Birthday Marathon

Our family has lots of birthdays that fall over June and July...my niece, Karly's, is June 10th and Elizabeth was born on the 26th, then my nephew Grayson was born July 1st and my Dad's b-day (and parents anniversary) is on July 3rd. My niece, Kyra, caps off the birthday marathon on July 26th. I think at some point we will just have 1 or 2 big parties for all of these b-days, but this year everyone had their OWN! That's a lot of cake...not that I'm complaining!

Here are some of the highlights:

Karly's family birthday party followed on the heels of her friend party, which was a "puppy" theme. Brandon did face painting for the kids and so Karly and Kyra both had their puppy paint on during the party. He painted a soul patch on AJ to imitate Andy. :)

Here's Karly the dog blowing out her 6(!!!) candles! What a big girl!

Uncle B corrupting his middle child.

Kidding! We just thought it looked hysterical because of the

puppy tongue painted on her face. :)

Karly posing with her pretty presents.

Our gift to her was the colorful one in front. You can tell I had not had the baby yet since I have no idea where I would find the time to wrap a present like that now! Lucky you, Karly!

Most of the soul patch was worn off by the time this shot was taken, but here is AJ on Andy's lap clapping after Karly blew out her candles. Can you just see him thinking about cake?

Ooooh. (pause) Ahhhhh. (pause) Ohhhhh. Roselle Fireworks at their finest!

Next party was my dad's on the 4th at Kim's.

AJ stayed up for them this year and love them. I was nervous that the booms would scare him, but he was fine. Between bursts, he asked me if they were over, and I said, "No, there're gonna be more." So then each long pause (of which there were many), he turn to me and say in a very excited little voice, "There's gonna be MO-RE!" Precious! Elizabeth slept though it all in her carseat in my sisters garage.

My son, the future mechanic, "fixing" Kyra's bike. He loves real tools and is very aware of which ones are "daddy's real tools" and his own "fake plastic" tools. Of course, to my chagrin, he prefers the ones which are capable of poking an eye out.

Here's Kyra on the "fixed" bike. Ready to ride!

Yes, AJ, you will get to eat it. Soon...soon...let's sing first!

(Nice job on the flag cake, Kim! Or did B decorate this one too??)

AJ eating Pa's birthday cake on his lap. I think my dad was not too keen to have the 2 year old eating cake on his lap, but luckily since AJ was getting so much practice eating cake, he was getting more of it into his mouth than usual.

Cousin Karly LOVED Elizabeth right away. She sat and looked at Elizabeth sleeping in her carseat with an unmatched attention span. It was very cute. :)

Then she got to hold her with Mom's supervision. What a big girl she is, and look at the arm-positioning! Hmmm...a future babysitter?

Say Cheese!

What cutie pies!

And here's Aunty Kim and Elizabeth. She really looks like AJ to me in this picture. Elizabeth, not Kim. ;) And she still had hair at this party! Now all the hair on the top of her head has fallen out. We're waiting to see what color it will be when it grows back in.

For Grayson's 1st birthday, Kim and Brandon did a Monkey theme, and Brandon decorated the cake and did such a great job! He used the decorator tips for the frosting and it looked so pro! AJ obviously thought it tasted great, as you can tell by the wide-open, I-don't-want-to-miss-a-crumb mouth in this shot.

Baby G, as I like to call him, was starting to walk around the time of his party and it was so cute to see him tottering around. He also liked the cake and didn't want to leave anything on his plate. Since the cake wasn't chocolate, the messy-kid effect is not so major, but believe me, he was put into a change of clothes not long after this picture was taken!

It was getting late, so AJ and Grayson were both in their pj's for the present opening portion of the party. Here is a shot of AJ showing Grayson the book we gave him (which AJ was coveting for the few weeks that it sat on the kitchen island in our house waiting to get wrapped up). Grayson only looks semi-interested, but I hear the book was a hit later...

Next, Kyra turned 3! I can hardly believe she is already a 3 year old. She was so cute at her party...all dressed up in a pretty party dress and ready to have some fun! She had a fairy cake, which was very cool and Kim said if anyone touched it she was going to freak out. (There are usually some finger swipes out of the frosting on the cakes at our family's parties...go figure!) well, my mom went to take a picture of the cake and moved a nearby picture frame right into the frosting on the corner! Ha! Luckily the cake still looked great and no one had to "freak out".

Here is Kyra patiently waiting for us to finish singing so she could blow out her candles. You can't see it in this picture, but Kim (or was it B again?) made a super-cute sherbet dessert that we sliced to serve with the cake, and it looked just like watermelon! I'm so going to steal that idea for a future party at my own house...

Make a wish, Kyra!

This is a picture of the present-opening. This shot hardly does the situation justice, since it looks kind of calm. It was not calm. AJ and Karly were more than ready to "help" open the presents and Kyra was so funny saying, "Oh my goodness!!" while opening every gift. It was so funny! Guess you had to be there...

(that pink lump on Kim's shoulder is Elizabeth)

And here is a picture from Kyra's party of Elizabeth and I.

Check out her cheeks! Can she even open her eyes with the pressure from them against her dress? So chubby! She is such a cute "love chunk", as quoted from Kim's friend Lisa.