Happy Birthday Boys (lots of pictures if you hate to read)!

Within 5 days I get to celebrate ( run around like a crazy person) Dustin's birthday, Nate's birthday and Halloween. That is why I am now sitting in the middle of a pile of 6 loads of laundry that didn't get done until today.

To kick off birthday week we had a Cake Off on Sunday. Boys vs. Girls. I won't tell you who won, but I'll give you a huge hint -- I mentioned the fact that there were winners and losers. We tried really hard to let the kids do the decorating, so this is how they turned out.
Nate and Dustin made a red velvet and homemade cream cheese haunted house. The girls and I made stacked brownies with store-bought cream cheese frosting in between covered in chocolate sauce. Then we had the Krassow's over for FHE as our guest judges.

We played Dustin's birthday low-key this year. He worked all day and I had extra kids, so I picked us up some lunch and made dinner. For his present we got him Scotland Yard -- an old school game if anyone actually remembers it. Luckily the new version comes with a super cool hat. Dustin may have had Luke on his team, but Sadie, Nate, Ellie and I caught Mr. X. We also woke up to a lovely toilet papered house and oreo-ed car. If only the treats had been edible!!! Next year boys!

I don't like to go over-board on birthday presents. Probably from watching my poor birthday-obsessed sister be disappointed every year. I figure we should start them off with really low expectations and then anything they get from other people will be fantastic.

Now to Nater-taters. Along with it being his birthday week, Nate got to be Star Student at BOTH pre-schools this week so we got Carmel from Miss Becky, plus all the extra stuff -- treats, poster, pictures, favorite books and toys from Miss Lisa and two Halloween parties. PHEWBlack Spiderman for one and Red for the other. I guess it pays to have a reversible costume.

Nate had his birthday party last night and for the first year EVER, I was actually cold by the time it was over. It was Super Hero themed and if you forgot -- my brother-in-law made capes for everyone. PLUS EXTRAS! He is my hero. They came in an AWESOME package this week (that will have to be it's own blog because the packages have been so much fun) and all the boys looked so cute.

Daven, Joe, Nate, Jackson, Dane, Conner and Trevor
Sorry Brady's not in there, Casey, he wasn't up for a picture.
Then I let them turn around and show me their Super Hero poses.

I had them go through a Super Hero training course (including silly string-ing the bad guy, jumping over Sadie's doll house in a single bound, and lots of cheering and High 5-ing), pop balloon bombs and gather their Super Hero rings.
Ellie and a girlfriend played the part of bad guys. They did such a great job I may hire them out for other parties. You know, make a little extra money on the side. . .

All night long I tied and re-tied capes. "I want to be Batman!" "I want to be Superman." Thank you SO SO much Kyle and Kathleen!!! They loved them. I also loved this picture of all the boys hovering around the birthday presents. Little kids are the BEST! Maybe just Nate's friends, but they are all so much fun. I love those guys.

As soon as we got rid of the last kid, we headed home and Dustin (who was at Mutual during the party) went and picked up Luke from Karen's (THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH KAREN) and we ran over to the Poulson's for their annual Pumpkin Carving Party. Ellie came home with a witch, Nate chose Batman and Sadie came home with handfuls of candy corn.


And so that's what we've been doing this week! One last event: HALLOWEEN. . . like we need more sugar.