Last weekend we celebrated Arthur's 5th birthday! A year ago (literally, the day after his last birthday) he decided that he wanted to have a shark party for his birthday this year. So we had plenty of time to prepare!
We had planned a weekend trip to visit Chris' parents and have a family party there thinking that Arthur might not have had a chance to meet many other kids in our area yet. Fortunately Arthur has already made a few great friends that live near us, so at the last minute we decided to add in a friend party at our house before getting on the train to visit the grandparents. We had a great time celebrating and two birthday parties later we can hardly believe that our little Arthur is 5 years old!
The morning of our train ride Arthur got his first surprise- a birthday gift from Grandma Carla and Grandpa Richard!
They sure knew exactly what he wanted! A dinosaur backpack featuring one of his favorite meat eaters- Velociraptor!
He was incredibly excited about his new bag and started packing it right away for our train ride!
Sitting at the station, waiting for our ship train to come in.
This is a silly series of pictures, apparently Chris wasn't aware that he was holding down the button on the camera- what ensued was a real time look at all of the odd facial expressions we make when talking!
The plus side is that if you can look past our awkward faces you get a little glimpse of the beautiful English countryside out the train window!
We switch trains a few times over the course of the journey, but one of the train rides covers the biggest chunk of traveling time and once we were on board that train Stella promptly put her feet up and daintily munched on a huge sausage roll. If you had seen the size of the sausage roll you could probably guess what happened about an hour later when very big sausage plus very small tummy plus bouncy train ride climaxed into vomit all over train.
After she emptied the contents of her stomach she felt much better and these two silly kids spent the rest of the ride hamming it up together.
Our first stop on Arthur's birthday was at the Sea Life Center in Brighton. We had been there with Arthur when he was two and loved hearing him say "tur tur" every time we walked by the sea turtle display. It's amazing to think of him as a toddler- it seems like that was such a long time ago!
I had to take this picture of him in front of the turtles, I'm pretty sure that we have a similar picture of him standing there when he was two. If I can find it...
With Grandad looking at the enormous spider crab!
The deep sea diver's shark cage!
Brighton is a fun place to visit, the pier is always full of people and there are lots of fun things to do here!
After the aquarium visit we went for lunch at an American diner down the road. Stella and I shared a chocolate milkshake while we waited for our lunch to arrive.
Birthday ice cream!
Opening presents with friends at Grandma and Grandad' house.
Ta da! Arthur wanted a shark cake for his birthday, so for weeks I had been trying to get ideas about how to make that happen. Shark cakes go all the way from 3D models of sharks leaping out of the ocean to sticking a 'fin' on a blue cake. I wanted something easy that didn't require a lot of time, energy, or equipment to make. I liked the idea of just creating a shark from icing right inside the cake pan so it didn't have to look that pretty or be symmetrical all the way around. Arthur was impressed and the cake actually tasted really good to boot, so it was a win win!
A happy shark birthday boy!
Stella and Grandad
We had a little spare time once we got into London on the way back home, so we stopped at the Natural History Museum before catching the next train. We only had time for one area of the museum so we headed straight for the dinosaur exhibit and loved it! The kids had a great time! We are planning on squeezing in a museum dash each time we travel through London on our way to Chris' parents house now. It was well worth it!
For Arthur's semi impromptu friend party before we left for the weekend we threw together some shark cupcakes. Personally these were my favorite. I love how the 'ocean water' icing turned out and Arthur loved sticking all the sharks in himself!
The kids decided to make shark faces for all the pictures- so get ready to see a lot of teeth!
Arthur and friends!
I'm surprised we didn't have blue diapers for days, that icing really glowed!
L to R- Ubayda, Arthur and Billy. These boys are all within a year of age and have a great time playing together!
Happy birthday Arthur! We had a wonderful time celebrating and are so grateful for friends and family near and far!
1 comment:
Yay! Loved this update of Arthur's birthday extravaganza x2. Good job on the cake and cupcakes. :)
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