Deker's Birthday

Last Tuesday was Deker's birthday.  He turned the big 4.  He has been planning his party for about 2 months now (since we started planning Keagan & Bauers birthdays which were the beginning of May).  Some days Deker wanted a tractor party, some days it was a John Deere Tractor party.  But we finally decided on a Construction theme party.  We had his friend party on Monday morning because Andrew is home on Mondays. 

We bought those plastic hard hats and personalized them with their names.  We also got Home Depot tool belts for each kid.  We played "Dump that Dirt" (this was Deker's idea).  We have a little trike that has a bucket in the back.  We put dirt in a sand box and then had a tarp on the other side of the driveway.  Each child started at the start/finish line, rode the trike got a shovel of dirt and put it in the bucket, rode around the end of the driveway and dumped the dirt onto a tarp and then rode to the finish line. 

After that, we played "Pin the Dirt in the Dump Truck".  Andrew drew a great dump truck for that.  Then we had cake and Ice cream.  Had a Dump Truck pinata and then played outside until it was time to go.  We also set out a lot of the tractors we have for the kids to play with.  Deker loved his party and the great presents that he got from his friends.

Here is Deker in his birthday shirt that we made for him. 

The Bulldozer cake that Andrew made.  I found the idea on Pinterest, showed it to Andrew and he used his building skills to cut 2 9x13 cakes and stack them into this.  We used fun-size Kit Kats for the tracks and a big Symphony Bar for the blade. 

We used Caution tape & yellow and black balloons to decorate with. 

Here are all the kids in their construction hats and tool belts. 

On the morning of Deker's actual birthday, I made him a number 4 pancake. 

Deker had to wait until Tuesday after dinner to open his presents from us, which was really hard for him.  It was just going to be our little family, but it ended up being a little impromptu party.  A friend of Neals came over, our good friends, Brandon & BarrieJo stopped by as well as Andrew's sister Anna and her husband Chris stop.  We all ate more of the Bulldozer cake and ice cream from the day before.

All the pictures from Deker' opening his presents that night turned out really blurry.  But, Deker was super excited to get a combine & a jack hammer (something he has been asking for for quite some time now). 

Happy Birthday, Deker.  We love you tons!