Party Central

Whew! April and May are always a crazy time of year for our family; when June hits I feel like I can finally take a deep breath, poor myself a big glass of iced tea, lounge with my feet up out on the patio, and enjoy the 80 degree afternoon sunshine.

Buahaahaha!

Get real.

At the present moment I'm trading the patio for the indoors because I have 10 loads of laundry to tackle. When one load is done I hop right up and get the next one going. So if my thoughts appear scattered in this post (squirrel!) its because I was interrupted by the dryer finishing its cycle. I have this silly fantasy that one day I will have ALL of our laundry clean at the same time. Just let a girl have her dreams, okay?

And I'm swapping the 80+ degree sunshine for a spot right next to my A/C vent, a mighty strategic location since I'm drinking my second cup of hot coffee for the day. The kids will be awake and on the move again in one hour so I'll take all the caffeine I can get. Oh sure, I should probably opt for a iced coffee since its such a hot day, but that would require using the blender. Did I mention all three kids are asleep?

And since the gutter guys are here as well, drilling and pounding on the house outside of Kendry's windows, I had better cut to the chase and share what I intend to share today:

BIRTHDAYS!

Several of you have asked about the boys' birthdays. But first, a disclaimer: if you can avoid having three kiddos' birthdays in the span of three days, DO IT!

Okay, moving right along....

On Kendry's birthday we did a mini-celebration with cupcakes and presents.

Since he was having a minion birthday party the following week, I tried to make him a fancy-schmancy minion cupcake. Let me tell you, it was AWE (wait for it) SOME! Alas, the world will never know... because I put it outside in a tupperware the night before, which incidentally turned into a mini-greenhouse in the sunshine the following day when I forgot to bring it back inside.

(no actual minions were harmed in the creation and destruction of this cupcake)

For the twins' birthday two days later we did a similar cupcake celebration. Jack dove right into his, while Cohen repeatedly dipped a single finger and licked - over and over. We finally helped him shove the darn thing into his mouth so he could see that the entire cupcake was indeed edible. You can't blame the kid for being all about the frosting. Aren't they all?

I'm convinced this kiddo will always be a messy eater.

Now we're talking, Cohen!

I still cannot believe our littles are one year old!

Fast forward to the following week when we held Kendry's birthday party at our local gymnastics joint. Their staff did a fabulous job with the kiddos. 

Kendry loves the Despicable Me movies and requested a minion birthday months ago. This theme was actually a fairly easy one. We went with a blue and yellow color scheme and found a minion pinata:

Kendry picked out his minion tee at Walmart and we had a 5 screen-printed on the back. You may recall that he has a number shirt every birthday.

I found the helmet idea on Pinterest. I purchased two dozen yellow construction helmets on Amazon and then printed out several copies of minion eyes I found online. We just cut them out and pasted them on the helmets.

Not to be left out, the littlest members of our family dressed in character.

There are some pretty elaborate minion cupcakes to be made, but I went with an easier option. These are just regular cupcakes frosted yellow, then decorated with white, gray and black frosting. A few have licorice hair on their heads.

A big shout out to my Dad who helped do the yellow frosting (I can't believe I didn't get a picture of him in action), and another shout out to the hubs for making the gray and black frosting.

This birthday boy loved every minute!

The morning following Kendry's party we had a small birthday brunch for Jack and Cohen. We went with a 'little men' theme, making a mustache cake and a tie cake:

The boys also had matching onesies. (Thank you, Auntie Kathy and family!)

After some deliberation we opted not to repeat the cake scene with the twins at their brunch, because a momma should only have to drag the shopvac out once per birthday. 

Rest assured, the twins did get to 'blow out' the candles on their cute cakes - we just didn't feed them any.

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our three precious boys!