Summer Birthdays

This guy turned six over the summer.  Hard for me to believe since, you know, mothers can never believe that their children are actually growing up.

We pretty much rocked his world when he found this in the driveway.

I super love McKenzie's and Carson's faces turned towards their little brother, obviously excited for him.

The bike was definitely the hit of the day, though it was strongly rivaled by these:

Ten packs of gum.  Just for him.

That night, he requested Cici's pizza, so off to the land of macaroni and cheese pizza we went.

The lot of us were exhausted, but Miles was like the energizer bunny.  Birthdays are fun like that.

We came back home and finished off the evening with a great cake,

and celebrated a bit more that weekend at the sky zone with his buddies McKenzie, Carson, Timothy and Jackson.

Less than two months later, it was Carson's turn to celebrate.

Nine years old.  Really and truly.  I also refuse to believe that.

For the past three birthdays, Carson has found himself just two weeks into a brand new city... which means that there are no friends to celebrate with.  He has been such a good sport about it, and we have taken care to make his birthdays extra special with family events and family magic, so I don't really even think he's noticed that much.

But this final move was different... still just two weeks into our brand new city, we found our pool looking like this on the day of his party:

Packed with kids. With friends.  I can't even count the number of times my heart caught in my throat as I watched them all play.  I won't dive into all of the emotions behind why this move has been incredible for us just yet, but that pool full of kids is one glimpse for you.

We ate pizza,

Played water balloon volleyball,

ate doughnuts from a string,

(or, in Kaylee's case, tried to eat the doughnut from the string)

and sang happy birthday just before we ate the cake that Carson imagined up himself.  "I just want a regular, rectangular, vanilla cake, with strawberry frosting, and frozen, chocolate whipped cream in the center."  Well, okay then.

The next day (Sunday) was his actual birthday, and he was absolutely thrilled to find that Nana and Poppy had sent these along for the occasion.

And Brian and I made all his dreams come true with this penny board (which I had to Google to even find out what it was when he told me that's what he wanted).

We love you, Carson!