Celebrating Cullen

This post is going to be about celebrating Cullen's birthday, but first I'm going to give a little background about the week leading up to his birthday. Saturday, a week ago, we learned that our school district was closing for a week due to the swine flu threat. It seemed a little silly to me, but the kids were certainly excited and once I found out they wouldn't have to make up the days, I was okay with it too. So, we planned a week of hanging out at home and playing with friends.

On Tuesday morning we received the sad news that Robert's Uncle Albert had passed away. Al was Robert's Dad's brother and the second youngest of nine siblings. Under different circumstances Robert probably would have gone to the funeral alone, but since the kids were already out of school, we all were able to go. While we are saddened by our family's loss, we rejoice in the assurance that Al is in heaven and we are grateful for the time we got to spend with Robert's extended family this week.

And that brings me to the beginning of Cullen's birthday celebration. While we were in East Texas, MeMe put together a little party for Cullen:

We found out after we were already in East Texas that the schools would be reopening for Thursday and Friday, but since the funeral was scheduled for Thursday we stayed for that and came home in time for the kids to go to school on Friday. I spent the day Friday preparing for Cullen's party. We had originally planned to have it at a local indoor pool, but it closed along with the schools for the swine flu threat. So, we decided to have the Star Wars themed water party at home. I went through my "idea file" and pulled out all the water games I could find and then gathered the necessary supplies. Everyone had a great time!


I had found these water squirters at the dollar store and they were a big hit:


One of the favorite games was "beach ball blast". The kids are divided into two teams and try to move a beach ball along a piece of fishing line by squirting it with water. The first team to move the ball to the marker on the opposite side wins:



We also did a few relay races. In this one the kids have to carry a cup of water on their heads and dump it into a pitcher at the other end. The trick is that the cup has holes poked in it. The first team to fill their pitcher wins.

We also had Star Wars action figure races. I had frozen all of Cullen's figures in butter tubs and the boys took turns racing them down the slide:

We told the boys to hold their water squirters like light sabers for this group picture:

Cullen's actual birthday was on Saturday and he enjoyed his breakfast in bed. He had actually been up for at least an hour, but went back to bed so he wouldn't miss out on this tradition:

He spent most of the day playing his new video games - pretty much an ideal day for him!

We had leftover pizza and cake from his party for dinner:

I just love that smile!