Happy 11th Birthday, Graham!

Our Graham is now 11 years old!  Can't believe it.  I still remember the day I had to push him out in the delivery room.  Ha ha! Now he's about 4.4ft tall and weighs in at around 82lbs. A bit smaller than average on the height and weight percentile  - probably because he is still such a picky eater!

As per usual like all the birthdays, we've started the day with the birthday card from Grandma and Pop-pop.  Yup, $11 for the 11 year old.  And then, straight to opening presents. This year, Grandma and Pop-pop is giving Graham a 3-month subscription to his favorite Kiwico crate.  He is ecstatic!

Graham actually asked for this Lego set - the Ducati.  I want one of these, like the real one :-P

Here's a little guessing game... a black case, but for what?

Graham has been wanting one of these for ages, actually ever since he saw it back in Abu Dhabi - 5 years ago??!

Okay, now that all the presents are open, Mommy better start getting the cake ready.  This year we are doing apple muffins:

Halfway through measuring the dry ingredients, I find out that I'm totally out of ground cinnamon!  It's a good thing the supermarket is just down the street.  While Daddy walks down the street, I start getting the candy apple mix ready.  Yikes... I'm not sure what we're going to get sick from - the 2.5 cups of sugar or the Red 40??!

I guess I should have followed the instructions on greasing some parchment paper.  It's not quite like making chocolate-covered strawberries where you can put it on wax paper.  I was so totally wrong on this one!

In the meantime, Graham is already busy building his motorcycle.  This boy and his Legos:

Okay, muffins are done!  But now, what shape are we going to make with it?

After a few tries, we finally came up with just creating the letter "G" with all the apple muffins.  I bought one container of regular whipped chocolate frosting and one container of dark chocolate frosting.  I didn't plan that very well because now I have a two-toned "cake".  But check out the 11 candied-apples! Thankfully (and coincidentally) I had 11 little apples to take the place of 11 candles:

Still at it...

Okay, time to get to the pool!  We invited one family to join us for the pool party.  Graham was quick to open up his present from the Forresters. Can't go wrong with a RC car!

It has been over a year and a half since we've seen them all, basically since the Covid lockdown.  Graham is starting out the party with a flip off the diving board :-)

I think I remember taking these photos by the pool side too when I was a kid:

I think this sums up Graham's birthday party.  Ha ha!  Coincidentally, there was another birthday party going on and they had a lot of inflatables to go around: 

After about 1.5 hours in the pool, it was time to have cake.  We made sure to separate one little muffin for Graham so he could blow out his candles:

And the candied-apples were a hit!

I'm so glad this worked out.  Everyone enjoyed the take-out pizza and meatballs from one of our favorite restaurant too.  All the kids wanted to hang out in the sun as it was getting cooler in the evening:

We spent 4 good hours at the pool!  The only thing we forgot were the sprinkles that we had bought for the muffins.  Graham doesn't like sprinkles so I bought some for the other kids.  I suppose these are going back into the kitchen cabinet until Charlie's birthday: 

Can't believe Graham is going to Middle School next year.  It's going to be a whole new ballgame for this kid.  I hope he knows what is expected of him.  This kid... oh geez!

Maybe he can fake his way through Middle school like he did in the video above.  Ha ha! I wonder what we will have to put up with next year.  If anything, at least the school district is already planning on sending all the kids back to a regular schedule and physically back in school.  I have some quiet time to look forward to at home :-)

Oh, one last birthday gift (we're so lucky with 1-day shipping!).  He loves these books!

Charlie just figured out that Runny Babbit actually means Bunny Rabbit.  And that's basically how the poems in this book is written.  Just shows you what sort of humor/kid Graham is.  We officially have a "Tweenager" in the house!