Our annual picture session. Poor Beck is a little more thin than usual because he'd been dealing with a sickness all the previous week. But they're definitely not babies anymore, they look like real kids now!
The day before their birthday they got roller skates from Grandma and Grandpa in preparation for the big day, though they didn't know our plans included the skating rink quite yet.
Birthday signs up late the night before!
(I figured writing out the word "six" was better than having three 6's!)
The first surprise was a big one! Some generous and loving aunts and great grandma got them real bikes! Lydia is smaller so her bike frame is smaller and came with training wheels, but the boys' bikes didn't. They've only ever ridden balance bikes and trikes, so we were interested to see how quickly they could learn to ride without training wheels. Literally, in under 15 mins they were pros! They took off from me holding them up, I never had to hold on as they pedaled, but it took them a good 15 mins before they could start on their own.
Lydia is on her way to it also, but has always been a but more cautious anyway. These videos are from a few days later (after Quin recovered from the stomach bug he picked up during all our adventures). Of course we went down the street to the church parking lot to learn!
Quin was so cute and has said his favorite thing is biking now and that he's proud of himself. We have yet to go on the trails quite yet, but there are several close by our house we are itching to get to!
After we managed to tear them away from their awesome new bikes, we told them to look in their belt bag/fanny packs we had just given them. Inside were tickets to all the fun things we were going to do that day! I forgot to take pictures of them after I had cut them up, but above is a pic of them before. These are things they've done up in Washington with Grandma and Grandpa that are a special occasion thing! First up was bowling and the arcade!
Still learning how to look and smile ha
Then lunch at McDonald's
(which they don't actually eat, which is why we never go, they just want the toy!)
Then roller skating with their new skates that light up! I guess we didn't take any pictures inside, only gopro videos which are still on the gopro of course.
Then we went to a new kids indoor playground that is massive and the kids spent literally two straight hours running from thing to thing. It was a giant maze and kid sized so I only went into it at the end so I only have this one pic of Lydia on the monkey bars and the video of the boys on the slide. See how they just jump up and run off for more!
Next up was dinner at Red Robin, because Lydia had gotten a free dinner award from there a few months prior and had deemed it fine dining so they all requested to come back for their birthday dinner!
They did get free ice cream sundaes and got sung to, but they also got stickers and a key chain.
These next pictures are them enjoying their spoils in the days between their birthDAY and when we had their Harry Potter Birthday party.
Lydia spent her birthday money on a light pad to trace things because she LOVES to draw (and write stories). They boys liked it so much too that they ended up buying one each, too. They use them practically every night while I read to them. They got especially good use when we were reading the 3rd Harry Potter book and the chapters were 45 mins long!
A friend sent a fun package with lots of Harry Potter things--and here are the faces of some children tasting grass, sausage, and booger flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans haha. They loved it, but were grossed out by the actual tastes!
And then some special packages were delivered by owl...
Which included real wizard robes sewed by Grandma in Washington, an entire school outfit with scarf, and real wands! I literally had to pry the wands out of their hands and peel the clothes off of them to get them to bed because they were having so much fun pretending to be Harry, Ron, and Hermione for real life!
The following weekend we had their Harry Potter Party!
We asked Dillon's parents to dress up and come help and it was so great! Dillon made the train, moved all our furniture so we could have things inside if needed (there were 25 mph winds forecast for during the party), and we covered the walls in grey plastic dollar store table cloths to make it look like a castle.
The entrance to Platform 9 and three quarters!
Inside the Great Hall. The kids made the "floating" candles and we put on an animated Lego version while everyone arrived before we did the "sorting ceremony." This was less than half the kids--we had 20, not including the guests of honor!
How we tallied the points for the house competition. Each child was "sorted' into a house (or team) just by me pulling a name out of a hat. The team who won during the games got 1/4 cup of m&ms in their vase. Thankfully we didn't have a tie!
We went outside first to make sure we could do things without getting blown away, and thankfully it was only a bit windy then. We did "Quidditch" and Dobby sock toss (cornhole).
Then we came inside for bingo and a magic key game before tallying up all the points. The team who won got to pick their prize first, and then 2nd place would choose, and so on. So everyone got a prize, but these owls the Hufflepuff girl gang snagged were the coveted prize.
Then it was time for food, cake, and ice cream sandwiches! We got a round table a few months back and we have a lazy Susan for it, so they kids just all stood around it and chowed down! Then it was presents and time to go! It went by fast--as it can when you're wrangling 23 kids!
Thankfully, with Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore (Dillon's parents) there to help it went smoothly! This is my favorite pictures of the day!
And that's a wrap! I think we're both still recovering from Beck being sick during the week before their birthday to then Quin getting sick for two days the day after their birthday (during their spring break from school), to Dillon being gone on a preplanned trip for 6 days the last half of break, to me getting sick the day he got back--just four days before their party with still loads to do, to pulling the party off and having a great time!
From Hogwarts babies to Hogwarts kids!
