Birthday Parties!

I am finally going to play catch up and post some pictures from our birthday parties this year for memories sake. Here it is November and snow flurries are falling, but I am starting my catch up back in August....oh well. But I want to have it recorded, so better late than never! :)

This year I turned the big 30! It was a bit surreal for me. This was a big birthday for me because I remember thinking 30 was sooo old. And here I was. About to turn 30. I really am ok with it, even excited about it. But its so weird to me because I remember those days of "30 being so old and so far away" like it was yesterday. When I think of myself I just seem to think of me as 'just out of school' even though I have been married for 9 years with 3 kids! Talk about a skewd sense of reality. hahaha. Anyway, all that being said, this year was a great birthday for me. My sweet sisters planned a big surprise party for me with family and friends. My mom made a big Italian meal (it was delish!), my dad and brothers decorated, and my sister's organized everything. Talk about making a girl feel special and loved! So here are some pics from the party....





Hmmmm...these are the only pics I can find. I will try and find the rest and post them later. So here I am 2 months into my 30's and feeling more grown up than ever. :)hahah. My 20's were great, but I am expecting my 30's to be even better. What will the next 10 years hold? Who knows, but I am ready to live it to the fullest and enjoy every minute.

Now on to Maddie's birthday party. This year we had a princess party. My sister Sheri planned and organized the whole thing. She did such a great job! I could have never made it as girly and princess-ish as she did. She was in all her glory! We had some of her school friends and neighborhood girls over. They all came dressed up in their princess dresses. They were all so cute! And even I got in on the action dressed as Snow White...now that is love, I tell ya!

We had a nail station, hair station and make-up station, some princess games, some princess stories read to the little princess by the queen herself....Mimi! My sis had decorated the back of each of their chairs with some big fu-fu tool (i am sure that is not the way that word is supposed to be spelled...hmmm) material and made each girl their very own fairy wand and got each girl their own tiarra. Is she a cool aunt or what?! It was fun, it was loud, it was a bit chaotic, but Maddie sure did have a good time! Here are some pics.....












What a day! My sweet birthday girl had a great time and rang in her 6th birthday in style! :)

And then, 4 days later we celebrated Kobe's 8th birthday. And to that I just want to say...I CANNOT believe my tiny baby boy is 8 yrs old. Thinking about that is enough to bring this mama to tears. He is such a sweet boy with a big heart. He is a fantastic big brother and I couldn't dream up a more perfect little guy for us. There are so many things I just love about him. He is very adventurous and wants to try any and everything, he truely has such a tender heart and is very thoughtful, he is very artistic....I love looking at all his drawings.....I could go on and on, but i will just say he is such a cool person and I am so blessed and a better person to have known him.

Anyway, back to his bday party. He had over his school buddies. We had his favorite dinner...Fettucini Alfredo. He loved it, although we came to find out this must not be a favorite among all little boys because the others were not big fans. :) Then Aaron and all the boys went to a big field and played capture the flag nerf-gun style! Oh yeah, good times! After that we had some cake and icecream and had a good time watching them all take a turn at the pinata and then stuffing their bags full of candy. ( I even broke down and bought the really good candy filler bag (snickers, M&M bags, etc)instead of the regular filler bags....thats right, we spare nothing when it comes to our little man. haha :) ). Then it was back upstairs to open some presents. He was in little boy heaven with lots of Nerf guns and he even got a Crossbow Nerf thingy (and let me know he is now ready to go hunting with our friend Chris. Nice. haha.), board games and laser tag! Lots to keep him busy with thru the winter while we spend many days inside. And after presents it was back downstairs to the family room where they had some intense matches on the Wii!

Oh, one other cute thing, was watching all of these little boys do The Cha-Cha. What a riot! My sister brought this cd with all these fun songs on it. And The Cha-Cha is one they all do in gym class and they were a total hoot watching them. I wish i would have videoed it. What a memory. :)

It really was a fun night, a very loud night, but fun all the same! Here are some pics from his big day...












He had such a great time and on top of it all, his best buddy, Nick, spent the night with him and stayed up most of the night watching movies and playing games. I tell ya, its great to be eight! :)

So we are partied out for the year! It was a fun time for all of us, but Aaron and I made the executive decision that next year we are gonna have a nice, quiet family party. :)