being able to recycle birthday party ideas. Bucket has a science party and a year or two later W has a science party. That kind of thing. This year I took it a step further and actually reused the party games. The party themes were different, but by just changing a couple things, I was able to run basically the same party, twice. I even left up the cup blowing game set up for the intervening weeks.

W's party was How to Train your Dragon themed.

The boys got their "viking" name tags and colored pictures while we waited for everyone to arrive,

then the boys built popsicle stick catapults (a recycle from the left-overs from Bucket's party last year.)

Then they used their catapults to shoot marshmallow "sheep" into a box, for a dragon "sheep toss" game.

Then we hunted for dragons, using the string game. I bought a How to Train your Dragon book online that came with mini-figures to use for this one.

Then the boys had their "dragon type" to use in the dragon race (cup blowing) and dragon battle (balloon competition) and we could announce things like - NIGHT FURY VS. GRUNKLE!! They loved it.

We then did sparklers (dragon fire) and snakes (more dragon fire), ate cupcakes and opened presents. W won the name tag game... but there were LOTS of stars being traded around during the party and the boys had a lot of fun with it.

I am so glad that W has such great friends in the neighborhood. It was one of the major influences in our decision to NOT put him in the gifted magnet next year. He was accepted into the program, but in the end I couldn't take him away from the amazing music program at his school and his friends. I'm excited for him to be able to do choir before school, learn the violin (for the 3rd year) and be in the after-school musical with these great kids.

For dinner W asked for homemade broccoli cheese soup. I was worried about cooking all afternoon with the unseasonably HOT weather we'd been having. The one cool and rainy day couldn't have come at a better time. (And I do make a mean pot of soup, even if I do say so myself.)