Happy Birthday, Griffin!

November 26, 2013~ Today we celebrated Griffin turning seven years old!  Wow!  He is growing up so much...a big 1st grader, learning Spanish, making lots of friends, trying new sports.  Griffin, we are so proud of you and the awesome boy you are!  It is a joy to be your parents!  

For lunch he requested the buffet at China Sun!  He loves pretty much anything that has to do with China...especially Chinese food! :) 

They brought him a special dessert and sang Happy Birthday to him. 

We ate dinner at home and had a giant cookie for dessert.

Griffin with his brothers on his 7th Birthday!

He was SO expressive while opening his presents. It was a lot of fun to watch!

We got him a new basketball for his upcoming season

Tate was eager to play with it ;)

 That evening we went ice skating!!

(It was Griffin's request after going to his first hockey game a month ago.) :)

Ready to go!

He was a natural!!

The Chase family joined us.  

Tate even got to ice skate!

Go, Griff!

We're a special bunch!

Happy Birthday, Ethan & Macey!

Ethan & Macey requested two separate themes for their 7th Birthday Party.  Macey wanted an Egypt party and Ethan wanted a Bone party...I think I got that right.  The themes actually went together nicely. ;)

Amy made some yummy & creative treats.

One of the activities was to wrap the birthday kids like mummies.  

Ethan was super excited about his new Legos!

We got earrings for Macey--she had just gotten her ears pierced!

Thanks, Greens, for the fun party!

Tate's 3rd Birthday!

November 12, 2013~ Our baby boy is 3!  How can it be!?!  He requested a firetruck birthday party, and boy did we have fun with the theme!  Tate's buddy, Keaton, let us borrow his fire fighter costume.  Tate was SO excited to get into character right away on his birthday morning.

He got to open a couple of gifts from us that morning...

Love this sweet face!

Then, he got a birthday doughnut!

I love this sequence of Tate blowing out his candles...such an expressive boy!

We had a family party that evening--I made "Tate-r Tots", Chili, and had a baked "Po-Tate-O" Bar :).  And for dessert I made a firetruck cake and cupcakes.

Josh came up with all of the decorations!  It all looked amazing!

It was nice enough for outside seating--in November--yay!

The "fire"

Fireman Tate to the rescue!

The Greens

Great Aunt Fern was there, along with Great Grammie and Grandpa Lermo.  Fern had just recently moved into the same retirement community as G&G

The view from the balcony

Notice the net holding the "water" to put out the "fire" :)

Time for presents!  What a patient boy!

The costume was very reflective. ;)

Happy Birthday, sweet Tate!  We love you so much and are SO thankful that you are in our family!

:)

What a boy!  He brings such joy to our family!

Just after the "water" was released--it was a little chaotic for a few minutes!

The cousins all worked together to put out the fire. ;)

Elsa- just 2.5 months old

Tate surrounded by his brothers & cousins!  What a blessing to have everyone so close!  (We were missing the Creagers here--with all the November birthdays we had to get creative with when we could celebrate. This fell on a school night, so it was tricky for them to travel down.)

I'm so glad we got this picture with Great Aunt Fern in it!  She passed away a little over a month later. :(

Firefighter Elsa

One of Tate's gifts was a guitar from Memaw and Papa.  He sang his favorite song right away: "Ho Hey" :)