Birthday Kid's Final Hurrah

It's the birthday that's gone on all week long. Gavin was treated to a visit from his Oregon grandparents for the weekend for the big Sunday event. But first, Dylan had a quick flight on Saturday, so we went to the airport to see the airplane come in and then had a moment at the splash pad followed by lunch at True Food.

I headed out bright and early on Sunday with the car packed to the gills with party decorations, favors, food, drinks, platters, etc. Destination: My parents' house. When your child's birthday is in August in Arizona and you don't have a pool, you have to get creative with birthday parties. My parents were kind enough to open up their house for me to throw this shindig, which is no small deal. They have a lot of house and a lot of backyard to clean, and when a thousand kids swim in a pool, it can get a little murky. Thanks so much, Mom and Dad!

Construction theme...his current obsession

A self-described medium effort party, and I think I pulled it off

Stole some ideas from Pinterest...obviously

It's nearly impossible to get a smile out of him for a picture, so I'll take what I can get

I arrived around 10am, and Mom and I got right to work slicing watermelon, putting together PB&Js and chicken salad sandwiches and icing and decorating cakes and cupcakes. We hung a few decorations and had all of our ducks in a row...and it was, like, noon. Typical of my mom and me, leaving way too much time for party prep. Anyhow, the crowd (who consisted of aunts, uncles, cousins, and second cousins) showed up at 3pm with a bang, and the kids hit the pool. A short while later, everyone put on their construction hats and sang Happy Birthday to our sweet boy. He was hilarious with his cupcake, refusing to use his hands for any portion of the eating process, but I'll allow the photos to tell the rest of the story.

Waiting to sing Happy Birthday with Hudson and Cruz

Still hasn't mastered blowing out a candle, but he really tried

Just put his face right in there

One of my most favorite photos...thanks to Kristin, with Max on the assist acting like a goofball to make Gavin laugh

Cake eating in action

It got pretty far up his nasal passages...

Dad on the clean-up

He sat for a long time playing with the construction vehicles and "dirt"

The sky looked like this when I walked out to my car, so I took a picture

It was a little more visiting and some gift opening before all the troops headed home for the night. I hung behind with my parents and Aunt Angie and Burnz to finish the clean-up job and then met my family back at home. I was exhausted but totally wired from the day's events. Sometimes throwing a party is hard...at times I wondered if there would be enough food...then I wondered if I had too much food...but once the party got going I really stopped caring and visited with my cousins. Thanks so much to everyone who came out for Gavin's special day! And with that, we are officially done celebrating Gavin's 2nd birthday!