Blaine started off his 9th birthday with some chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.

For dinner he wanted Walter’s hot dogs and fries.  Sarah was disappointed that there was a curly fry shortage going on!

Then Blaine opened presents!

For dessert he wanted a Bona Bona chocolate/chocolate ice cream sandwich.

On Saturday team USA got another win, and Coach Jeanne arranged for the Mister Softee truck to come to the field after the game was over so the whole team could have ice cream.

On Sunday Sarah turned 7!  She started the day with waffles, and then wanted to open all her presents so she could play with them.  She was very excited to get this gigantic Lego Ninjago set she’s wanted since last Christmas.

It was a rainy day so in the afternoon Sarah wanted to watch the first Harry Potter movie.  She also wanted to keep the entire bowl of popcorn for herself.

For dinner she requested filet mignon, plain bread, and crispy cauliflower.  We don’t have much red meat anymore so it was really a treat!

Then she asked for homemade yellow cake with chocolate frosting for dessert.  We made the 1234 yellow cake and chocolate satin icing from Joy of Cooking.

She finished this Ninjago dragon set before her birthday was over!

Blaine has been very anti-Harry Potter and would go to great lengths to avoid hearing the read-aloud of the first book that we’ve been doing with Sarah at bedtime.  But his curiosity got the better of him and he caught the end of the movie that afternoon, and then got so interested in what was going to happen he went right into book 2.  I think he must have been scared of Voldemort because he proceeded to skim the entire series, skipping to the endings of each book to find out what would happen.  I wouldn’t say he’s read the whole series at this point, but at least he’ll be familiar when his friends are talking about it from now on.

On Monday the kids had off from school and we hosted three of Blaine’s friends for a small birthday gathering for a Shake Shack lunch, video games, and ice cream sundaes.

It only took Sarah a few days to finish her giant Ninjago lego set, with 10 bags.  She said she would have finished faster if she didn’t have to go to school.

Here’s Sarah with another new friend over for a playdate that week.

The big birthday present was this giant climbing dome for the backyard.

We made good use of it for Sarah’s small birthday gathering with two friends on Sunday, 10/17.  Sarah wanted pizza for lunch, followed by legos (of course), and then homemade cupcakes for dessert.

We were glad that we were able to celebrate the kids’ birthdays with friends despite the circumstances, and it felt good to keep the parties small to limit the exposure to germs.  It’s hard to believe they are 7 and 9!