Celebrating 14

 I think Max had a great birthday, and we certainly had fun ushering in 14 with some style.

Nana and Papa stopped in to visit the birthday boy....and build some wedgits.  (Such a great gift.  We all love playing with them!)

Max has cleared Nana by a mile, and is gaining on Papa.  By next year's birthday photo I think Papa will need to wear his lifts.  :-)

We took Max and his friends to the movies to see We Bought A Zoo.  It was a really good movie, but I went expecting to laugh and ended up crying pretty hard.  For two hours.  I'm going to have to assume that as long as I provided candy and popcorn the boys didn't care how much I blubbered.

We came home afterwards for pizza and ice cream sundaes.

A caffeine/sugar rush is a great way to celebrate as a teen.  Do you have any idea how MUCH candy/popcorn/soda/pizza/icecream five growing boys can consume in one evening?  I felt like I was the one who had bought the zoo.  :-)

Yesterday we finished off our celebration with a special outing per the birthday boy's request.  Since it was New Year's Eve, the city had huge lighted signs installed along the highway warning not to drink and drive.  It particularly tickled me that we traveled down that road like this....

We went on a nature walk....

...right through here!

Ha!  We love this store, and both boys requested to go on their birthdays this year.  It's fun just to walk around and look at all the cool displays.

This is what the guys all voted we should do to my "theme tree" next year.  

They were ALL vetoed with my very powerful voice of ONE.

The big purchase of the day was a set of air soft guns and a target.

Because apparently, I planned to leave all my common sense and sanity behind in 2011.

I've resisted this phenomenon for a long time now.  The boys have always wanted airsoft.  We came home and set up target practice in our side yard in 75 degree weather.  They hung lights when it turned dark.  They were still shooting close to midnight.   We officially ended our birthday celebration, and the year, with a bang.

Good times ahead for Mr. Fourteen.