Cows, Train Whistles, And Birthday Party Strip Teases

Today started with a first.

My kids were dressed and ready to go before anyone arrived at our house. Because of this, we arrived at the restaurant a half hour early. But hey- that's ok. While we waited, we saw a cow in front of a nearby grocery store. Yes- a cow. Or rather, a woman dressed as a cow. Now- my mom loves cows. She collects them, moos at them, just all around loves cows. If it's cow print or has a cow on it somewhere, she has it. So you can imagine what we thought when we saw the woman dressed as a cow- we need to get Mom's picture taken with her.

She was raising money for the VFW (ya know, those poppy flowers), but the point is- she's dressed like a cow. Mom doesn't want her picture taken with the cow, but she wanted the kids to get their pictures taken with said cow. Except... the kids didn't want to do it unless Mom and Aunt Jess did as well.

So- we now have this picture of everyone with a cow (except me and my dad).

When it's time for his party, we go inside and the kids are in awe. There's a train set! There's a train going around the top of the room! Let's chase the train and see where it goes! Look! Video games! Let's play! Give me money, Grandpa! Look that the food! Look! There's a train on the counter! It has food on it! Look! They're getting their food on a train! Cool!

We get settled into the party room- and the kids don't want to stay in there. They want to play games, look at the trains, and eat. We order, sit down, and wait. The kids each got a free cup and a wooden train whistle. Imagine that- five train whistles. FIVE. All blowing at once. Luckily, every kid gets a free train whistle (regular customers get plastic- apparently, when you're spending so much on a birthday party, you get the wooden ones), so my kids really weren't bothering anyone. But still- five train whistles, going at the same time.

So- the kids ate. And they got a kick out of the train delivering their food. We decided to go and open presents next, and wait on the ice cream. Just easier that way. We get everyone inside the tiny little room (which was really the only bad part about this), and we start opening gifts. He gets pull back cars from the movie Cars, a glider that is longer than he is tall, a Thomas the Train bean bag chair (which, of course, he had to sit in while he opened the rest of his presents), Spongebob underwear (he was EXCITED about this), die cast cars from the movie Cars, a tackle box for his die cast cars, a Cars playset, a Spiderman inflatable tent, a bike, and a cool outfit with matching hat.

Dylan opens the bag with the outfit in it, and gets excited (I know that this is the last year that he'll be excited about getting clothes for his birthday). He then starts unbuttoning his shirt and tells me that he wants to wear his new shirt. Yep- my four year old son did a strip tease in the middle of his birthday party. Luckily, it was only the shirt and hat that he wanted to wear.

I got some cute pictures- but I think that my camera is on it's last leg. Even with the flash, the autofocus doesn't want to work all that well on it. So- I'm saving my pennies to get a new camera, all by myself.

I really like this one of Dylan with my dad, taken right before we opened presents. He's so happy to be wearing his conductor's hat and having his party at a train themed place.