Birthday Boy

Blake is 9!! He wanted to get up early before Dave went to work to open his presents.  (It is a good thing today was not his birthday, Dave went to work at 3 am)  

He was slightly sleepy, but very excited.

Sorry my pictures are fuzzy, maybe the camera was not quite awake either:)

Leah got him a Lego set.  Cora has been waiting months to get him 'Wreck This Journal'  There are instructions on each page about how to destroy the thing.  Take it in the shower, draw with dirt on this page, punch holes here, tie a string around the spine and swing it around hitting trees etc.  

And he we gave him a BB gun. (I had bought balloons and had planned to blow them all up and fill his floor with them after he was asleep.  I was so disappointed when later in the day I remembered.  I think it would have been so fun.) The kids and I packed a picnic and went to the Birds of Prey Center.

I did not know that bald eagles' head turns white only after they are 5 years old.  Apparently they are often mistaken for golden eagles until then.  Thought that was neat.

I seemed to have lost all my pictures of the hawks and eagles.  We go there just as they were starting a flying demo with a hawk.  Blake's favorite part was when the instructor was telling us how to tell if a bird is about to take flight.  They will flap the back feathers, shift from foot to foot, and 'poop to lighten the load'.  The hawk promptly pooped and took off.  Blake felt the need to share that story with us again many times and laugh. He truly is a 9 year old boy.

Blake had requested make your own pizzas and Nathan's chocolate cheesecake for his birthday dinner. We ended up having my parents, Levi, Natalie and her three boys come.  Blake had also asked weeks ago if we could all please go swimming for his birthday. It was fun for him to have lots of people to swim with. 

He wanted to light his own candles.  As he was blowing the match out he kept doing it over the candles.  So the candles would go out also.  After 3 times we just sang to him with what was left.

When we got back from swimming, Dave set up a target for him to try out the BB gun.
Everyone had a go, Dave awarded and tallied points.  I think Blake was the winner.

Blake deemed it a fantastic birthday.  Happy 9th Birthday Blake!!