Quinn's Birthday

As you know, Quinn turned 3 last week.  We love to celebrate around here (who doesn't), and so we stretched out our celebration over two days.  This post is dedicated to Quinn's actual birthday.  I'll share bits of his party later.

As you probably also know, Quinn loves movies.  Since Pat is an animator, he encourages Quinn's love of animated film (and also screens the quality of animation that Quinn is allowed to watch).  Content screening, not so much.  Quality animation screening, absolutely.  I know, it's backwards.

Anyhow, Pixar is the creme de la creme of animated film in Pat's book, and so when we found out that Brave, the newest Pixar title, was being released on Quinn's birthday, we knew we had to take him.  It would be his first movie theatre experience, a Pixar film, on his birthday.  Perfect!

Uncle Ryan had flown up for the occasion (and to run his first half-marathon), and so he agreed to watch Kira.  Pat and I were excited to have some alone time with Quinn before celebrating big with our families.  It felt like the best of both worlds.

I was nervous about whether or not he'd be able to sit through a movie quietly in the theatre, but planned to fill his lap with junk food and figured that'd probably do the trick.  I was also a little worried about the content of the film, knowing that Pixar can cover some pretty heavy topics.  However, I didn't worry too much about this because a) Quinn's seen (and loves) every Pixar movie made and b) heavy content would just go over his head.

So, we took him to the theatre for his birthday this year.  He was so excited to see the "big movie" that I'd been building up for a few days prior.  As we walked into the theatre Quinn oo'd and ahh'd, and I was giddy anticipating the excitement he was about to experience.

We filled his lap with popcorn and licorice, and he was set to enjoy the film.  And, that he did.  However, the content was pretty scary for him at times (growling bears on a large screen with surround sound) and towards the climax I took him out of the theatre with me.  We took a long bathroom break and slowly roamed the halls looking at each movie poster before making our way back into the theatre to watch the last few minutes as the film resolved.  As we left Quinn said, "That was fun!  Big movie - scaaary."  So, it was a mixed review.

We're happy that his first theatre experience was a Pixar film, but I was worried that he would associate the theatre with big, scary movies.  So, we left with the intention to take him to Madagascar 3 (a much lighter film) soon.

As we returned home from the theatre Grandma Cathy, Auntie Mariah, and Uncle Eric had arrived from Western Oregon.  We basically took it easy at home for the rest of the day, and besides having our extended family in the house, it was a pretty regular day.

I couldn't let Quinn's actual birthDAY go by without some cake (as the pictures have already shown), and so after dinner (which I'm pretty sure Quinn didn't actually eat) we celebrated with cupcakes.  Quinn enjoyed the frosting most of all (naturally) and I think felt quite loved and celebrated all day.