The Turkey Song, by Jayce

(I interrupt this week of Hannah's birthday extravaganza to give you a little Jayce break.  It's a good one.)

It's no news that Jayce is a big singer and dancer.

The other afternoon at lunch time, I pulled out some turkey for our sandwiches instead of peanut butter.  Jayce started to sing a little song about turkey, and when I asked him about it, he mentioned that it was a rock song, so he would say "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" at the beginning. (I don't know where he heard about "rock songs" or that they say "yeah yeah yeah" at the beginning.)  I had a feeling that something great was coming, so I asked him to let me film him so that he would remember how to sing it the next time that we had turkey sandwiches.

I did not know what was starting.  We have had a week of turkey songs and dances, each one a little different than the previous one.  And Chris and I sing it too, despite ourselves.

Here are days 1-4.  Enjoy.

Highlights: Breakdancing, catchy lyrics, discover all of the things that turkey will do for you.

Highlights: My hand over the microphone at the beginning (oops) just to trick you into turning it up, very tough "rock song voice," yeah is replaced by oh yeah throughout, and it makes you throw stuff WWF style.  (Or WWE, OED?)

Highlights: Sweetness at the beginning, toughness brought on by dancing, it makes you punch stuff and push stuff fast.

Highlights: Throwing more stuff, and I don't know.

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The Cake

We sang happy birthday to Hannah and then offered her her pretty little cake.  Since the ground was a bit uneven, we decided to forgo the highchair, spread out another little quilt under the tree and let her dive in.  I was really excited to put her in her special birthday girl bib, and proud of her bright little strand of cake bunting.  She seemed to like it too.

Then she dove into her cake.  It was not her first taste of sugar, or cake, I don't think, and we were already pretty confident that she would like it.  And she did.

It only took a tiny taste of frosting from the end of her fingertips to convince her that she was interested.

(Oooh, those lashes!)

And then feet.  Oh well, I guess this is a casualty of doing cake on the ground instead of in a highchair. 

It was a good little cake smashing and eating session. 

 I ended it when she smashed a fistful of frosting into one of her eyes and started trying to rip off her bib.  It seemed like as good of a time as any.

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The Party

AKA, the post of pictures.  Fairly self-explanatory, but I'll fill in here and there.

We had food and family.

There were plenty of photo opts, since we were all in the same place, and I could hand the camera to another adult to ensure that my face would surface in a picture or two.

(I think it's funny that their mouths look exactly the same in the picture below.  Notice Hannah is pulling Jayce's hair as well.)

I was a little unsure about how to do the order of events for the dual birthday.  Sing to each kid individually?  Sing together?  I didn't want Hannah to do the cake smashing while Jayce was blowing out his candles, and for him to feel overlooked because she was getting more attention or something.  But I realized that the main event was different for each of them: for him it was the presents, for her was the cake, so I just split those up.

The guests arrived, we ate lunch, we sang to Jayce and he blew out candles, then he opened presents while we served cake.  

Also, in true "morning of the first birthday party" form, Hannah didn't have a nap.  She was completely spent by post-lunchtime, so we just put her down for a nap after we sang to Jayce, and then we could focus completely on the birthday boy while she snoozed.

Jayce was thrilled over each of his presents. Four is such a fun age, you really can't go wrong with anything.  One of the funniest things about Jayce opening his gifts was that he got really excited about the cards too.  He would go, "Mom! Look! This present has a card too!" and everyone would chuckle.  Hey, the boy likes to get mail.  It was like two gifts in one.

As we were playing outside an ice cream truck drove down the street.  As I was shaking my head "no" I glanced towards Chris who was nodding his head "yes" and pulling out his wallet.  

"He needs to get ice cream from that ice cream truck."  Chris said, sheepishly with a smile.

We don't have ice cream trucks in Lincoln, so this was his first.  I guess his birthday party was a fair enough occasion.

By this time, Hannah had woken up and was significantly more pleasant.  We gave her the cake, which deserved it's own post, but I'll just ruin the suspense now and say, she liked it.

Then she opened her gifts, sometimes with help from her brother.

 All in all, it was a super successful party and I was so happy with it.  Chelsea, Mom, and I had been planning for it for longer than I'd like to admit, and were feeling the stress the night before trying to get everything ready and not kill each other.  But they were perfect co-hosts and it went off without a hitch.

We were able to grab a few family photos as well. 

(Don't feel too bad for Chris for not being invited to the "striped shirt party."  At this point in the day, Jayce and Hannah were both in their second outfits, so really, in the beginning, the stripe shirt party was my party alone.)  

Happy birthday kiddos!!

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