Happy Birthday to Stephen

I officially have four teenagers now. Woo hoo!! Stephen's birthday was Sunday and not very eventful. He had a campout over the weekend and this week is totally busy. We have no idea when or if there will be time for a party. He is pretty bummed about that and Sunday wasn't looking like much of a celebration either. While I was laying down for my afternoon nap, I was racking my brain with what I could do to make the day good. This is what I came up with:

Always have posterboard and balloons on hand!

Not to mention cake mix! I have to say that I intentionally spelled his name wrong. Right after I did the S I knew there wouldn't be enough room, so I put an apostrophe where the E was supposed to be. Totally lame cake, but better than none at all!

I remembered there was a bottle of silly string in my closet that we thought was colored hair spray at Halloween. I dug that out for a bit of "surprise". Oh yeah, he had choir practice, so when he was gone, we put all this together and surprised him when he got home. Whitley blindfolded him and brought him down and when she removed it, Glade nailed him with the silly string.

Then he turned on the other kids. Katy was NOT happy. She whined for an hour "no spray me!"

What was his reaction?? "That stuff stinks!"

He only asked for one thing. He said he really could not think of anything he wanted. I had already gotten him that one thing and so it wasn't really very exciting. Soooo, we made up a little treasure hunt to get him to his gifts. It started with a little box of candy with a note in it, wrapped in Disney princess paper.

The kids followed him around trying really hard to not give away the clues.

His clues led him upstairs, then we brought his gifts out to the living room. Pretty original.

He had asked for the rest of the Fablehaven series. We had the first and the last, but not the middle two. I also threw in a D-backs hat. That day he had told me all he really wanted was his map fixed. Katy had torn his prized world map off his wall and ripped a piece off. He cried about that one! I assured him I could fix it, I just hadn't yet. So I did and now his map looks like his face, a big scar on it!

We had homemade pizza for dinner and then proceeded with the traditional blowing out of the candles. I think in the end it was a just fine birthday. I'm glad my brain works fast and we have lots of kids to make it look like a party! He is a great kid and I love him completely!

After the birthday celebration, we all snuggled up on pillows and blankets and watched the movie "The Ultimate Gift". Thanks Julia, I really will get it back to you. My kids did really well and stuck with it. Nick even asked if we could download it to his MP3. I love having the whole family over for Sunday dinner, but sometimes a nice quiet evening at home with all my kids is really really enjoyable.