After building up for weeks Jude finally turned 6 on Friday this past week, the day after Thanksgiving this year. As has become a tradition in our house we all headed out bright and early for breakfast at “Berries and Cream” – that is what the kids call the Original Pancake House because they serve that for breakfast. Jude ordered the kids serving of pancakes and we all sang Happy Birthday.

We told Jude that he was the boss on his birthday and of course he was thrilled about that. We gave his some options of things to do and he decided he wanted to go climbing. Marcy and I had checked out a climbing place where they had indoor walls and would accept kids. We had to learn how to belay the kids but they were both able to do it. Jude had a great time and was really good at it – reaching the ceiling on one of his climbs.

After that it was lunch time. Jude had been saying all week that he wanted Chipotle for lunch but at the last minute he changed his mind to Noodles which was great by us. We visit Chipotle once a week as it is and I wasn’t looking forward to a second visit. Then it was back home for dessert where Jude had a birthday cupcake – his actual birthday cake was happening at his birthday party the next day.

For the last few weeks Jude kept on saying that he wanted to invite some of his school friends to his birthday party. We had never done a party for him before but this year it became clear that it is what he wanted. So we invited all the kids in his class as well as Anna and Isabella Ferguson – good friends of ours who Jude loves to play with.

On the day of the party Jude was really excited. Marcy decorated the house and had lots of fun games planned. Jude had a blast. His two best friends from his class came and he was running around with them as well as playing all the games. What was great is that there were lots of boys there – all of our friends and family have girls so he doesn’t get to play with a group of boys that much. We were so glad it worked out well because we could see this was a big deal to Jude. He is already talking about his 7th birthday party.