The birthday boys

It's "fake birthday" time again as our boys refer to their birthday parties which happen well in advance of their real birthdays.

Two cakes, caramel cheesecake and vanilla cupcakes

 Parties at home this year.  Luke chose a 'Crazy Science' theme  and G kept the kids well entertained with plenty of science experiments.  8 year olds are a bit of a know it all audience....

Don't eat your top, the cake is coming...

The noise levels were incredible and as each kid got dropped off and added to it I was feeling more and more like escaping.  The game started and ended with driveway soccer, it's a very rough game and very fast.

A few of the soccer boys

 Some of the families stayed for a drink at the end and the soccer was so out of control that it made sense o calm the day down with water bomb balloons.  Not throwing them at each other but the house, fence, drive way etc.  I think we sent all the kids home soaked to the skin.

A nearly 8 year old Luke

And then it was Alex's turn.  Alex was a bit put out that his birthday party wasn't two days after Luke's.  His logic was his birthday is two days after and therefore parties should be the same.  I did try to explain not many kids would be able to come on a Monday.

Ice-cream cake for Alex, Luke was in charge of the candles.

Alex had a craft and games party so it was a little calmer than Luke's in some ways.  Younger kids however need more supervision and care to be taken that they all get a turn.

Alex enjoying being the centre of attention

One of the games was an obstacle course using a mini trampoline we found up the street in hard rubbish collection a few weeks ago.  Alex designed a course where first they scooted, then threw a water bomb balloon at a target, scooted, then jumped five times on the trampoline, scooted again, had a shot at the basketball ring and then scooted back to the beginning.

New bike, big smile

Alex's new bike with gears

To celebrate his fake birthday Alex received a new bike from Grandpa Bill and us.  His immediate request was to go mountain biking to test it out so that's what we did on the Sunday morning.  It works really well, it's easier to keep up and the gears are a massive help on the hills.

Luke the mountain biker

Alex leads the way down the track

Luke loves doing jumps, until he crashes!