Devon's birthday was yesterday, but he suggested celebrating nine days earlier in order to accommodate something Naomi had wanted to attend this last weekend. Super thoughtful! As it turned out, her event didn't happen, but that's fine.
Dad came up on the party weekend to celebrate with us. He gave Devon a pantograph, something none of us had ever heard of. It's a device that allows you to draw copies of something that are either identical, bigger, or smaller than the original (
Wiki description and
Amazon selection). Evidently Grumps, which is what we call my dad's dad, had one when my dad was growing up, and my dad thought Devon would enjoy one. He was right. Devon loves it! They worked together to figure out how to use it, then Devon spent a bunch of time doing it on his own.
Later that weekend we had Devon's party. He's been talking for several months about wanting to play dodgeball for his birthday. It's his favorite game and all he wanted was a big group of people to join him in some games. We took part of our tax refund and bought
a dozen dodgeballs, realizing we'll get more than our money's worth out of them over time, and headed to
Ibach Park on the party day. Dad snapped picture of all 6 Ws before everyone else arrived.
A bunch of people came and most of them played at least one game, but the core group played five games (I think, don't quote me on that). I didn't take very many pictures, but here's one of Devon on the field.
And one group shot of the people who were playing right before we took a break for gifts and dessert.
Devon opened presents.
Then everyone dug into Devon's dessert of choice. Actually, his first choice was his three favorite candies - Jelly Belly, Mentos (mint, not fruity), and Hi-Chew. I hit Costco and bought a bunch of each kind, but had a case of candy panic the night before the party and didn't think we'd have enough. So Devon and I baked a double batch of lemon cupcakes at the last minute and got some strawberry frosting to go with them. That ended up being the perfect amount of sugar for the masses.
We hit the field for a couple more games after dessert, then called it quits. I'm so thankful for the group that showed up. His party was exactly what he'd been hoping for.
Yesterday was his actual birthday, the start of his teenage years. He and Tim had their traditional doughnut date in the morning.
He came back saying it was the worst and best birthday doughnut date so far. He originally chose two items, a cinnamon roll with maple icing and some other doughnut covered in sugar. Due to the way they were bagged, a little bit of sugar from one got on the maple of the other. He took a bite where the sugar was and thought it tasted weird, almost like there was a pocket of baking soda in the cinnamon roll. He proceeded to eat in the opposite direction of the sugar and it tasted fine, so he figured it was a fluke ... until he worked his way around to the sugar again.
He was pretty sure he knew what had happened, but he and Tim went to do a little investigating first. Their suspicions were confirmed. The bakery accidentally coated a whole bunch of doughnuts with salt instead of sugar! Tim and I both think that's hilarious because Devon is one who loves to prank people, but he got unintentionally pranked. So funny! They offered him some freebies to make up for it, which made him super happy.
We had to swing by the library mid-morning and he upgraded to a teen card. Later in the day we took a couple pictures in the birthday outfit. He's pretty sure he'll fit into the shirt perfectly on his fifteenth birthday. Time will tell.
Next up was a rite of passage, getting his own e-mail address.
He chose
rice cooker mac & cheese, sausage links, and dried pineapple for his birthday dinner. Then he opened up gifts from family.
And with that, his birthday celebrations were done.
