Party Documentation

Joel was so excited for his Car's birthday (he talked about it for weeks prior), and then when the party actually came, he felt pretty overwhelmed, I think. We have very fews photo of him smiling during his party. He knew what was supposed to happen at his party, and he was very serious about making sure it all went as planned. He seemed rather anxious about it all, and everyone witnessed a couple meltdowns from the distraught birthday boy. As I mentioned in the last post, he doesn't handle chaos very well, and when our families all get together, there is always some degree of chaos, no matter how well-behaved the kids are (and they were all very well-behaved that day). [It didn't help that he burned three of his fingers on our wood stove earlier in the day. We've never had a burn incident with our stove, but our power was out for the first half of the day due to the wind storm, so the kids were keeping warm standing by the fire when we got home from church, and Joel got too close. We should have known better... but now at least he has a healthy fear of the stove. His fingers are healing just fine.]

Joel really did enjoy his birthday, despite appearances, and received many wonderful gifts that have kept him busy this week.
This is the game Greg created and executed: a Cars Walk, sort of like a cake walk, except every spot was a winner and worthy of a prize. The kids liked it once they figured out what they were supposed to do and once they realized they were getting goodies to fill their treat bags every time the music stopped.
He did a great job patiently reading the cards with me before tearing off the wrapping paper and then thanking the givers properly. He knew the drill.