Birthday week

We had 2 birthdays in one week. Noah turned 12, and Nik turned 15 just two days later. How did they grow so fast. My babies! I took these pictures on their 1st and 4th birthday party.

The kids had their weekend all planned out. The wanted to BBQ, have a Spiderman cake, see Spiderman 2, and go to Lego Discovery. That's an action packed weekend, but we were set to do it all. A big thanks to an awesome co-worker, who was sweet enough to fill in for me in my Sunday school classes. Without her, I would have missed spending the day with my family. I'm so thankful to her!

We started off by going to see Spiderman. We had I Max tickets and it was well worth it. The special effects were great, and the boys loved the movie. From there, we raced over to pick up the cake from Baskin Robbins. I had expected some friends to come over, so we were in a bit of a hurry. Unfortunately, the friends cancelled while we were driving to get the cake.

Now that we no longer had to stick to a schedule, we stopped off and had a burger, then proceeded to get the cake. It looked awesome! 

Of course, after we finished the cake, we realized that the Spiderman head lit up. Oops. Too bad we didn't notice sooner. Oh well. 

We had such a nice time prepping the food. We made carne asada and burgers. It was very good, and the kids liked it. And the weather was picture perfect!

We had presents for the kids. They wanted action figures, so we loaded them up on those. They also received money, Nik received a Roku player, and Noah received a Spiderman fathead. We always let them open presents on their actual birthday, so that explains the different clothes in the pictures.

Following the BBQ, we let them blow out the candles on the cake. 

The next day, we headed to Discovery Legoland. We bought them annual passes as part of their birthday presents. 

Did you know that Kansas City is known as the City of fountains?

This birthday cake greeted our kids. Actually, it was to celebrate Lego Discovery, but we'll pretend it's for my kids.

Trolls!

The kids love to check out the mini lands. There is a pretty good Wizard of Oz display.

Check out the tail on that last guard. It's the cowardly lion!

It's never too early for Halloween!

This is the door to the restroom. I couldn't resist taking a picture of it. Weird, I know. 

They love their sports here in KC.

And leave it to my engineer to want to build something.

They were building racing cars. 

And now for the their favorite part. The new Star Wars area! Did you know that Nik's birthday is also Star Wars Day? It is! May the fourth be with you.

After that, we were ready for lunch. We headed over to one of our favorite places to eat, Fritz's Railroad Cafe. Oh look! Another fountain!

If you aren't familiar, food is delivered by trains, on tracks around the ceiling. Then they are lowered to your table by platform. The trains kept stalling on the tracks that day, so we were nervous food would fall on our heads. Fortunately, it didn't.

What an awesome weekend! We really did have the best time. Happy Birthday to two of the greatest kids in the world!

Follow the yellow brick road.

We celebrated two birthdays in one week. It was a packed few days, filled with fun activities. Here is the highlight of one of them. Sunday was the last day of the Wizard of Oz exhibit, so we made a point to check it out. It was tucked away in a little corner of Crown Center, so it required some exploring on our part. But we finally found it.  And it was free!

Once we walked through the doors, we were greeted by the tornado scene. I tried to get a picture of it, but it didn't come out. Anyway, you could see the witch on her bicycle, peddling past the house as it spun in the tornado funnel. 

The next scene showed the house on top of the wicked witch.

Love the shoes!

 Next, it was time to follow the yellow brick road.

Follow the yellow brick road.

Follow the follow the follow the yellow brick road.

There was a small little bridge that we had to cross to get to Dorothy's gang.

Going along with the story, the next display was the wizard. There was a button to press in order to get to speak to the wizard. I don't know if it was a coincidence, or if someone was using a microphone to answer Noah's questions.

Once inside, you could pretend to be the wizard. Unfortunately, it wasn't working. Noah was sure to stop an employee and let them know. Of course, with it being the last day, I'm sure that got right to fixing it. 

Soon it was time to storm the witches castle. These doors seem a little small.

Once inside, it was pretty spacious. Here is Noah looking scared. He wasn't. He was just checking out all the flying monkeys painted on the walls.

The kids tried to take the witches broom for a spin.  

Next up, time to check out the spooky forest. 

Ok, forget it. We're out of here. Time to fly back to Kansas. 

It was a cute little exhibit. And did I say that it was free? It was free, which makes anything 10 times better!

Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can!

Look out! Here comes Spiderman!

Ever since our trip to New York City last year, Noah has been a major Spiderman fanatic. For his birthday this year, we decided to redecorate his room with his favorite super hero.

We started a month ago, painting his room in blue. Then Alex sketched out our version of the New York City skyline in chalk.

Chalk outline of the skyline. Looks pretty good!

Then it was my turn to take over. I picked out 2 different colors of grey, one darker than the other. Actually painting the buildings was the hard part. I used small artist brushes, to make sure that I did not go out of the chalk lines. 

I quickly realized that it would be easier to paint if I outlined the buildings and got rid of the chalk line. So I went ahead and traced it out in black. This also took forever. I don't exactly have the steadiest of hands, so I had to be very slow and precise.

Once the buildings were traced out, I went back and carefully painted in the buildings. I am not lying or exaggerating when I tell you that this took over a week to do, working a little every day after I got home from work.

Next step was to paint in the windows. Alex took over this part of the project. Go Alex!

Yes, this took some time to do too!

Our goal was to complete this little project by Noah's birthday. Hurry up with those windows!

We finally topped it all off with a big Spiderman wall sticker. That greeted Noah when he got home from school on his birthday. I think he liked it!

Go Noah!

This definitely took longer than I thought it was going to, but it was so worth it. Noah loves his room!