Happy Birthday!

September is our month of birthday bliss! This year I got off pretty darn easy as far as the birthday celebrations go. No huge parties, no stress, no worries! The boys both chose pretty low key affairs and I was pretty ok with their ideas. I think we had such a crazy fun summer the boys wanted to stay home and just hang out.

In fact it was so low key that I forgot to torture people with posed pictures of happiness. Ali snapped a few for me and I just sat back and enjoyed the splendor of low maintenance birthday parties!

Let's start with BMan.... When asked what he wanted for his birthday, this was his reply:

He wanted chocolate cake with white frosting and lots of sprinkles!

His first guest of choice was Ali shortly followed by Dylan.

He wanted pizza for dinner.

He also wanted a water gun from Walmart (the one he chose was bigger than he was)! (I modified this gift so that he could lift his water gun)!

The theme of the night was play dough and he has been playing for hours with his new play dough daily!

A few of Braden's distinguished guests!

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We were so low key that night that the only picture we have of the Threet family is Drew and Braden looking at the carpet! (Why are they looking at the carpet?)

By the way Braden got to dress himself for his birthday. Can you believe he picked out soft shorts a muscle shirt and that they didn't match at all? I have come so far... on Jake's 3 yr old party I probably made him wear a shirt and tie and act like an adult.

I forgot to mention that Braden loves garbage trucks! Loves to watch them, loves to play with them and loves to talk about garbage. One of the highlights of his birthday was Rand taking him out to the garbage dump. BMan talked about pushing garbage the rest of the day and seemed to think it was the best birthday present ever! Should I worry that he aspires to be a garbage man? No offense to garbage collectors anywhere!

This garbage truck present from GRANDMA and GRANDPA was the hit of the night! It dumps garbage and I now have little piles of wadded up garbage all over my house! Thank you grandma and grandpa!

The cake - sprinkles done by Braden. (he is pretty talented, the mound in the middle resembles a garbage dump - just what he was going for)!

On to Jake the Snake's Happy Birthday! This is a big year for our Jakey boy, he turned eight! Jake informed us that this year he only wanted a couple of his best friends for his birthday party so that they could play for a long time (he had the whole day planned). He missed one of his good friends Jason but had a great time with the EMan and Broc! The day started out with some bowling at one of the finer establishments in Mesquite, the Virgin River Casino and Bowling Alley! Layla and I ran in so that I would not remember the Virgin River all day by the smell of my hair. Did you know that even in a smoke free bowling alley you can still smell like an ashtray all day?

We teased these guys because the lightest bowling balls were all pink and they proved to us that pink means you are a real man, I mean look how strong they are?

Don't tell the 8 year olds that the 3 yr old had a heavier bowling ball!

Again with my casual birthday attitude this year there were no more pictures than what you see here. The boys had a blast bowling and then tore it up in the arcade! On to Pizza Hut and home for a water fight with Rand. (Thanks for being a good sport babe.)

Jake got a microscope kit from us and from the time allotted to Jake to play with it and the time Rand spent testing it out...I am realizing now that Rand is a just a "nerd" at heart and we really bought this gift for him. He is a pretty cute nerd though I might add!

My dear family, thanks for all the birthday wishes to my kids! Between Grandma Nell and Grandma Pollock and Nana and Grandpa Gressmen and Grandma and Grandpa Bracken and aunts and uncles my kids were spoiled rotten! Another year older and another year old wiser! Happy Birthday!