Max's Birthday Festivities!

Max had one very exciting birthday that lasted throughout the entire weekend. He chose birthday pancakes for his four Hanukkah candles (Walgreens was out of regular birthday candles, can you believe it?) and got to spend an exciting day at school. Jack and I brought treats to his class (Max chose to bring popsicles--nothing with frosting is allowed, so what do you do?) and his teacher did the cutest little presentation. I brought pictures of Max at every age and she'd show the class his picture and we'd talk about things he liked to do at that age and then he'd hold a big earth ball and walk around a large candle (el sol) to represent the passing of a year. And then we'd talk about the picture of him at the next age. I'm so upset at myself for not taking any pictures.
Max sure was spoiled rotten this year with all the packages he got in the mail. He had them all stacked up in the corner so you could see his name on them. He was so excited when he finally got to open all of them. What a lucky boy.

Then, this weekend, we decided to continue the celebrating at the Happiest Place on Earth. Being at Disneyland on your birthday AND at Christmas has got to be the best. It was fun to have so many people wishing Max a happy birthday. At first he would just say, "Happy Birthday", but by the end of the day he was smiling and saying "thank you" back. We spent the first half of the day at California Adventure and even made it the entire way through the 4-D Bug's Life show--Blake was so proud and I'm sure the people around us appreciated us preparing the boys for what was going to happen before it happened.
The rest of the day we spent at Disneyland, watching the Christmas parade, eating at our favorite Disneyland restaurant, and going on a few rides before the rain started coming down. Then we spent the rest of the time waiting for the rain to stop in the toy store playing with the toys.

The highlight of the trip for Max, by far, was getting to stay in the hotel. This boy loves hotels. He went hot tubbing, jumped from bed to bed, and wrestled the night away (until 8:30) with Daddy Blake. And Blake was smart enough to ask for a room with a view of Disneyland so after the kids were asleep, we could still watch the fireworks and eat our caramel apples.
Happy, happy birthday Max. And in case anyone was wondering, Max's favorite number is now 4!