Mark's Birthday

What? Were you expecting to see a picture of the birthday boy? Well, too bad. Kip was on camera duty, which means we only have videos of Mark. If I have some time, I'll upload one, but they take forever.

We had a party for Mark yesterday. He had several friends come over. That was a whole lot of boy-ness for this house. Boys are funny. They argue. They try to one-up each other. It's all good spirited (you know, until it's not, but yesterday it was all good). They have heated discussions about many serious and intense topics such as Harry Potter, Pokemon, Lego video games, and X Men. Each boy knows the most about each of these topics and tries to prove he knows the most by shouting out as many random facts as he possibly can about the pertinent topic. If he doesn't know much about the topic, he will not say so, but will begin shouting out non-pertinent facts about some other topic in which he is extremely knowledgeable. Truly it is so different from girls (who make their share of noise, make no mistake, but it is such a different type of noise--less open declarations of alpha-hood) that it is a little mind-blowing.

Mark had a lot of fun, loved his gifts, loved his cake, loved playing games most of the afternoon, and had a great time with his friends. He played with his Pokemon and Lego sets right up to bed time.

Today--his actual birthday--was quieter, but still fun. After church, we gave him our gifts. We made his favorite dinner (it came from a box) and had more cake. And of course he kept playing with his toys.

Happy 9th, Mark.