Adam's Birthday Party

Adam's team picture (Adam is bottom row 2nd from left)

Derek and teammates warm up in the batting cage before their game

Birthday money and gift cards finally enabled the kids to get their long awaited Wii

Helen and Adam go over the plans for the castle cake for Adam's birthday party

Derek was a great help entertaining Adam's party guests

Adam doles out snacks (fruit loops, apples, bbq chips, doritos) to his friends. Adam planned the snack menu himself although we did override his original choice of broccoli.

On Saturday, Helen's parents (Nanna and Poppy) came over to watch the boy's baseball games. This is the first week their games have been at the same time. It worked out great because their fields were right next to each other, so we could sit between them and watch both games. I took the boys early for Adam's pictures while Helen finished baking the cake for Adam's birthday party on Sunday. She came later with her parents.

After baseball we headed over to downtown Norcross for pizza at Paizanos, but traffic was blocked off for an outdoor concert by Banks and Shane so we couldn't find any parking. Helen's parents were following us through the crowd, which made the ordeal more stressful. We finally decided to go around and come in on the other side of downtown where we were able to find parking. We had a nice dinner and finished just as the concert was starting. We hung around for a few songs. The mood was festive and there were people getting up from their tables to dance. Adam wanted to get on my shoulders and we all had fun dancing to the music. It turned out to be a nice evening.

On Sunday morning, the boys went grocery shopping with Helen and I followed a little later and surprised them. I had called ToysRUs and found out that they were going to have some hard to find Nintendo Wii consoles on Sunday morning. The boys have been saving their money for a while in order to purchase one. When I found the boys in the grocery store and asked them if they wanted to go get a Wii, they screeched with delight and started hugging each other and dancing in the aisle - before running for the car with me quickly saying goodbye to Helen and trailing behind.

We got to ToysRUs a little after 9 (the store opened at 10) and were the 15th group in line. I setup some chairs and I read while the boys played their DS's. The store manager came out about 9:30 and told us that they had plenty of consoles for everyone and that they had done this so many times that the process was going to be very orderly. About 5 minutes before 10 they handed out vouchers and had us all file into the store to the electronics section where there were 2 registers ready and a person setup in front of the registers to answer the next person's questions and set them up with any extra accessories. It was all very orderly.

The boys enjoyed the whole experience. They were beyond excited. We got an extra remote, nunchuck, and the "Super Smash Brothers Brawl" game. After buying the Wii and accessories we strolled around the store looking at all the other fun stuff. I remember when I was little going through Lionel Play World and thinking it was the best thing ever. We checked out lots of neat things, but it was kind of sad passing by all the little kid stuff like Thomas the Train, etc that they used to be into.

On Sunday afternoon, we had several of Adam's friends (Ryan, Dylan, Zach, and Patrick) over for Adam's birthday party. The boys were anxious to setup the Wii, but I told them beforehand that we had a lot to do to get ready for the party and that we wouldn't have time to set it up. We still haven't set it up and it's driving them crazy. They were driving me crazy until I told them that the next time they asked about setting up the Wii that I would postpone the setup an extra day. Adam asked last night and suffered the wrath of Derek when I told them that it would cost them a day.

Adam changed his mind many times about what he wanted to do for his birthday party. It was going to be at Monkey Joe's for a long time, but he changed his mind a few weeks beforehand. He finally said that he wanted to have it at our house and that they would play games like dodge ball. What ended up happening is that the kids dressed up and armed themselves with various weapons to fight Derek. They spent most of the time chasing Derek or hiding from Derek. Derek really was a big help as far as keeping them occupied. None of the parents stayed, so Helen actually had time to grade a few papers.