Our little Henry Owen turned four last week. It doesn’t seem all that long ago that he was as tiny as one of Emma’s dolls and now he’s playing with Transformers, recognizes “Dark Vader” and loves running with a football almost as much as he loves falling down with the football.

On Saturday we had a birthday party for Henry. Half a dozen raucous boys from his preschool attended, along with older and younger brothers and sisters.

If you couldn’t guess from the pictures, a boy’s birthday party is far different than one for girls. Emma’s parties have generally been fairly orderly affairs, with lots of planned activities. We had intended to do the same at Henry’s party, with several games planned.

The boys, however, would have nothing to do with it and, after several half-hearted attempts, we simply ended up outside playing soccer, throwing the football and tackling the princesses.