Life As We Live It.....: Eight Is Great!

Happy Birthday Gavin! Our sweet Gavin turned 8 this year! So hard to believe how fast time does fly! Because his birthday was on Sunday this year, it turned out to be more like a birthday week! Gavin had his friend party on Saturday, his real birthday Sunday, a family fun day celebrating by going to Chuck E. Cheese and the following Saturday…..his baptism!

For the “friend” party we had a hand full of neighborhood kids over to celebrate. What would a Gavin Birthday Party be without water? It wouldn’t be a party! SO, this year we did “night games” and water games. We partied from 7:30 – 9:30…..it was fun! The kids started out with playing baseball, only we modified it! One kid would bat with a soft rubber ball and the rest of the boys would field, holding water guns. The boys could shoot the runner as long as he wasn’t on base and Michael could peg them with the ball and they would be out. The boys slid into home plate too! It looked like they had a fun time. We also made up “Angry Birds Water balloons;” where the kids run on the top tier in our backyard while a couple kids below chuck balloons at them. If you peg someone, you get a treat to put in your party bag. Then we played Duck, Duck, Dunk; where the kids play Duck, Duck, Goose with a water soaked football they ring out over someone’s head and then they run. Last, after all the kids were soaked and freezing cold, we played Capture the Flag. It was a good time! Oh, and did I mention…..I’m really proud of my Lego cake I made him? Other than looking VERY homemade, it turned out pretty cute, if I may say so myself.

On his real birthday, we just hung out at home and opened a couple gifts and had some leftover cake and ice cream. And, finally….on Monday, we finally made good on a promise; we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese. We started trying to read the Book of Mormon as a family last year and when we met our first goal of reading a third of it, we were supposed to take the kids to Chuck E Cheese. Well, distraction after distraction kept coming up and we never did. Gavin said he wanted to do Chuck E Cheese for his birthday, so we figured it would be cheaper to take just the family…..so, we finally did it! I know….rotten parent confession; my 10 year old finally made it to Chuck E. Cheese and yes, he was a bit old. For this, I apologize, but at least we made it! Happy Birthday Gavin!