My Johnny

Johnny hitting the road

Enjoying a lot of sugar

Birthday cake 2012

Thursday night we wrangled ourselves up after swim practice and headed to the Red Ox in celebration of Johnny’s 8th birthday. After we got home I began my night before birthday ritual of cake baking, sign making and paper door blocking. This year Johnny specifically requested a worm and dirt cake. My kids like gummy stuff, so it makes it pretty simple for me to make them happy with the decorating. I baked a vanilla bean cake with chocolate frosting, ground up oreos and of course used some gummy worms. I made the signs and finally put up the newsprint over his door for him to bust through in the morning. I have to leave space a the bottom just incase he isn’t the first one up and someone else has to crawl under. But SURE ENOUGH, that was not the case—Johnny was up at 5:15. Adam had bought Johnny his own tackle box and I think he was pretty excited about that. At about 8:00, David, Johnny and I loaded our bikes in the van and headed to Dundee for the path. We took a little bit of a nostalgic drive through our old neighborhood. When parked and prepped at the train depot. Once Johnny started riding I could tell he was ready to fly. I think he really enjoyed the freedom to just go and ride. I only had to remind him a handful of times to stay to the right. Unfortunately David was having some trouble with his bike (turns out that it was just the handlebars twisted around a full rotation messing with the breaks). He struggled for a while before we figured that out and I know that was so frustrating for him. We finally got it settled on our way back by stopping at the bike shop. Felt kind of dumb when I heard what the problem was—but they adjusted his seat a little higher too and sent us on our way. So fun to be out there with them, I hope that we do it again soon. We hit the candy store on our way out of town and the boys picked giant tubes of sugar and Johnny got a bubble tape. The bopping continued as we went to pick out a fish (Johnny’s present from Anna and David). We got a beta fish and his name is Stuart. I hope Stuart lasts because I think each of the kids has fed him at least once since yesterday. We had supper and ate cake then headed to Anna’s soccer game. A game that she scored TWO times in! We went for DQ to celebrate some more. It was a great day. At 3:00 am this morning I got a text from Israel wishing Johnny a happy birthday.

Happy Birthday to the tenderhearted boy who keeps us on our toes and continually surprises us with his witty insights and his wild imagination. 8 Years of Johnny!!! YES!!