The Adventures of Hayden, Eliza & Molly: Celebrating with Daddy

Yesterday was Jason's birthday, hence the little Smilebox I posted after I had sent it to him at work. Hayden and I had a good time helping him celebrate. We met up with him after Hayden was done with school (second day went well!) and took him to lunch. Hayden really enjoyed eating pizza.

Then in the afternoon, we did all sorts of preparations for the 'party' in the evening. We wrapped presents (when do kids learn to use tape, because Hayden does not quite get the concept yet), we iced whoopie pies, we decorated his card and made a birthday sign for the door. And then when he got home, Hayden greeted him with a big hug and "happy birthday daddy!" (She's come a long way from only wishing 'happy poppop' to anyone with a birthday.)

We were going to have a picnic for dinner, but ended up just going to the park (which supposedly had bocce ball courts to try out his new set again - we never did find them) and then grabbing dinner to bring home. Hayden loved having daddy along on a park trip - usually it's just me. And I got to take pictures! She even went on a really big slide. You'll notice that one picture is from the bottom - trying to capture the slide action - but then the next is from the top. Hayden got a little scared and I climbed up to assist her. You'd think she was done, after being scared, but she was ready to go again! At least till she reached the top and then she tried to turn around again.

Then we announced it was time to go get dinner at Jason's place of choice but Hayden decided she wanted to sit on the bench for just a bit. Eventually we managed to convince her to go get dinner at "two guys" (her name for it) and she thought the peanuts in a shell were pretty cool.

Finally we made it home for dinner, presents and whoopie pies and all was good. Notice that in the picture showing Hayden helping open presents that Jason looks to be laughing hysterically. The reason is because he pointed to a package and said to Hayden, should we open this one? And she responds, it's a watch! She's going to need to work on her sneakiness if she keeps hanging out with me! I'm all about surprises!

(and that's not even the first time she told him we got him a watch. We were at the mall this weekend, and glanced at a display of watches and she says, daddy birthday watch, or something similar. I could have tried to play it off but I was laughing too hard at her both remembering and spilling the beans. And since Jason wants to know about presents immediately, he just kept asking her about anything else we had gotten for him! Fun times.)

Mmmmmm, don't those whoopie pies look delicious! (They were!) Jason requested them instead of a cake which seemed quite amazing to me. But he was happy and that's what's important on a birthday!