Jalen's 8th Birthday

Today is the big day! Jay finally turned 8. He has been so excited about this birthday. Lately he has been sleeping in till about 7.30 or 8am but this morning at 6.20am he came straight into our room with a big grin on his face. He jumped into bed with us and I told him to wait fifteen minutes and we would wake up Harri.

Harri was dead to the world when I went in, but was very excited when I told him we were going to unwrap Jay's presents. Jay was a very good brother and let Harri help him open the presents. Sometimes it surprises me how patient he is with Harri.

For a couple of years now Jalen has been begging us for a Nintendo DS Lite. A few years back he got a Gameboy Advance for his birthday or Christmas. I have no idea what the difference is between the two, but supposedly there is a BIG difference (I'm definitely getting old!). Supposedly all of his friends have one and he kept trying to talk us into it by telling us you can still play the Gameboy games on the Nintendo DS. We decided that this year he could finally get one - I grabbed one on sale at the Target toy sale back in July, as well as a Pokemon game that he has been wanting for a long time too.

Jay was very good opening his presents - taking his time reading the cards that people had sent and when he opened a couple of other presents he acted grateful. I know that deep down he was dying to just rip everything open as he was hoping that he was getting the Nintendo DS. When he finally did open it, he just kept smiling and smiling. All day he has been saying 'thanks for my nintendo DS'. He is very grateful. For the first time Harri was allowed to touch his Gameboy which Harri was very excited about. Jalen has now passed it down to him and they have both been having fun playing with their new toys together.

Another present that he got is a toy radar gun - it is like the ones the police use to see how fast you are traveling. This morning Jay put on his police shirt that is in his dress up box. It was given to us years ago by Simon. He then stood out the front and pointed the radar gun at different cars to see how fast they were going. I'm not sure what they were thinking :)

For morning tea Aaron's Dad, Step Mum and Nan and Pop came around again.

After lunch we had the 'bike centre' booked for a party. We don't have big parties every year - but this year he was due to have a party with his friends. Jay had seven of his best friends from school come as well as some of their little brothers and sisters so Harri had some kids to play with too. The bike centre is a great area which is run by the City Council. You can hire it out for two hours and it has real working traffic lights as well as a little playground area and a BBQ and tables etc. We were lucky with the weather as it has been raining the last couple of days. Today was so nice though - on the way to the bike centre the guy on the radio said it was 19 degrees - a heat wave for Launceston :)

The theme on the party invitations was Pokemon. Jay and his friends are always talking about Pokemon and go on a website where they can battle each other and trade Pokemons. I have no clue about Pokemon either, but we made up the invitation with Pokemon pictures and Jay wanted a Pokemon themed cake as well as games to do with Pokemons. We decided to do a 'Piplup' cake - neither Aaron and I knew what he was, but we found a picture on the internet and copied it. Aaron cooked the cake and cut out the shape and then as he was leaving for basketball last night he told me to feel free to ice it. I have never done one of the boys cakes, so I thought I'd better give Aaron a break and ended up icing it. Jay was very happy with the result.

We took the radar gun to the party and all the kids had a great time seeing how fast they could run. Jay definitely was not the fastest - only going 14 km an hour. His friend Scotty won with 19 km hour. Noah and I had a go, but also only went 14 km an hour. Noah had a huge grin on his face, but probably has whip lash now as his head was bopping around the whole time I was pushing his chair!

The kids had a great time riding around, playing games and eating. Jay got some really cool presents.

Whenever it is one of our birthday we usually get to choose a takeaway meal for lunch or tea. This time I was lucky as I got to talk Jay out of McDonalds and into KFC :) It has been a huge day. I'm glad we don't do big parties every year - it is exhausting!