Magnus' 6th Birthday

By tradition, we woke before dawn to prepare breakfast and arrange flowers, then sang to the birthday boy as he gently rose out of bed. We kept the morning celebration  in anticipation of the "big" birthday party later in the day.

Magnus chose an Angry Birds party, and I invited Magnus' entire class as a way to get to know all the new families and kids.

We rented a ridiculous bouncy house shaped like a birthday cake, whose trashiness was offset by Kerstin's hand-crafted Angry Birds games. The kids liked the catapult contraption as much as the bounce house!

For the first time the boys had a serious role in making the piñata, King Pig. After many nights of paper maché, glue, and adornment, it was time for Pig to meet his doom. Never underestimate a crowd of children, amped up on sugar and armed with a bat.

 I'm usually prepared for the final blow, when I sweep in and scatter the goods from the piñata to allow a somewhat even distribution of goodies.  This time my age got the best of me-- chaos and trampling ensued, and children shed tears for not being the "fittest" of the herd.

 All was made better with a timely announcement for cake.  Gone are the days of elaborate cake decoration for me, Etsy sells custom rice paper cake toppers with crappy characters galore.  

Our Magnus: easily distracted and delighted, and proud of what makes him different. He sees the good in everyone around him, it's no wonder he's a friend to all.