Ethan is 9! I can't quite believe it to be honest, on one hand I guess it does feel it's been nine years since he was born, but on the other, the last nine years have completely whizzed by. He's changed so much and grown so quickly and he continues to make us feel incredibly proud of him! He's the same age now as I was when my Mum married my Step-Dad, and I find that odd in a way, as I remember that day clearly, yet here we now are - me having a nine year old myself! The years certainly do fly!
This year Ethan's birthday fell on Easter Sunday and actually that was quite handy as we stayed over at his grandparents house (my in-laws) and no one had to worry about work the next day with it being a bank holiday. Ethan got to enjoy 3 days of celebrating too. The four of us went back to Paultons Park on the Wednesday before his birthday, which is a great theme park for his age and one that we've been to many times now and have always enjoyed.
On the Sunday after he'd opened up his presents from us, we went and visited my side of the family and spent some time with them and then we went and had a family celebration for him at my in-laws, with birthday cake, games, balloons (my in-laws set up the most amazing dinosaur-themed balloon wall for him as a surprise!) and lots of tasty food. And then on the following Wednesday we took him to an amazing local inflatable park with two of his best friends from school where he had a great time! So all in all, he had a pretty awesome birthday.
Present-wise, it was ALL about the Pokemon cards and Minecraft LEGO this year. He's been into Pokemon for a few years now and his card collection is HUGE. He definitely shares that interest with his Dad, who actually had his childhood room decorated in bright orange paint to match the color of his favorite Pokemon - Charizard, who is also Ethan's favorite Pokemon and the name of our ginger tabby cat, who was named by Ethan!
He's also been into LEGO for years now and of course he also shares that interest with his Dad too, who as well as his custom LEGO business, has a massive personal collection of LEGO sets too. To be honest though, we're all quite into LEGO, I actually have a couple of sets myself as of this year. I have the LEGO flower Bouquet and the Sonic The Hedgehog set (I wanted it for the pure nostalgia!). And Logan absolutely loves LEGO too and owns most of the Super Mario LEGO sets! Minecraft is the boys current game of choice on their Nintendo Switch and so the LEGO Minecraft sets have been a big hit with both of them. Storing all of the LEGO is the only challenge!
So all in all, Ethan's birthday was really lovely. We had such great weather for it too, so much so that we decided to go and do an impromptu Easter Egg trail at a National Trust gardens not too far from us, called Ascott. Despite it being local to us, we'd never been to Ascott before and it turned out to be really lovely, especially so in the sunshine.
We also did our usual Easter Egg Hunt at home for the boys - it's just consists of me hiding eggs for them both to find in our living room and our garden, but I've done it very year for them and they love it!
Thank you for reading. Alex xo