The Big Birthday - Early

My parent's have a great tradition. When a grandchild turns 8, s/he gets a special birthday 'date' with Papa and Nana. The girls get a trip to downtown Chicago to the American Girl Doll store to pick out their very own doll. The boys get a trip to the Lego store to pick out a boatload of Legos. (There are some age exceptions, but those don't come into play here, so I won't go into them.)

In a little less than a week, my baby turns 8. He has been planning for his special day for two years.

Do you think I'm kidding? I'm not. There has been so much discussion between him and his older brother about which Lego sets to choose, which sets are the best deal, which sets they like the best that I have left the house (quite literally) because I can't stand to listen to any more Lego talk.

His day finally came on Tuesday! Isaac was so excited, he was up every two hours the night before and finally gave up trying to sleep at 5:20. (He's very precise.)

He very generously invited all his siblings into his room to help him build everything.

And I even allowed an exception to the infamous 'Leichty bedtime'
to allow them to complete the building process.
(For my own sanity, really. The boys have been known to get up at 1am to finish building a Lego set in the privacy of their closet. You can imagine what the next day was like!)

One last note: Those Cars 2 sets came out at JUST the right time. Otherwise my house would have been full of Star Wars Legos. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just prefer Cars 2.