Smashing Success

For a while, I feared that the title for the blog post about Gavin's birthday party was going to be along the lines of Birthday Bust. But, God smiled down on our family this week. Dylan was supposed to be off work for the party. Then he got a trip. I figured that the show must go on despite his absence. After all, it's kind of our way of life. This wouldn't be the first or the last time that Dylan would miss a birthday or other big event. Gavin would be learning that the hard way at some point...if not for this birthday party, then probably in the near future. I knew I'd have to count on a lot of people to pull it together, but I figured it would all get done. We hired out some help to clean the house and the yard, and all the food besides the cake and cupcakes was store-bought. However, when Dylan called me with the news that his trip had cancelled during the week before the party, I let out a huge sigh of relief. Even with him here, I'm still very glad that we got the extra help and simplified things for the party. I'm pretty sure I could have pulled it together without him, but I probably would have lost my mind in the process.

Dogpile

Cousins

Supportive Baby Bro

Tiny Baby no more

A boy, a cake and a fork

Family uniforms

Sharing a cupcake with brother 

Guinea and Grandpa

Nonna and Papa

3 generations of Miller guys

Checking out the haul

Making a mess with a cake and a monster truck

We had a huge turnout and lots of backyard fun for the kids. The weather was warm, maybe a little uncomfortably so, but not too extreme. Gavin had a blast playing in the water but had even more fun looking at his cake. Long after we had sung Happy Birthday, he stuck around at the table crashing his monster truck all over his cake. You see, I made him his own special cake, and the guests had cupcakes in the same flavor. He sat there for SO LONG. It was hilarious.

I think everyone had fun and stayed well fed and hydrated. I enjoyed seeing our friends and family. But most important of all was that Gavin had a great and memorable day. I even caught him saying to his cousin, "Hey Cruzie, I had a good birthday party." We have a few more birthday festivities lined up for this week before we close out The Week of Gavin, and then the next thing on our agenda will be counting down the days until it cools down around here and we can play outside!