The Day You Turned Nine

Okay, first of all, yes I know it's been like three months since I've blogged. I've been busy. Like really, really, busy. Like so busy I almost forgot I had a computer in which to blog on, or a house even, since if I'm not at work, I'm at someone's sports practice. 

I thought having bigger kids was supposed to be "easier".

TODAY, however, is a day worth shoving a stack of papers off the old laptop and blogging for! It's a big day! It's a birthday today! And I always make sure to blog birthdays. In fact, this is the 5th birthday post I've done for Calen!

And not just any birthday. It's the oldest Hansen Boy's birthday. Yes, the once chubby cheeked butterball of a baby is now NINE YEARS OLD. 

NINE!!!! What the hell happened?!? He was 3 a minute ago.

How, exactly, does this happen? I blinked and like, five years just stormed by. Am I in the Twilight Zone? Is this actual reality? We literally JUST celebrated his eighth birthday maybe two weeks ago. 

We had a very traditional birthday-day from start to finish. There are a few things that HAVE to happen on their birthdays, or it just isn't their birthday. 

FIRST, birthday pancakes! Complete with whipped cream, sprinkles, and a numbered candle. 

+5 points to coolness factor if your numbered candle has a shark bite taken out of it, for purposes later described. 

Then off to school (total drag, man) to share Chips Ahoy and fruit snacks (for those crazy non-human students that don't like chocolate) with his class. 

Because Grammy and Papa Hansen are here for his birthday, we decided to heck with school!, and pulled both the kids out at noon to go have a little celebratory lunch together. Calen of course picked McDonald's, because that's still cool at nine. 

We had two hours to kill before Dad got home from work, so instead of sitting in the dining room staring at those wrapped presents, we went to the "castle playground" in town to burn off some excited energy. 

Finally, FINALLY, Dad came home, and it was time to sit on the dining room table (per tradition!) and presents were opened. He received a lot of cool science kits, a couple Lego sets, and the big gift of this year was a kids watch phone that all the cool kids in the neighborhood have, where he can call up to 4 people (all family) and we can call him, giving him a lot of freedom in our little fenced community. Bonus points for the fact that this is literally the ONLY capabilities this phone watch has. No apps, no texting, no thank you. 

+100 points for putting a very small in size but much wanted gift, like said watch, into a GIGANTIC gift bag, filled with tissue paper and rocks, to make it seem like a big heavy present. Calen was like "wait, seriously?? I got rocks?"

"Rocks?!?!"

Okay way cooler than rocks

As the tradition has goes (ever since Calen's 3rd birthday), the birthday boy gets to pick the special dinner location of choice, and then gets to go to Toys R Us (the ONLY time of year they get to go there) to pick out their own birthday present. Of course, unless you are living in a sand castle on some secluded third world tropical island, you know that Toys R Us is going out of business. I was very concerned, upon entering our local store the other day, that the empty shelves and gutted aisles would be kind of depressing for Calen to experience on his birthday. But, he was INSISTENT that no other store would do, and he didn't care if they were out of stock of what he was looking for. He HAD to go to Toys R Us one more time. So we went. And while he was completely thrilled, walking slowly down the aisles with his hands behind his back, scoping out that perfect toy, I was kind of sad, watching a six year tradition come to an end. 

The last time ever walking in to Toys R Us

Picking out his present! The closing signs made me sad. 

The Lego section was completely gutted, but he didn't seem to mind, that wasn't on his agenda today anyways. He spent about twenty minutes mulling over every single Call of Duty and Halo "Lego" (not Lego, Mega Bloks) set in one aisle, he abandoned it and went to the practically untouched Nerf aisle, where he carefully and meticulously pulled every.single.Nerf gun that interested him onto the floor to study it carefully. At one point, it was him cross legged on the floor, surrounded with boxes of Nerf guns, contemplating his plan of action (and how to make $50 stretch to his liking). 

Decisions, decisions

In the end, he picked a gun, and matching sword thing, and a Nerf dart bandolier, and decided that was "definitely what he wanted". Until we left the aisle, and he GASPED, saw a completely new Nerf gun that he hadn't seen during his personal debate, and ceremoniously thrust his chosen gun onto a shelf and snatched the new one in one fowl swoop. (He did end up studying it for a minute too, but decided that was DEFINITELY the winner.)

Armed to the teeth with his new presents

Calen's dinner of choice was Mountain Mike's Pizza, complete with a hockey game on TV (because baseball wasn't on yet), and a refill of rootbeer. And then we got to go home and have CAKE! Because it isn't a birthday without CAKE. 

Let's talk about the cake. I was in such denial that Calen couldn't possibly be turning nine that I ignored the fact I needed to make a cake until about 4 o'clock PM the evening before. And anybody knows me knows that my cakes take a while to make. So needless to say, I was up until midnight-thirty rolling stupid blue-marbled fondant and trying to get Lego sharks to stick to the side of the 2nd layer. 

Calen picked a "shark cake" for this year, with two layers (swiss chocolate and funfetti) under a layer of blue-marbled fondant (pre-made from Michael's - just add color-- because who the hell has time to make fondant from scratch). Then we made a little darker layer of fondant for "waves" and added white frosting gel for bubbles and line details. Throw a big toy shark and some cardboard shark fins on the top and some Lego marine life accessories, and voila! One of the easiest cakes I've made. 

We ended the day shooting new Nerf guns and watching The Sandlot, per Calen's request. It was such a great day celebrating this amazing big boy of ours. I hope that both boys look back on their birthdays as just amazing (but not necessarily over the top) family days that are completely centered around them. Calen was so thankful throughout the whole day today, and that's how I knew we were doing it right. He can't wait for his party next week!

Happy 9th birthday Buddy. We love you so much.