the birthday boy

 Friday was Maxwell's 11th birthday.

 

One of his presents from me was having Aunt Karen come for a surprise visit, Wednesday night.  

Aunt Karen is my  best friend from 1st grade.  We met in Mrs. Bonarre's class at Hopkins elementary school in Sherwood. 

She is the person I would go to if  I ever needed to hide a dead body.  She knows all my skeletons and loves me anyway.

She lives in Seattle and doesn't get down here very often due to a crazy work schedule.

She and Maxwell have a super special relationship, so he was beyond excited to see her and that I let him stay home from school on Friday and go on a hike on Mt Tabor.

 

I did a sort of insane amount of cake baking Friday, as we were having three celebrations...

The first party was Friday night, with some of the grown ups that love Maxwell, but are not relatives. 

I made all of Maxwell's favorite foods, and we had lemon cake with strawberry sauce and strawberry ice cream.

Freyja decided to wear a ladybug costume for the event, and eat nothing but strawberries and pickles.

The next morning two of Maxwell's friends came over and had pizza and rootbeer, then went to see a matinee of Alice in Wonderland, which Maxwell had been planning for months.  He is a big Tim Burton fan, as well as a big fan of the book.

 

after the movie they spent several loud hours playing a video game, which I allowed because of the birthdayness, but I did eventually chase them outside, into the sunshine. 

Saturday evening we went over to Wawa's house (Mark's mom) for a family party with Mark's sister. 

I think it was a fitting fete for the world' best boy.