The 6 year old is in da houz!

The big day finally arrived. Kai turned 6. He was most excited. He's been changing up his favorite number alot lately. For a long time, it was the number 4. 11 got the nod for awhile then leading up to the big day, it became lucky number 6. Then just before his birthday, he switched it to 5. I think he realized he only had a few days left before he'd be 6 and 5 would be a thing of the past. He woke up on Saturday morning, walked into the living room and proudly announced "Mommy, I'm six."

Kai has been enamored with the red San Diego trolley for quite some time so we've been planning a trolley birthday party. But you can't plan too far ahead with Kai; he's very likely to switch things up on you and this birthday proved no exception. He loves the trolley, the Amtrak Surfliner and the Coaster (all trains in our area), and for awhile there even changed his name to "Trolley Surfliner Coaster." However, over the past few weeks a strong preference for the surfliner has been emerging. This required some flexibility on our parts to see how we could morph this trolley party into something of a trolley-surfliner party. Cue the reliable old internet and people who actually make Amtrak surfliner birthday stuff. We were able to get a balloon, pinata and some paper plates designed in the surfliner's glorious image. None of these details were lost on Kai. He loved every one of them.

Watching Kai open his gift was pretty awesome. He is not a kid who covets too much but this year we found something we knew he'd really like and took the gigantic risk of buying it in February (we've been burned by early buying with Kai in the past). We showed him some photos on Amazon and talked it up and before long our little man couldn't wait to finally receive his Lego Trolley. 

We were not disappointed. He opened it with a gigantic grin and squeals of "what is it? what is it?" although he knew full well what it was. I don't think I've ever seen Kai open a present in quite this fashion. 

He went straight to work (with Daddy's help). We had let Kai know that there would be alot of work to do to get this trolley in working order so he did expect it to come in pieces. But after an hour of work and no intact trolley in hand yet, Kai wasn't too keen on stopping so we could get ready for the birthday party. But what kid can refuse a bouncy house? We were finally able to get him to put Project Trolley away for a few hours so he could bounce to his heart's content and we could frantically prepare for the 60 person party. Yes....you read that right. SIX-TEE people. What on earth were we thinking? Let's just call this the party that spiraled out of control. Kai wanted to invite all of his classmates to his birthday party. He was pretty adamant about it. So, we figured, it can't hurt to invite everyone. I'm sure at least a third will have other plans. Well, we were wrong and almost everyone came, complete with moms, dads, siblings and even a grandma. 

Turns out we can throw a party for 60 people. The pool was full, the bouncy house was full, the yard was full. But the house wasn't. The weather was just too great to be inside. Everyone had a blast. 

Check out the cool Trolley take home boxes, courtesy of MTS. There are few buses in there too, just in case we ran out. 

And here is the fabulous (and gigantic) cake. This was our first time making our own decorative icing b/c we've become anti-food coloring at our house. We learned that it takes ALOT of vegetable-based blue coloring dye to turn white icing silver. But it still looked okay and tasted great. I can never get enough of the looks of excitement and surprise on my kids' faces when they see their birthday cakes for the first time. Check out the pic below as Kai checks out his cake - pay special attention to Teia's face (lower left). She just knows her brother is gonna love this cake!

Greg was the cake server, which he says was the most stressful part of the day. That is, until one of the other moms relieved him of the duty and very efficiently got that mega-cake cut and distributed to the masses. 

The Pinata pull was pure mayhem and I do look forward to the day my kids decide they don't want a pinata at their party. We did enforce a few rules given the age spread for the pinata scrum was 2 to 10 years, but it got pretty crazy anyway. Kai preferred a pull string pinata over the whacking kind, which was fine by me, although we did get tsked tsked by a Mexican mom at our party. (Okay maybe she didn't say tsk, tsk but if there is a Mexican word for haole, I'm sure she used it). 

I love this shot. Just have to wonder what Kai is thinking with that dreamy look on his face, "I wonder if she'll pull the right string and let the loot out?" or "one day I want Aurora to be my girlfriend." I think he's got some competition. I hear several of the boys in class have plans to marry her. But I do think Kai would be her cutest pick.

For the most part, Teia enjoyed the big day as well, although she struggled a little with seeing big brother get presents and attention. We tried our best to include her and keep her little nose in joint. Kai has been driving her crazy with his slow approach to gift opening. There are several unopened ones in our living room heading into Party day +2. But she is learning to be patient. She's also been busily planning her own birthday. She has gift lists and ideas for pinatas and birthday cakes. So tonight after dinner we celebrated her half-birthday with a candle on a left over piece of Kai's cake and sang her a Happy Half-Birthday song. Seemed to do the trick; she was pleased as punch. 

I know. She isn't turning 5. But she really wanted that #5 candle; carried it around with her all day. I think b/c 5 represents getting a booster seat, so she can be just like big brother and not stuck in a car seat anymore. Its hard to be the little sis sometimes. 

One final shot of my crew hard at work this morning on the lego trolley. I have to say I am very impressed with them. After about 3 hours of total work, they got the first trolley finished. Kai did it all by himself with patient direction from Daddy. Teia was not to be left out and put the tracks together. I think Greg is really enjoying this; b/c you know Dads really want their own Lego sets. 

And yep, today was also our 7 year wedding anniversary and we did get out for a few hours sans kidlets thanks to our wonderful babysitter and friend. But we do accept that, at least for the next several years, Kai's day is going to be the big late April event at our house. Happy Birthday Little Buddy!!!!