Awesome Uncle(s)

June loves her uncles.  Of course she loves Susan more, but in a pinch she loves her uncles.  Monday was Uncle Paul's birthday, so today we took him out for dinner and delivered some birthday gifts (they were all food because what else do you get a starving college student?). I told June this morning that tonight for dinner we were going to take Paul out for his birthday so we needed to make him a special treat. June was super excited at the prospect of seeing Paul so she marched around the kitchen singing a little ditty "Happy Birfday, Nana, Papa, Susan, Paul" (me: what about Brad) "Susan Brad." However, then I had to explain that we weren't going to see Nana, Papa, Brad, or Susan because they all live in Kansas, but we were going to see Uncle Paul and that was exciting enough.

We made cupcakes with sprinkles although only one cupcake really ended up with sprinkles in the end.  Our jar of sprinkles didn't have a shaker top so the sprinkles flowed freely.  The first couple cupcakes got little pinches of sprinkles in isolated areas.  Then the fifth cupcake got the rest of the sprinkles in one big pile.

We met Paul at Auggie Acres where he's been working this summer so we could check out the changes in the garden before heading out for dinner at the Blue Cat in Rock Island. While there I asked June to tell Paul what we had made for him. She looked at him shyly while safe in Dad's arms and said "happy birfday" to which Paul replied "ahhh." In exchange for all Paul's birthday treats we ended up with a bag of "ugly" tomatoes from the garden which I am very excited to make into sauce or salsa.

After supper we wandered over to a sprinkler park down by the river.  At first I assumed we would just get our hands wet in the sprinklers because so far June hasn't been to keen on running through sprinklers.  There were some arching jets of water that we thought would be fun to have June run under because she still wouldn't get too wet. Unfortunately, the arches got lower and lower, but June kept walking at the same hunched over height so by the end of the row she was walking straight through the jets of water.  Paul, Karl and I were in fits of giggles watching her.  Paul was such a good uncle and kept running up and down the arches with her until she was thoroughly soaked.  Aaaahhh what an awesome end to a great birthday dinner! Happy Birthday Paul!