Max's Birthday Celebration

We kept it pretty low-key for Max's birthday celebration.  James made pancakes (Max's favorite) for breakfast, then we went to church where we also happened to have a catered lunch. We came home and let the boys take their naps and then we let Max open presents and we ate a yummy dinner of macaroni and cheese and peas (another favorite of the birthday boy).  Of course then we followed all that with the birthday cake, the most important part in my opinion.

It was a great day, though it became apparent when we got home from church that Max was coming down with something.  He began running a fever before his nap, and I assumed he just had a little cold since he also had a slight runny nose.  It became apparent after a few days, though, that he actually had hand, foot and mouth disease.  He broke out in a rash around his mouth and on his bottom and a little on his hands, and Jesse also got it. Thankfully the rashes didn't really seem to phase them, but they both seemed pretty miserable during the 24-hour period when they had fevers, especially Jesse.  Anyway, he was not quite himself on his birthday, but I think he still enjoyed himself nonetheless.

Jesse was excited to help Max open his presents:

After digging into that cake, he needed a bath.  Jesse gave him a bath mat and bubble bath for his birthday so that they could more easily enjoy taking baths together (actually, I was going to buy this stuff anyway and thought Jesse could just give it to him as a present).  Max gets pretty hyper and splashy in the bathtub so it had been hard to give him a bath previously, as he would just go sliding all over the tub.  Now he can stay and play some.  As you can see here, he was not initially happy about the bath, but he warmed up to it.  I think he was just a little cranky because of the fever.

Watching a movie before bedtime: