Happy (Surprise) Birthday Lance!!

We pulled it off! On Friday, August 21st my friend Courtney and I had a surprise birthday party for Lance! We had been planning for over a month and there were so many times I almost spoiled it. What a huge relief to have it all over. We had such a great time though. The party turned out wonderful (thanks to Courtney and some friends who made it all possible) and Lance was completely surprised! He later told me it was the best birthday party he's ever had! What a sweetie.

Let me give you the play by play for how we pulled it off...the party started at 6:45 on Friday night. Lance had baseball practice that night but Mac helped me out by calling an early practice. Earlier in the week he told Lance and Chris (the other baseball coach) that he wanted to take them out to dinner for all of their help. I had already told Lance that I had plans with the girls that night because Kimberly was in town. So Mac picked Lance up and then brought him to Courtney's house at 7:45. Lance had never been to Courtney's house before so Mac pulled it off by saying they were stopping by a buddy's house for a beer. Mac sent me a text when they were about two minutes away and at that point I had everyone come into the kitchen. Mac rang the doorbell and someone answered and Mac came in first, followed by Chris and then last but not least, Lance. When he rounded the corner he saw Holden and I first and we all shouted "Happy Birthday Lance"!!! He was totally shocked. Right before we shouted, Holden was playing with something on the wall and knocked it off and it made a very loud crash and then we all yelled, so he got very scared and started crying. Took quite awhile to calm him down, poor thing.

It was a great party and we had so much fun! Happy Birthday sweetie! We love you!

Here's Emerson at the beginning of the party climbing in the coffee table!

Satia, Holden and Auntie Megan.
Holden was super tired and not a happy boy that night.


Joe and Reece

HJ and Mommy shortly before Lance arrived. See those things on the wall? That's what Holden knocked off right as Lance was walking in the door!

Lance walking in, right before seeing us in the kitchen...

He sees me and Holden and we are yelling "Happy Birthday"!

A big hug from Courtney. Notice Holden crying and reaching for mommy.

Satia and Courtney preparing to serve the homemade ice cream cake - yummy!

HJ sleeping on Auntie Megan. He slept on her for almost 2 hours!!

Standing Up

Holden just wants to stand and stand and stand! He could care less about crawling and doesn't seem too interested in walking either. But he sure loves to try to pull himself up to stand. The other evening I plopped him in his crib to play with his Rainforest crib toy while I cleaned up the bathroom (that's a whole other story...a poopy one, too) and when I looked in the room to check on him, this is what I found.....He pulled himself up and was standing in his crib and he was so happy about it!

Earlier that same day I caught him pulling himself up at the couch. The little turkey is so determined to do this and so I have to keep my eye on him at all times. He has already bonked his poor head on the table and his crib a few times.

'Look at me mommy!!!'

Fun With Cousins

School starts this Wednesday for Adi so I wanted to take her on one last little trip. Last Tuesday, August 4th, we went to Roseville for the night. Late Tuesday afternoon, Meg and I piled the kids in the strollers and with cocktails in hand we walked to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. Erich and Meg are re-landscaping their backyard and they had a pile of sand on the driveway and the kids had a ball playing in it while dinner cooked. Needless to say the kids were a very sandy mess as well as the house! The next day Meg worked in the backyard and I busted out the face paints and painted the kids. Well, actually Adi only wanted her hand painted, but Evan wanted a cool tiger face. Holden woke up in the middle of it so I was holding him while painting. It was too hard to hold him and paint Gracie's face, so Adi took over! Adi and Evan had a few fights, including one right before we left but as we were pulling away they were both yelling "love you" to each other. We had a lot of fun!!

The Sand Pile

She's such a crack up!!


HJ loved cousin Gracie's princess car!

AARRRGGGHHHH!!

Adi painting a rainbow on Gracie's cheek.

She ended up painting both cheeks and her arms!

Tags

So....Holden loves tags! He loves to study them and pull on them and even shove them in his mouth. If he's playing in a toy such as his exersaucer and all of a sudden it gets really quiet, I'll look over and sure enough he's checking out a tag. Funny thing is that someone invented the Taggies toys for this exact reason. These are little toys and books that have tags all over them. Well, Holden doesn't want much to do with these toys at all. He much prefers the real thing. Silly boy!