Hank celebrated his 5th birthday in October (2013). For this birthday celebration, he wanted to have a “Dance party with ice cream cake”. So, we took Hank to Dairy Queen to pick out his birthday cake. He chose a delicious ice cream cake (vanilla and chocolate ice cream, separated by a kind of brownie cookie – it was awesome) and told the woman taking our order that he would like a “singing crocodile” on his cake. He was thrilled when he saw the cake and everyone enjoyed eating it. For the dance party, we turned our movie room into a dancing space, turned the lights low, turned a little strobe on, plugged Hank’s iPod into the surround sound and let the kids get crazy. The children had a fabulous time dancing, jumping, running around, bumping into each other, showing off thier dance moves, spinning and generally wearing themselves out. The adults had a blast too (mostly enjoying the show).
After his guests went home, Hank had another special treat. His cousin, Ainsley got to have a sleep over at our house with Hank for his birthday. They quickly dropped off to sleep (thanks to the dance party) and had an absolute blast playing together the next day. GG, Grandad, Ainsley, James, Paul, Aunt Nancy and Uncle Ben joined us for lunch the next day and Hank had a great time playing with his cousins. It was a great weekend full of birthday and family fun!
For Halloween this year, Hank chose to be a “black ghost”. He asked us to cut holes in a black sheet for his costume (which we did). It was a challenge to keep the sheet aligned properly so he could see out the eye-holes until we tried putting a mask over the sheet. This helped in both keeping the costume in place and making it slightly more spooky (which Hank was going for this year). We attached lights to his costume for trick-or-treating. Hank went to his very first Halloween party at a friend’s house this year. His pal, JenJen hosted a Halloween party and after dinner, the kids went trick-or-treating together in her neighborhood. Hank had a great time and got lots of comments about how spooky and scary his costume was, which made him happy. Nothing like achieving one’s goals, right?
Here are some photos in no particular order from both parties.
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