Family Birthday

It was that time again! Time for our family birthday party. Normally our family has this party in July. This allows us to celebrate the 4th of July (covertly) and Patty's birthday all at the same time. One might ask why we have a family birthday??? The answer to that is simple. Our daughters birthdays and my birth fall very close to a beloved holiday that falls in late December. Our families tries very hard to call and write during these times, but it seemed that with living so far away it was to much to ask for people to buy, mail, and remember to ship very early for all these different birthday around Christmas. So our family came up with the idea of a family birthday. Since we never felt very free to celebrate America's independents day, and since Patty has the lone birthday in the summer, why not celebrate it all together! Thus, the family birthday was created. Just one big envelop for cards, or one big box for gifts! It works great! But, this year it came early. The families, loaded my sister with gifts when she took here trip. (I think that they filled four 50 pounds bags). So after two weeks of waiting, our impatient took control, so we decided to have it early! Here are some photos from our big day.

The girls loved the new bubble wands. Ella was laughing and screaming trying to catch the millions of little bubbles.

Some of our grub! Patty bought me a new charcoal grill for my gift! So we had hamburgers for our dinner!

No I did not forget to turn the picture. This just shows how Carey loves to hang upside down and laugh!

After food we played games. Hop-scotch.

Bean bag toss. This big white-blue thing is the bean bag that Carey throw at me. I was laying down trying to take pictures, and she thought it would be fun to beam daddy! Well she did!

Throwing bean bags

After it got dark it was time to come inside and play our new game, Tumbling Monkeys. Thanks Aunt Lyn, the game is great!

Then another quick time outside in the dark with the new glow bracelets and wands!

Then last, but not least, the CAKE! Our theme this year was the beach and bright colors. So, Patty made a sand castle cake. It was chocolate, with vanilla frosting, with graham cracker sand! YUMM!!!