Sophie's Luau Birthday

We have a lot of June Birthdays in my world.

No. Really. We do.

Mr. Man's is June 10th.

Pops' is June 11th

The Monkey's is June 20th

Aunt Beccah's is on the 25th...

See? I wasn't kidding.

So this past weekend we had a sort of multi-birthday/Fathers Day Extravaganza at El Ranchero. We even themed it. It was a LUAU!

The kids got a kick out of the leis, the grass skirts, the inflatable parrots, the stuffed flamingos, the hula music, the (plastic) coconut cups...

And, believe it or not we ACTUALLY fit five adults and three Munchkins around my teeny tiny little kitchen table. It's miracle geometry, folks. 

I was particularly proud of the double cakes that day.

Mr. Man requested a chocolate  Batman cake (which somehow evolved into a request for a Bakugan cake in the final hours. So much for the $10 is Batman cake decorations I had! ) And The Monkey put her request in for an Elmo cake at the last minute. I...well...frankly I failed miserably at this. I had no red icing. No googly eyes. No artistic ability to transform her cake into an Elmo at the zero hour.  So. She got a rainbow cake. Which is what I planned for originally. Sorry kid! But man-oh-man was it tasty...

I've seen those rainbow cake and cupcake tutorials floating around the internet for a while now...and I've got to tell you it was SO much easier than I anticipated! Truly!  And, after I swapped out the icing for French Vanilla Cool Whip, it wasn't over the top sweet, just enough to still be called a birthday cake.

   

And BOY do we love us some birthday cake at my house...
And barbeque...and homemade mac&cheese...and corn casserole...and watermelon by the slice.

The Monkey was in rare "Eating Machine"  form Sunday.!

 

 

And I can't help but be giddy whenever we're able to pack as much of our family as possible into one single space... I also can't help but be giddy that The Munchkins had two Uncle's who are AWFULLY good sports about becoming human jungle gyms for a few hours... very very tall human jungle gyms!

We were all the best kind of exhausted after everyone finally shuffled out the door and back to their respective homes. We laid on the floor and did puzzles and played checkers...and eventually three little sets of not-so-chubby-baby legs trudged up to bed...of their own accord...without any prompting from their very tired momma.

It's difficult to believe that these three, who once were tiny enough to fit in the palm of my hand, are now so tall that their feet dangle down below my knees when I attempt to scoop them up. When they climb into my lap now I grunt and groan and shift in order to find a more comfortable way to support their not-so-tiny bodies. When the clamber up into my bed on early weekend mornings, like as not, they'll evict me in want of space for squirming.  How did this happen? Did they grow up when I wasn't looking?  Here's to Happy Birthdays and many more random, multi-birthday/holiday gatherings to come...