Jack’s birthday celebration continued for the next few days after his birthday.

He was blessed to have the day before his birthday off for President’s day. That coupled with unseasonably warm weather meant a play date with some of his school friends (also mom friend’s of mine).

Look who else showed up cruisin’ at the park!

Later we took the family to the Lego Batman movie as another birthday treat.

Then today, on his actual birthday, he was treated to an entire cheesecake from his tutor!

That evening, he picked Rainforest Cafe for his birthday dinner.

Aaron was obsessed with the big alligator.

The brother’s personally picked and gave him his presents at dinner. Ben picked a Lego Star Wars set which, master builder that he is, completed at the table at dinner. Aaron picked a mystery game which Adam played with him after dinner and Sam picked a variety of candies he knew he liked. 

For dessert we got the lava cake and shared it with all the kids. There was still some leftover after everyone was full!

Much as each year is a reminder of how fast these years are slipping by, it’s so nice to see how Jack has progressed into a thoughtful, helpful big brother, a loyal and fun loving friend, a master lego builder, a minecraft master, a soccer star and more.

Happy Birthday my big little guy. We love you very much!

Hard to believe we will soon cross the threshold into double digits but yet here we are…

Jack celebrated his 10th birthday today.

This year he wanted a ‘mystery’ theme. He was thinking along the lines of a Scooby Doo themed party.

Well, don’t make it too easy for me Jack!

Still, we did our best to pull it off.

First with Scooby themed snacks and a Jelly Bean guessing game.

While The Mystery Shop set up their show, the kids busied themselves by beating each other up with pool noodles. 

As you can see many of the kids were in short sleeves. It is an unusually warm day today, in the 70s. The news reported that weather this warm in February has only happened 4 times since 1871.

It was good luck for us, since every time we have this many kids over, they open all the doors to the house and run up and down the back stairwell, basically exposing the outside world to our heating for the length of the party. This year we didn’t even have the heat on!

Then it was time for the show. The kids did mad libs type exercises, a choose your path type story, and some riddles.

By the time the show was over, the pizza had arrived. 

We gave the kids enough time to get up to more mischief. And they did. At one point a bathroom sink was left on and overflowed. Then later one of the kids got locked in a closet (he was totally cool about it though!). I think I walked by a game where one kid laid on the floor, got covered in couch pillows then the other kids laid on top of that. I didn’t ask any questions….

Next it was cake time!

Adam did his usual grandiose cake from Deerfield Bakery. Yes, that house is edible.

Finally it was time to say goodbye. Before each guest left, we handed out invisible ink books instead of the usual goodie bag.

Now, time for presents…

I got an email from the Chicago Children’s Museum that their new “Once Upon a Castle” exhibit just opened.

At first I thought, do my rambunctious boys want to play in a girlie castle? Maybe we’ll skip it. But Jack had a day off school and we were looking for some indoor entertainment so we ended up heading over this morning anyway.

I’m so glad I did.

It is NOT just for girls!

There are two massive structures to climb and play in. 

There is dress up, but not just princess dresses, but king’s hats, swords, shields, fake horses, jester collars, and more!

There was gold to gather and copper goblins to drink from or pretend to steal.

hoarding gold

There was also a lot of sword fighting, I loved how interactive it was! We played with many of the kids in the room.

And when that was done, we checked out the rest of the museum.

Building.

Fishing.

Climbing.

And so much more…

When it was all done, we checked out the many new food establishments in the area. Sam wanted a PB&J and refused everything else. Luckily newly opened Goddess and Baker provided!

We also sampled a few favorites, like Garrett’s popcorn and even tried a new treat from Xurro (Churros).