For Logan’s 5th birthday we decided to have a party at JCC (a community center) yesterday.  We invited ours and Logan’s friends.  We arrived at 10:30am with some fruits, snacks, cake and balloons.  The organizer met us at the entrance to help bring everything in.  The playground was set up nicely with two jumpy houses and a long decorated table.  Logan did not waste much time and started climbing up the structures.  Connor wanted to try out the jumpy house but complained that the fabric was too hot, so he ended up just hanging out with me and setting up things.  Right at party starting time, Mckayla and Michelle arrived.  Then shortly after, many more people slowly trickled in, Colton, Brandon, Peyton, Ashlyn, Cameron, Colby, Caleb, Abby, Rohan, Bar, Raz, Hunter, Ian, Kira, Hailey, Ashley, Kasey and all the parents.  Some of us started eating, like Connor.  He wanted to eat fruits and Sun chips, but refused pizza.  We suggested that he sit down with Peyton to eat but he wanted Raz to sit with him too.  He was sort of attached to me during the party and kept wanting me to sit with him, but I had to find ways to walk around to talk with our guests.  On the other hand, Logan spent most of his time in the jumpy houses with Colton and Rohan.  All three of them were giggling, climbing, pretend shooting and bouncing inside.  They were moving so much that I barely could take pictures to them.  They also played with the other boys Ian and Brandon briefly too.  This was probably one of the most fun I have seen Logan have at a party; I was pleased to see that.  It was quite warm yesterday and as a result Logan was very sweaty.  The only times we saw Logan was when he came to us for water and when we asked him to do the cake.
    We all gathered around Logan for a few pictures and the birthday song, then Logan and the boys immediately excused themselves back to playing.  The rest of us enjoyed some cupcakes. Connor ate an entire cupcake by himself.  After being at the playground area for an hour and a half, we all slowly migrated to the poolside.  Logan did not really want to move away from the jumpy houses initially, but the hunger finally hit him and so he happily moved one box of cheese pizza with him to the table by the pool and started eating.  At that point, few more guests arrived, Alex and Marcus.  Logan, Colton and Connor all chowed down some food while the guests prepared and went into the pool.  Some kids had to take a swim test to prove their proficiency while others stayed in the water with their parents.  We finally moved Logan and Connor to the pool but neither of them were interested to go into the water with Stuart.  They ended up staying by the steps with me playing with the pool toys.  Logan continued playing with Colton while Connor tossed the water rings for Mckayla and Peyton to fish out. 
      An hour of water time ended.  We all showered and migrated back to the party table to eat some more.  We then started saying byes to our guests and Connor liked helping to pass out the pirate gift bags to the kids.  We packed up to end this fun-filled two and half hour party for our big boy Logan.

     I love the way Connor talks lately; he can say a lot but still says them a funny way or with some extra sounds.  While we were driving home from Chuck E Cheese after Logan’s birthday on Friday, Connor asked me "My birthday…go to Chuck E Cheese?".  I told him that we can consider that, but I reminded him that we had another party for Logan the next day.  Then Connor sounded slightly mad: "No, Gau Gau’s birthday… ALL done!".  So I told him that his celebration would be done after the party, then Connor was fine with that and said "Oh!"
    After the party ended, as we were the last one walking out of the community center, we discovered that Mckayla, Marcus and Michelle were just coming out from the restroom,  Connor saw them and immediately looked at me, making the arm gesture of "why?" and said "Why are they still here?"  He said it so funny that he made Michelle and I laughed.
     He has been saying a word "puufa" often, and sometimes even singing about it, but I have no idea what it is.  So I have asked him a few times what the word is, and he always says "it is Chinese!!"

   Connor suddenly started saying “I love you” many times a day.  He would say “I love you Mommy” and “I love you Daddy” to us out of the blue, but of course more times to me than to Stuart :)  Today, he said to me “I love you Mommy”, so I returned “I love you too!”.  Then he added “I love you lots!”; and I replied “I love you a lot too”.  Connor corrected me “No, you love me a little bit…I love you a lot more!”.

     Logan turns five today.  I can’t believe so many fun years have passed; now he has turned into a big skinny tall boy. 

     I got out of work early today to keep our tradition of watching a movie together on his birthday.  When I arrived at school to pick him up, I realized that we had missed a paper notice that Logan brought home yesterday.  It was a short questionnaire to ask about Logan’s favorite things and to invite the parents for a spotlight for his birthday.  Since I happened to be there, the teacher and I decided to do an impromptu one.  Logan sat next to the teacher in front of the whole class.  She asked Logan a few questions about his favorite things; Logan’s first answer was that he likes playing with Connor.  Awww!!  She went on asking about his love of drawing and his favorite animal.  She was interactive with the entire class while Logan called on his friends to answer the questions too.  They then talked about why Logan was special to them; the kids were raising their hands to answer that.  One boy said “Logan is special to me because he is cute!”  Everyone had a good laugh at that.

    As Logan said his favorite book was “The Three Little Pigs”, they wrapped up the spotlight by doing a drama together.  Logan chose to be one of the houses, then the teacher assigned the rest of the kids into the parts.  All the kids were very into the little play, saying the few lines and making the wolf sounds.  I saw Logan even rocking to the music too.  I then took a picture of the class.  What a joyful surprise for me at pick up today!

     Logan and I then went to watch “Monster University”.  Logan was excited and we basically ran all the way from the parking lot to the ticket booths.  The movie was great, just like the first one.  Logan was focused in it but started to move around the last 15 minutes.  He later on even asked me to go, and when I asked him the reason, he answered “I want to go to Chuck E Cheese”.

    We finished the movie, then met up with Stuart and Connor at Chuck E Cheese.  Connor was happy to see us, and he was even more happy that we were in that place.  Rohan, Vrinda, Bar, Raz and Revital also came to join us to celebrate with Logan.  Logan and Rohan immediately went off to play on their own.  They took turns coming toward us to get a couple of tokens and shared each game with each other.  They were so independent, and just came for food when they were ready.  Connor tried many different machines, some shooting and some riding ones.  Later on, he liked playing with the machines that gave out tickets.  He once came to show the parents the tickets he earned, we gave him a big applause.  Since then, he must have come back at least 10 times to show us his rewards and his big smile.  We then sang the birthday song to Logan and he became a bit embarrassed.  We all enjoyed the cake and some more playing before we ended the night.  This was such a packed afternoon that we all had forgotten about his presents.  I guess they will have to wait until this weekend.

     Stuart had a chance to sleep in this morning which was a great present.  When he woke up, the boys presented the school-made presents to him.  Logan made a kaleidoscope with a little picture of himself inside; what a funny surprise!  He also wrote a very cute card too.

     This morning Stuart and I wanted to drive up to Fremont for an errand.  When we returned, we decided to stop by Dave and Buster for lunch and to play.  The lunch was good and the three boys had such a good time playing.  They played shooting games, driving games and some carnival ones.  Logan’s favorite was the shooting one; Connor seemed to like that too, but of course he was not really playing.  The place was dark, but the screens of the games was very bright.  It finally gave me a headache after being there for a couple of hours, so I had to round up the kids to end their fun time.  But I think the boys did enjoy this little impromptu playtime.

    Today was Stuart’s turn to accompany Logan on his day off.  They did some errands together and also checked out a potential summer camp location.  Logan of course had a chance to play with his favorite Xbox game today too.  He is so into those games that he kept suggesting to come home the past two days while I was out with him.  Logan was especially happy today as he was able to play together with Stuart.  According to Stuart, Logan is quite good at it these days; sometimes when Stuart is stuck at some area, Logan will take over his controller and help him pass through it.  We will just have to be careful to continue to only allow timed weekend play. 

    In the afternoon, there was a Father’s Day Celebration at Connor’s school that Stuart took Logan to attend.  The event was not exciting (as expected), but of course, Connor was very happy to see daddy and Logan.  There were two other daddies but not much exciting conversation according to Stuart.  The teacher chatted with Stuart a bit and shared that Connor is a very good helper at school.  He likes to organize things with the teachers and he especially likes playing with small objects.  He is doing well with potty training that she feels Connor is ready for underwear.  After eating snacks, Stuart decided to hang out a bit to let Connor and Logan joined the other two remaining kids out in the playground to play.  Connor also presented a handmade gift to Stuart for Father’s Day.

    We received Logan’s last report card of the year by mail today.  Along with that, an official class picture with each kids name labeled.  I was so happy to have this keepsake to remember the great year that Logan had.  Since the scanner has been put away for now, this blurry picture is what I have.

     The report card also showed that Logan had made some more improvement the last quarter; he now knows his numerals and phonics “all” the time instead of having some “most” of the time.  The two things Logan continues to need improvement on are “communicating with teachers” and “speaking before the group” which remain at “most” of the time. 

    We can tell that Logan is doing better with phonics as he is now able to figure out the first letter of many of the words we say to him.  He also loves playing the “I Spy” game in the car, and he is getting good at it.  He however only likes to make us guess rather than the other way around as he claims that he is “the boss”.