Bday Dinner at Chuck E Cheese

Learning Skee-Ball with Uncle Todd

These shots were taken in one of those picture booths...I had to share them. Too cute!

The day before G's bday, we asked him where he wanted to eat dinner. As he was thinking, D-struction piped up and said, "How about Chuck E Cheese?"
G-Money just beamed and said, "D, that is the best idea! You gave me the best idea! That's where I want to go eat!"

Now, unless you know the history behind our Chuck E Cheese experience, you really can't fully appreciate this story.
The first time we ever went was with Nana and Papa in SC. You can picture the mayhem that CEC is...well, all of a sudden, we hear a child SCREAMING at the top of his lungs. Guess who?
D was running across the restaurant at full speed, making a break for the exit, screaming
"I NO LIKE DAT MICKEY MOUSE!!"
This was when we discovered that he has a fear of people in costume.

We aren't quite sure why he suggested that we go again for G's birthday, but I think it has to do with the fact that he can drive a car while he's there. Apparently the morning of the birthday he started having second thoughts. He said, "Mommy, I don't think Chuck E Cheese is the BEST idea. Maybe we should just stay home." It was pretty cute.
Mercifully, Chuck E did not make an appearance that night.

Aunt Shinny and the cousins came to play!

The Flaming Finger ROCKS. I think if you hold your tongue a certain way it does work...;)

Birthday Boy

We really can't believe G-Money is 5!

Since he is all about trains, he picked a train birthday cake...complete with a BNSF engine and a stacked cargo car. The coal car wouldn't normally be with a stacked cargo car, but on this cake it is allowed. (Anyone seen Extreme Trains? It has changed his life. Oh my...)

After preschool we headed over to the local "train museum". It's really a street car museum at the old Rock Island Roundhouse, but they have some trains there AND they have a whole boxcar full of Rock Island stuff. This feeds another obsession--the Rock Island Line. That line used to run just down the street from our house and when you throw in a Johnny Cash song about the Rock Island Line, then the picture is complete. He loves it.
He also walks just like his daddy...that picture is killing me! I just noticed how they both walk and talk with their hands in their pockets. I love it!

And, we got to play on the train cars that were at the roundhouse. Pretty cool...