Graham turns EIGHT March 2, 2015!

Graham's Birthday fell on a Monday so he was able to take rice krispie treats to school and revel in his special day. It also gave me time to get a game plan together for his party.

A nice spring day.

I got the decor started but was really waiting for Ava to come home and be the brains behind the operation. I had a foggy idea in my head of the kids making clue books of some kind using ink pads, but  couldn't get a vision going.

Ava looked a the books for a while and suggested that we run different objects through the ink and make tracks in their books. Then the kids would have to look at the objects on the tray and guess which item matched the tracks. Perfect!

We started on this project the same time the party began so there was quite a bit of "free play" at the beginning ;) 

 What better to serve at a cop party than DONUTS? However, Graham does NOT like donuts. He does however like donut HOLES. Go figure. So we made donut kabobs!

I kept trying to get a picture with Brigham's eyes open. He finally said, "I'm playing dead."

 While they ate I begged Ava to help me come up with some more activities. I had purchased little detective kits from the dollar store and she suggested the boys fish for them. Perfect again!

 Graham had recently drawn a police mural that we stuck to the wall, cut out some sirens and played "pin the siren on the helicopter or police car."

The time was really dragging on it seemed! Even after gift opening we had time to play,  "See who can keep the balloon in the air the longest." I thought the half-effort planning would go unnoticed on Graham. It didn't. "There was a lot of play time while you guys got things ready at this party." 

 We waited to open the family gifts that night after Matt was home. Here he reads a sweet letter from Grandma.

It is a pretty lucky thing that Matt purchased Graham the Police Lego Station for his Birthday because Graham had already told all his friends at school that he got it!!!

And yet, he almost couldn't believe it.

He wanted to start on it right away. 

 I looked at the booklets of instructions and bags of pieces and was glad he would have a project to keep him busy for a while.

We could hardly pull him away to eat his requested dinner of stuffed shells.

You can't really blame him for not being hungry right after his birthday party. After school we had gone to Smith's and he had picked out a chocolate on chocolate cake.

"What do I need to do to get back to those Legos? Blow out these candles? There done."

We put on National Treasure 2 upstairs on the little TV so he could build while we watched it. By the time the movie was over, he was DONE with the station!

He has taken it apart and rebuilt it a few times since this photo. He is good to put the pieces in bags and label them. A gift that keeps on giving. Just like Graham.