A birthday celebration

With Henry's birthday landing on a Sunday this year, it gave us the opportunity to turn it into a whole weekend celebration. We started things off with some Fro Yo and a trip to the park Friday evening.

 

On Saturday, the girls and guys went their separate ways for a bit, but then had lunch together and headed to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. We want to make the most of our membership, and found the natural play area practically deserted. It was lovely! We also checked out the manicured garden areas to look for the first signs of spring flowers. I bet one week more and large beds of tulips will be in full bloom. We ended our time there with a slow trip along the 3 mile drive. Then we headed to Tommy's Malt Shop for burgers and malts.

Henry found a worm in the sand. The kids dug a hole in the dirt to bury it. (Also, I love my brother's macro lens.)

Henry serving up some steak and potatoes at his hotel.

Sunday morning we started off with Olivia's sweet gift she bought for Henry with her own money. Of all the toy options at the Lark Toy Store we went to a few weeks ago, she insisted on buying this button for him. We had our traditional donut breakfast, and attended Sunday school and church.

After lunch we headed to the Garden Center to help them out with a few projects. Back at the house the kids played while Pat and I prepped for dinner with the family. No big party this year. Just a text out to family to join us for a meal, easy food, Olivia made some decorations, and we pieced together a simple cake.

Gum is this kid's new favorite!

 Olivia was so thoughtful in all of her gifts for Henry. She made a sweet card, "alien hats" (her unique way to re-use some paper bags and other scraps of paper from my recycling bin at school), and this paper fire truck. It slips over the head and has handles, so "Henry can pretend he's a fire fighter and put out fires and rescue people." She wrapped all of her gifts in hand-decorated paper too. She is such a thoughtful gift-giver!

The highlight of the day was his gift of a bike. Taking off the drop-cloth revealing the bike under he said "WHAT?!" It was such a sweet reaction. Although it was raining he did laps around the garage for the longest time. Of course it was most fun when Olivia joined him on her bike, and Uncle Brent rode the pedal John Deere, and even Daddy jumped on a little riding toy. This will get a lot of use this summer, I can tell!