One BIG weekend!

My mom, dad, sister and her two kids came to visit us last weekend!!  It was such a wonderful weekend despite the chaos of 2 birthday parties!  :D  They arrived Thursday night, Brayton's friend birthday was Friday night and Saturday was his family party.  I survived Friday night's party (just barely ~ Chris just kept saying "I don't do well at these" so he didn't participate much) and Josey was in heaven!  She was the hit of the party (the boys thought she was cool) AND she found a boyfriend!  She had to be able to see Joey at all times and she even followed him around!  It was so cute, but of course, I didn't get any pictures of it!

 The kids were at the bar waiting for the cupcakes to be lit (Bray wanted white cupcakes with white frosting ~ easy enough)

 Josey is on the left, also at the bar ~ just like the boys!  Joey (the object of her affections) is in the white hat

 Josey helping pass out presents

 Brayton got a moustache with one of his gifts.  It was definitely the hit of things!  And he enjoyed playing the part of a guy with a moustache.

 The plan was to have the boys play football out back.  That sounds good until they found un-broken paint balls, the neighbor boys came out and the boys from the party went chasing to their yard and the kids from the party didn't listen to me yelling at them to knock it off!  Good times.

 Josey wearing Taite's backpack

 Brayton's family party was extended due to our house not having much space for sleeping.  The boys graciously gave up their beds for grandma & grandpa and Steph so they slept on our air mattresses in the unfinished basement.  They were not pleased to have to sleep down there. . . (the taper & mudder starts tomorrow at 7 am, so this is a temp. situation)  With this said, some of our guests came for the day (Ken, Rick, Hiddy, Carmen & Tyson) and came earlier than the planned 3 pm start time ~ this just extended Bray's birthday party :~)  Good thing I'd bought 2 angel food cakes because we had one at lunch and one at supper.  Everything worked out as if it was planned that way ~ haha.  The sun finally came out and it turned into a beautiful day (it started out cloudy and crappy)

 Korbin relaxing on the table while Bray opens presents.

 9 candles. . .

 and 3 girlfriends. . . so frustrating to try and blow out those last 3 candles!

 He still can't get rid of those flames ;~)

 Brayton had a list of friends from the Dunes that he wanted to invite to his party, but I narrowed it down to Lori and her kids (their family includes most of the friends he wanted to invite).  They are watching Bray open his presents (soooo thrilling!).

 Grandma's having a much better time watching (note the beer in her hand. . . ) LOL

 Brayton wanted cash for his birthday so he could buy an iPod Touch.  Well, I knew that he'd bug us to go get an iPod Touch ASAP after he had his money, so I bought one and played "Let's Make a Deal".  I offered him the wrapped package I had (his iPod Touch in a large Cool Whip container) for all the money he'd gotten for his birthday.  I SOO wish I'd have had my camera to get the expressions on the boys' faces (the ones on the couch)!  They were very interested to see what he would do! 

 He thought he'd been had!  Just a Cool Whip container?! 

 Josey decided she would open it up since Brayton didn't want it

 "It's a IPOD!" (she exclaimed this as her mom and grandma both have one so she really knew what it was)

 How many girlfriends are on cake #2????

 None!

Our evening on Saturday night ended with not one but two trips to the basement because of the warning sirens going off!  It was earlier in the night when Mapleton, IA was hit hard by a tornado so we willingly went to the basement for our safety!

 Creating creatures with "Jaw Bonz" ~ some building things he got from Grandma Jane.  She sells them at her truck stop and I'm sure they are a big hit as these 3 played for awhile building and re-building things!

 Taite & Josey's creation:

Tonight was the 2nd night for Brayton's spring football practice and despite being late from playing games on his iPod and having a crabby start, he had a super practice!  Coach Reinhardt even singled him out to say what an awesome practice he had!!  He was in a much better mood when he came home!  The games start this weekend and are every Saturday (except for Easter weekend) through May 21st for both boys if you are in the area :D