we had the big family birthday bash this past saturday (also auburn's real birthday). let's just say, the weather wasn't as bad as it could have been. it didn't rain during the party time. i've determined that i can plan events-but don't ask me to execute them. i'll leave that part up to someone else. =)
anyway-the following picture shows what the kids found when they woke up in the morning (there were more packages added to them once all the relatives arrived). it looked like christmas-without the green and red paper.
auburn had a few more since it was her actual day. she was allowed to open her big box in the morning. she woke up about 30 minutes after landon did-and her sleeping in drove him nuts!! he kept asking if we would get her up/when she was going to get out of bed.
here are the cakes that we had. i made the princess one, and my mom borrowed the r2d2 pan from a friend to make landon's cake.
we had quite the crowd-even my grandparents made it up for the event. i think they loved seeing all the great-grandkids, and we loved seeing them.
in the background on the left side of the previous pic-you can see the middle pole of the canopy that we borrowed. we didn't have all of the right parts to make the center pole useful-so...amanda, mom and i came up with our own method of making it work. we stuffed a stick down in one part and up in another since they wouldn't join, then we surrounded the non-joining parts with more sticks, a tall piece of lumber and packing tape. believe it or not-it held just fine. oh-we also put 2 bags of topsoil around the base to hold it steady. dave started singing "what this world needs is a few more rednecks..." =)
kids received a new swingset for one of their gifts.
they also received a "truckload" of other gifts-to many for me to list. they thoroughly enjoyed the day. thank you family for making it so special for them! =)