I can’t believe my oldest is 8! He was pretty bummed leading up to his birthday because we clearly couldn’t have friends over to celebrate. But I promised him it would still be an awesome birthday!
Even breakfast was going to be exciting - Matt went and picked up his favorite breakfast from Waffle House!
Natalie approves of the awesome WH bacon! :)
This guy was so excited for present time! He and I were conspiring to find Thomas the perfect gift and thankfully his first choice was available from Target! He even managed to keep it secret what he had bought for Thomas. :)
Lol - a Lego Minecraft Chicken set! Thomas has been working hard on all his chicken coops in Minecraft lately, so it was pretty much the perfect gift. And it even will lay eggs. Ha!
I woke up early and wrote a giant HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOMAS! along the walkway this morning in chalk. So I guess now I’m to blame if we run out. But Thomas loved it! :)
He’s also standing at the start of his birthday nerf gun themed obstacle course! I went with a combination of obstacles to dodge, things to shoot/knock down and throwing/kicking items.
These were the “grenades” to try and throw into the goal on the porch. I’m only going to brag a little that momma was the only one who managed to make a grenade in there! ;)
Then balloon target practice! And we only got a few darts in the neighbor’s yard…. Sorry neighbors!
After a run around the bushes, you have to loop back and kick soccer balls into the goal.
The giant nerf gun was used for this target practice. Then you had to jump over the wagon, reload the darts and shoot at the next set of targets hiding at the base of the tree.
Thomas did so good that Matt had to try and beat his time/score! I skipped the first part on Thomas’ photos, so back to the beginning! First you run up, grab the small nerf gun and shoot the clear cups off the bench armrest!
The run through the poles - Matt knocked one over! This is right before the grenades, so that pretty much covers the whole course. There was one more set of poles at the end you had to hurdle.
Unsurprisingly, Matt beat Thomas by a little bit on the score - but not as much as he was hoping I think. ;)
Birthday boy taking a break to eat some candy after all the obstacle course excitement.
Henry actually decided to take a nap (ok, I may not have given him an option - he was clearly tired), so Thomas and I had a picnic in the yard! It was such a nice day, especially in the shade!
Also, cold fried chicken is 100% the best picnic meal. If you don’t agree, I’m sorry but you are wrong. ;)
There was a bit of a miscommunication on the birthday cake and I failed his vision! I thought he wanted a Minecraft cake instead of a racetrack cake. But he wanted a Minecraft-Racetrack cake! (Why do my kids always want to combine themes!) Unfortunately, I had used all the remaining oreos for the dirt part of the cake. So he decided that he was ok with me using rainbow sprinkles for the race track.
Oh thank goodness the day wasn’t ruined - lol!
But the best part of the day was the at home Benihana’s dinner! It was by far our favorite birthday celebration venue in Alaska and the boys were bummed we couldn’t go. So we brought it to them! Henry was even in on the plan, he dressed up so he could be the waiter! We pretended to go for a drive and he met us at the door to seat us at the “hibachi grill” and take our drink orders! So adorble!
But the kids lost it when Matt went out to the garage and came back in with a cart full of ingredients to make dinner, just like Benihana’s! And the chef’s hat was just perfect!
He read up on what to do to make it as close as possible to the real thing - including the volcano onion! Thank goodness we already had a green laser. ;)
The boys absolutely loved it! And it was starting to smell just like the real thing!
Overall, I’d say we nailed it! I even made their favorite dipping sauce!
I also may have enjoyed it so much that I’ve been googling outdoor hibachi set-ups…!
The morning after the big day! I told my mom that Thomas needed some cooler pajamas and she sent him these undershirts to sleep in. He looks like a little old man! And he was nice enough to let Henry use on too since he was so jealous.
And finishing off the chocolate waffles from yesterday. I may have almost set the toaster on first trying to keep the chocolate from melting all over it, but that chocolate covered smile was totally worth it. ;)
Happy Birthday Thomas! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed planning it!