Carson's Birthday

Carson turned 11 on August 26.  That morning, we stopped by Krispy Kreme to get him 3 dozen donuts for his homeroom class.  What better way to start your day?  Here he is after school with his huge tres leches cake! 

Carson has been wanting an iPod touch for MONTHS now.  He has been begging and plotting and scheming to get one.  We decided that we would get him one for his birthday if he paid for half of it.  Three reasons why: #1 a $200 birthday gift is outrageous for an 11 year old.  #2 he already had a perfectly good iPod courtesy of his Aunt Dina a couple of Christmases ago, and #3 we knew that if he paid for half of it, it would mean more to him, and he'd take better care of it.  So Carson asked for just cash from all family members, and he didn't have a lot of gifts to open, but he did receive the one gift that he really, really wanted: his iPod touch. 

We also bought him a case for his new iPod, and a box full of scouting stuff now that he's a Boy Scout (a scout shirt, book, badges, etc.)  Sewing all those badges on takes forever.  That is one thing I don't love about scouting! 

My three sons.  I love this picture!!  Charlie and Cade were very helpful counting and handling all of Carson's cash that arrived in his birthday cards.  :)

It's our birthday tradition that the birthday kid gets to choose where they want Mom and Dad to take them to dinner, and the other kids have to stay home while we spend some quality time with the birthday kid.  To make that a little less of a bummer for the other 3, we got some pizza for their dinner.  It's not Carrabba's, but it's not cold cereal either.  :)  Carson LOVES Carrabba's pollo rosa maria, so that's what we got!  After fried zucchini, bread, salad, pollo rosa maria, and ice cream praline, Carson was still determined to go to Bahama Buck's.  He didn't finish much of his shaved ice that night, but he put the rest in the freezer for the next day.  :)

For Carson's birthday party that Saturday, he invited a few friends to go bowling.  At AMF (Gilbert/Southern) they have a package that is 2 hours of bowling and all-you-can eat pizza for $15 per kid.  So that's what we did.  The boys ate tons of pizza, bowled 2 1/2 games, ate cake, and watched Carson open gifts.  They had lots of fun. 

Carson and his friends from the Academy: Jacob, Connor, Thomas, and Blake

The birthday boy and his mom.  

Carson did get to open a few more gifts at his party from his friends. 

Here's the final score of the first game:  a three-way tie!  The boys got better at bowling as they went along--it took about a game for them to really get the hang of bowling without bumpers, but they did great!  It was a fun party and I think Carson had a good 11th birthday!