Clyde's birthday wrap-up

Since Chuck keeps teasing me about how I blog about things well after they occur, I decided I should probably stop procrastinating and write about Clyde's birthday weekend. I didn't have school tonight, Chuck's at work, and my darling little boys are asleep - so there go my excuses! And yes, it does take forever for pictures to load, but I cleaned up the playroom at the same time so I feel extra productive :) So, I had planned all sorts of fun over Labor Day weekend, namely an Elmo birthday party for Clyde, and we were excited to welcome various out of town family members and what does Clyde do? Catches a virus, the sort where his little temperature spiked to the 104 degree region and he began sporting a mild rash on his tummy. FUN. We saw the doctor on Saturday morning (third time Clyde has been there in the past five weeks, ahhh!) and he regretfully informed us that Clyde was, indeed, contagious and probably would be through Sunday-ish. So that was it for the little party . . .

However, we still managed to have loads of fun! Sam and Terri were in town on their way home to Utah (they actually showed up a day early and gave us quite a fright when they knocked on my door Wednesday night around eleven) and I'm not sure who was more delighted with their presence - me or Clyde. In Sam, Clyde found a swordfight opponent and catch partner while Chuck was at work and asleep, and in Terri, I found a baby-putter-to-sleeper (is there a more eloquent way of putting that? I couldn't think of one). It was so fun to have them here and have so much help, everywhere we went Sam carried Will and Clyde held Terri's hand and I skipped with delight :) They just bought a Wii, so we set it up and played a bit, which was super cool. I was mostly excited because everyone who's anyone has pictures on their blogs of Wii fun, so now I'm anyone. Or someone. Whatever - here are the pics:

Sam and Chuck - I think they were bowling.
More bowling. I relaxed my rule about playing catch in the house since I didn't want hot Clyde out in the hotter sun, so he was forever throwing wiffle balls (and occasionally a hackey sack) and Terri was the designated catcher here :)Will loved all the extra attention
Sam and Terri know how much Clyde loves his piggy bank, so for his present they gave him lots of cute little containers filled with money . . .
which he insisted upon dumping out and putting back into the container and so on. He did this for several days, and then just today decided to put some of it IN the actual piggy bank. Goof.

So, Saturday night ended up being the only night my family could get together while Sam and Terri were here, so we had dinner, played games, and ate one of the cakes I had baked the night before (when I was hopeful the bigger party would still happen).

Chuck was in charge of decorating this one, he's all about the chocolate chips!
My mom hooked Clyde up with various Elmo paraphenelia: couple books, couple DVD's, etc.

Sunday night we got together with Chuck's family at Melissa's house for a family dinner and celebration of our little (hopefully not-contagious-anymore) Clyde Monster.

Here's my rockin' Elmo cake . . . I panicked a little at the beginning when the black decorative icing came out of the tube REALLY thick and it looked like Elmo was wearing glasses, but I scooped it off and used a bamboo skewer to apply it after that.

Here's my little Elmo-attired birthday boy. It should be noted that Will and I also wore Elmo shirts (Chuck went with his old standby of a Boise State shirt) and Mallory, Courtney and George all wore red to coordinate. Clyde loved opening presents and was delighted with the play food and shopping basket, pirate bath toys, and Sesame Street Phase Ten.

Monday morning (Clyde's actual birthday) we met Chuck's family at Boondock's for more fun before Grandma and Pops went home to Elko. We all played miniature golf and then Kevin, Chuck and I took the older three kids on the go-karts.

Here's Will in his 'golfing' outfit, sadly (for him, I was delighted) he fell asleep in the stroller after the second hole.
Here's Clyde in his golfing outfit.
The go-karts were way fun, Kevin and Mallory smoked everyone, and Chuck and George came in right after Courtney and me (Chuck let us pass them right after this picture so it would be more competitive, thanks honey!)
Courtney is too cute - while we were waiting in line for the go-karts, she was casing them out and looking for the most 'stylish' one (hence Kevin and Mallory getting the fastest one!)

That afternoon we held our fantasy football draft (which deserves its own post, maybe tomorrow . . .) and then sent Chuck to work. Tuesday was Clyde's two-year wellness visit at the pediatrician (yep, that's FOUR visits in five weeks). He's 26 lbs and 33 1/2 inches tall, which is 25% for both (yeah, I don't know where Will came from, either) and developing just right!

Yay for Clyde!Isn't he cute? And perhaps in need of a haircut?