January is the month for Birthdays

Finn made another attempt at the ice rink with the walker that John made for him

He's really trying and wants to learn.  He screams when we won't let him go out.

The neighborhood open skate complete with sandwiches over on the middle center/left side

Getting ready to skate at his birthday party

Liam getting ready to skate

All geared up.  Luke, Liam, Aiden, and Finn

Luke and Liam have shown a lot of improvement playing hockey this year

MN Wild Hockey Cake

Luke and Liam's friends at their birthday party

Aiden and Dad

Finn is "running the clock" with Kevin

And he loved every minute of it

The boys skated hard and they were starving afterwards!

Birthday party friends

Singing Happy Birthday

Clearly, this is Luke's favorite part!

Opening gifts

Luke and his MN gopher shirt from his buddies, Jack and Charlie.

Liam loves his knee hockey stick

Liam and Luke with their buddy, Jack

Finn being goofy

Here's proof that Mom was actually there since I am rarely in the pictures

Luke with his inflatable hockey stick

The inflatables sticks quickly turned into weapons, of course.

Aiden started soccer over the weekend and was so excited!

January is a big birthday month for us because we celebrate three birthdays.  This was the first year where we decided we would need to do two birthday parties.  However, when your birthdays are only a week apart followed by Christmas and New Years, planning two parties is tricky.  In the past, we have had one party for all three boys so the planning logistics were a bit easier.  We would do the party around one of the two birth dates.  This year, however, Luke and Liam are going to a different school than Aiden and they all have different friends.

So, we started talking to all three boys about what they would like to do for their birthdays back in October.  When Luke and Liam said they wanted to have a skating party, we knew we would have to plan early.  Finding open ice at this time of year in Minnesota is nearly impossible.  We considered having the party on our backyard rink but thankfully we opted against this because we had several setbacks with the rink this year.

I finally found a place to rent ice where we could actually play hockey (the boys wanted to play hockey, not just skate around) so we planned Luke and Liam's skating party.  The ironic thing about all of this is that the only date possible for the party (based on ice availability, scheduling, etc...) was Aiden's 5th birthday (January 2).  We invited several neighbors, friends from school, friends from their hockey team, and a few twin friends that we have played with since we were born.  The boys enjoyed some time to play hockey with their friends followed by pizza, popcorn, and cake.  We celebrated Aiden's birthday that night at a special dinner restaurant of his choice.  Aiden's party will be this weekend (the day before Luke and Liam's 7th birthday).