They say it’s your birthday . . .

well, it’s his birthday too! Caleb has a birthday twin. To celebrate, we all went bowling with a bunch of kids from the embassy. (it was a pre-planned event for the kids that happened to fall on the 18th, and the mom of the other birthday boy bought a cake and put Caleb’s name on it. Ready made birthday party! How lucky for me!)

The boys had a great morning of bowling with friends and eating cake.

Baby girl also ate her share of cake and crawled around the bowling alley. I only had to keep her out of the lanes a few times.

Reading the scoreboard to find that it says . . .

Happy Birthday Caleb! (and his friends who also celebrated birthdays that month.)

Carter didn’t have high hopes for that last frame.

But hoped for a strike anyway . . .

Super-prepared mom even brought party masks.

Calvin is quickly learning that babies are chick magnets. I foresee lots of this action in the future.

And then to make it the ultimate birthday, we all went to McDonald’s. Or as Caleb calls it, “The Yellow M.” Over 20 screaming hopped-up-on-cake American kids stormed McDonald’s and that’s where the phrase “Ugly American” comes from. I’m (sort of) kidding. They ran all over the playplace and spread out all over the restaurant in small groups according to age. It was mostly harmless, just a little loud. Baby and I ate our fries and pretended we didn’t know any of those crazy kids, but I’m pretty sure the pale skin gave us away.

Tonight we’re doing it all over again at a real restaurant. Four families, each with a truckload of kids, at a sit-down restaurant. I hope they have a mop on standby . . .