Jack Turned 11

Jack's birthday fell on a Monday, but we were able to do a few fun things anyway.  I picked Luke up from Kindergarten at 11 and we had just enough time to pick up a few things at Costco, including the Creamies Jack requested to give out to his class, but which I knew I couldn't fit in my freezer along with the other frozen treat Jack wanted, which was an ice cream cake, which Luke and I also picked up.  We stopped at the house long enough to put the cake in the freezer then went to the school to participate in the birthday festivities, which were pretty minimal.  I think the class sang.  And Jack and Luke handed out the Creamies - with no complaints from any students for not getting the flavor they wanted - while the teacher continued to read Don Quixote out loud as per usual.

Then I checked Jack out of school and he and Luke and I drove through Chick-Fil-A for lunch and brought it home so they could eat while they watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  We interrupted the movie for piano lessons and getting Cat to soccer practice.  I brought the younger kids home and they watched some more of the movie and I made pizza dough, then we picked Cat up from soccer and had literally 15 minutes to throw pizzas together and hand everyone a paper plate of pizza to eat in the car before leaving to take Cat to her piano lesson.

When we got home from all of that, it was finally time for Jack to open presents and have ice cream cake.  He was really excited to get his very own copy of the first 5 books of the Wings of Fire series, which he's checked out from the library and read 1-12 (or 13?) twice already this school year.  He's been reading them to Eliza ever since his birthday.

Luke got miffed about something and didn't want to be in pictures for a while but we finally convinced him to join us for a family picture after we sang to Jack.

For Jack's birthday adventure he really wanted to see Detective Pikachu.  And it had been a hectic week, after a series of hectic weeks, and I knew Saturday was already full, and Cat and Luke didn't have school, so.... Jack and Eliza played hooky and we went to see the movie at 11:00 Friday morning, and just had a great day.  The kids loved seeing the movie and the younger ones thought it was awesome that they got free Pokemon cards at the theater.

Jack is such a spunky, creative, passionate, curious, loving young man.  He can be hard to pin down but he can also accomplish great things when he wants to.  He keeps us on our toes and I'm so glad he's part of our family.