Just getting in under the wire here--pictures from Daniel's birthday while it's still his "birthday month."

Daniel's birthday (Monday, 1/10) was the first day of my week-long final MBA class. I was a little worried he'd get short shrift, but I got home in plenty of time that day to order the pizza he'd requested for his birthday meal. Once again, following Dad's lead (recall our Christmas meal was pizza, for the same reason.)

The night before his birthday, Daniel was lucky enough to celebrate with all four of his grandparents. My parents were in town for their babysitting gig (they watched the boys the first two days of my class week) so they and John's parents joined us for some presents, pasta and pie. Daniel decided more than a month ago that he wanted cherry pie for his birthday dessert.
We're really not sure where he came up with the idea, but he never wavered. I suggested other options, but he stuck to his guns, and I think he was pleased with the outcome. Even if he didn't like the pie, he was thrilled to run into one of his favorite firefighters at the pie store. (Firefighter Mark, who also drives a cement truck on his off days, and who we met last summer when he was pouring a driveway next door.) We've also seen him on our visits to the fire station, and he happened to be one of the crew assigned to the truck that visited the daycare this fall. So, yeah, he recognized us as soon as he saw us. He was leaving as we were coming in and was patient enough to stop for a chat with his adoring fans. The boys were a bit curious about why he didn't have his fire truck with him, but we tried to explain the concept of "days off."
The day before that (Saturday), we had Edward's first friend birthday party, to which we invited several of his friends' younger siblings who are in Daniel's class at school. So I guess I shouldn't have worried about short changing him since he basically got a three-day extravaganza for his birthday.

In fact, it's possible that the only person who wasn't pleased with Daniel's birthday celebration was Edward.
Even with the very helpful arrival of his birthday present in the same shipment from Arizona as Daniel's, meaning he had something of his own to unwrap, Edward really could not deal with the focus being on his brother. I believe this meltdown was because it was not enough to play with his new "lights and sirens" fire truck and insisted that Daniel should hand over his new ambulance as well.
You'll also note here that I am physically restraining Edward to allow Daniel the honor of opening his own presents. None of this is a surprise of course. It's hard to let your brother be the center of attention. I remember talking about this in advance of last year's birthday, but probably need to make that an annual conversation to achieve better mental preparedness on his part.