Ethan becomes a 5-year-old!

The big news for the week, is of course, Ethan's fifth birthday! He had a perma-grin from the second he woke up until he fell asleep that night. He loved his presents from us, and as often happens, the gift we picked up as an afterthought was his favourite! He is now in the Transformers/Lego stage of life, which Mike is ecstatic about (big kid). He also still loves Cars and his favourite gift was the Cars carrying case I picked up at the last minute.

How cool for him - his class went on a field trip on his birthday. They went to the Fire Hall which he really enjoyed. He then handed out some goodies to his Kindergarten friends and got to pick whatever he wanted for lunch. So to Wendy's we drove and ordered up our hamburgers. Grandma and Granddad came by for tea and brought a very cool wooden castle and some knights and horses to fill it up. We made some cupcakes and headed off to swimming lessons. Grandma Sugar came for dinner (E's request: spaghetti and meatballs) and they spent the rest of the night racing the Hot Wheels track she brought. He went to bed a very happy little man.

Friday was quiet, which was a good thing as Saturday was Ethan's party at Science World. They had called me to warn me that their sponsor Telus was making that Saturday a free to the public day. That meant that it was crazy busy, but luckily our party was in a private room. They did a science demo for the kids, served them lunch and did cake and presents. The host was great and the kids had a blast. We met the parents in the lobby afterwards and some of us went back into Science World to play. We only lasted half an hour before we were overwhelmed by all the people and piled into the car, happy and exhausted. Ethan got a lot of board games and books for his birthday (do they know this kid or what?) so we spent the rest of the day playing everything.

Sunday was Thanksgiving, and I took the boys to my parents' house at 5 pm. Unfortunately, Mike's allergies were still bad from the previous weekend so he had to miss a huge turkey dinner with all the trimmings. And two kinds of pie!!! My parents have a cat, and Mike had been at Eliot's the night before where the dog had sent him over the edge. The dinner was very good, but I did have to rush my dad to the clinic after an unfortunate knife-sharpening incident. There are easier ways to get out of washing the dishes! Ben had to carve the turkey, with my dad coaching him along the way. I think he did a pretty good job! The kids were a little wild and we failed to impress the two British ladies who were staying at my parents. They were very nice about it but I was cringing at what they must think of the naughty Canadian boys. The "highlight" of the night was Jack ditching his pyjama pants and streaking past the proper ladies sipping their tea, screaming "Naked Boy!" at the top of his lungs. We left very quickly after that.

Gramps and Connie came by yesterday to bring Ethan a couple of Transformers (and one for Jack). That night, Ethan came downstairs after bedtime to tell me he was feeling sad but he didn't know why. I offered hugs and kisses but he said that wouldn't help. I suspect that he was upset at the end of his birthday! It was so cute, a couple of months ago I asked him why he never wanted to throw a coin in the fountain for a wish any more. He said he had stopped because his wishes never came true! I asked what he was wishing for, and he wouldn't tell me at first, but eventually consented to whisper in my ear, "I wish for my birthday to come sooner". Poor kid, I can't help him make that wish come true. So when it was done for another year, he was understandably sad.

But, we have Halloween to look forward to, and then the two month hype before Christmas. So he'll get over it soon enough!