The Bartholomew Family: Tyler is 6!!

Well folks .... my baby is now 6 years old! I can't believe it! The time has gone by so fast, but yet there were times that seemed to last forever (the not so fun parts!!)! I am so sad that he is already 6 but I am excited about the experiences we can share with him as he gets older. The last few days I found myself thinking back " 6 years ago today, we checked into the hospital; 6 years ago today, he was born; 6 years ago today, I finally got to see him....". I guess the nostalgia will never end though.

To celebrate his birthday, we went out to dinner (this was Friday). We let him pick... well kinda. He first chose Chuckee Cheese. WE did not want Chuckee Cheese. So we were awful parents and we reminded him of all the germs there and that he may get sick and have to go to the doctor and get a shot. (Horrible, absolutly horrible, we know!) But there really are just too many germs going around and too many minimum wage workers at Chuckee Cheese who really do not care if my family gets sick! So Tyler chose his next favorite place, the Airport Restaurant (actually named the Flying Machine). It is a small airport with private planes and the restaurant is right on the runway so you can get a good look at the small planes and watch them land and take off. It's pretty cool. The food is really good too. We have only been after church on Sundays so this was our first night time visit. It was a lot of fun! There was some guy on the stage singing (he actually took our drink order when we first got there. He must be a man of many talents). Later on he called Tyler up on stage and had everyone sing happy birthday to him. It was sweet and Tyler felt really special. The atmosphere was great and I got to dance with my children during some of the songs too (that was the highlight for me). It was a really nice time and a great birthday for Tyler (better than Chuckee Cheese anyday, in my opinion atleast!!).

On to the birthday party ....

On Saturday, we had Tyler's birthday party. He finally ditched the transformer party idea with a bit of persuading from Mom (ok, LOTS of persuading)!! He had a Ghostbuster party. It was a blast! I made the birthday cake, complete with the Marshmallow Man! Because Ghostbusters is a trademarked logo, the grocery stores wouldn't make one for me... So I was forced to make it myself. I practiced for the two weeks leading up to the party and when it was all said and done, I think the entire first floor of my house was covered in a layer of powdered sugar! I decorated the cake on Friday and, by Saturday morning, the middle of the square layers was starting to bulge out making the cake loose it's shape. But whatever! What are you going to do at that point? I just reminded myself that they are all 6 year olds and won't know the difference! I am most proud of the Marshmallow man!

Pretty much everything for the party was homemade. You can't really find Ghostbuster stuff at the stores anymore. So ....the invitations:

The goodie bags came with 2 ghost cookies, a thing of slime, and a thank you card. Yes, I said Thank you card! Yes, I write them ahead of time and they are very generic. They read "Thank you for coming and celebrating my birthday with me. I am glad you are my friend." I believe strongly that if Tyler and I both thank each person for their gift verbally, a thank you card is not needed... but I know other people feel otherwise. So for those other people, here is your card. It is generic, but still from the heart and it satisfies the need for a thank you card! So stop looking so shocked!!!)

The party was at the park (which I liked SO much better than doing it at the house) and we could not have asked for a more gorgeous day! The kids played a game of freeze tag (the kids were ghosts, the person who was "it" was the ghostbuster, and then the Marshmallow Man could come around and un-freeze you); and they also played a game of "Ghostbusters" where the kids had to run through the park and shoot the ghosts hanging from the trees with their silly string. They seemed to have fun and used up alot of energy!

Tyler was super anxious to open his presents. Once we finally got to that point, he was very pleased with his gifts.

I was happy the marshmallow man survived the day. I fully expected that once he was propped up against the cake, that he would be all hunched over by the end of the day!

The "big gift" from us was Tyler's bunk beds and a "Transformer" room. He has been asking us to put his bunk beds up for like 2 years now. I wanted to paint all his furniture black and make everything coordinate better so Mason spent the past 2 weeks painting everything while I did all the party work. The room ended up looking so much better than I expected and Tyler loved it. My big boy finally has a big boy room! The only thing left from his nursery is the big airplane shelf in the middle of the wall. I guess I will take that down in a few weeks when I attempt to paint a brick wall there (wish me luck)!!