We All Survived!

Grant was up at 5:45 this morning because the thoughts of his spend-the-night- birthday party were inhibiting his sleep. His teacher informed me that he was high on excitement the entire day. I only had to hear "are my friends coming yet??" approximately 80 times between the hours of 3 and 5pm.

Lucky for me, 5pm finally rolled around and after a few rings of the doorbell all the party players were present and the fun began! First stop: pizza eating and an impromptu spelling contest. After a brief conversation lull, one bud piped up with "Does everybody know that I can spell railroad?"  That just gave me a giggle....

This is how crazy a 6 year old slumber party can look:
I wrangled the boys for a moment of present opening but couldn't contain them long enough to sing Happy Birthday or even eat cake for that matter. It was fine with me being that they were all ready dosed up on sugar from their Valentine parties at school.
They did settle for a little bit of popcorn and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. After that the real fun began!
How about a little wrestle-mania!! It was at this point in the party that I could really figure out whose idea it was to have 4 boys spend the night- Bobby or Grant? It cracked me up when the boys came upstairs and asked Mr. Bobby to play with them. Can you even see Mr. Bobby in this pic??

This picture makes me smile every time because Grant is totally laughing his head off.

Wrestle Mania will always be one of the boys' favorite memories I'm sure. This buddy's mom said that's all he talked about when he got home and she had no idea what it was!
Here is the last group shot of the night. I wish I would have had a camera to snap a picture of the faces of my three night owls when I entered the room at 1215am with my serious face on and separated the chatty charlies. It would have been priceless memorabilia! 
I know this slumber party created a lot of whiny boys on Saturday but it was good for a thousand laughs and smiles on Friday night! Happy, happy birthday, Grant!!

Six Looks Like This

Grant woke up this morning with one more completed year underneath his belt. I finally wised up and crafted the infamous birthday crown the night before so I wouldn't have to roll out of the bed at first dawn to try to be creative. From this waking moment on, Grant was no longer "Grant" but "Birthday Boy". He tried to get me to start calling him that on Wednesday night but I didn't cave. 

Here is what six looks like right now in the Morgan casa:

Cade broke out of the room with him at 6:30 on the dot. Little Buddy? Nowhere to be found. He slept until 8 which is completely unheard of in these parts.
Birthday dinner was Grant's choice and I had to pull my mom card when he said he wanted to go to Snappy Tomato. Please, no. Much to my happiness he pulled out a second answer and we headed to Logan's. He stuffed his face full of buttery rolls and gave his dad some knucks for having such a great birthday. I was lucky to have my handy, dandy pocket camera to capture the face stuffing.
It was his first time to be on the receiving end of the Logan's Birthday YeeHaww and he loved all 10 seconds of it!
His bros were pumped about his birthday as well.....because generally birthdays mean new toys and new toys are fun for everyone!
We headed back to the house and shared some birthday cupcakes with the grandparents. In keeping with another unintended birthday tradition, I forgot to get real birthday candles and instead had to improvise with a tea light left over from Halloween.  You'd think after, say, the 4th or 5th time that happened I would remember to get some candles. Not so much.
It was a great day for celebrating 6 years with one of my most favorite boys! If I survive my next post will be pics from his second annual spend the night birthday party! Yikes!!

It Fits Just Right!

Well, I finally found something to put in that crazy little cutout that our architect designed in our basement wall. It's taken me over 3 years and nothing seemed just right until now:

You just really never know where you might find this child. And by the way, he's a stuffed "Rhettaboo"...... very similar to the more popularly known "caribou". His own words. Really. You just never know.

Pile O White

Old Man Winter dropped a huge bucketful of the white stuff on our tiny little town. Before the white stuff fell there was sleet and ice making for lots of slick roads and in turn LOTS of days off school. The trees and bushes were covered in ice which always makes for some beautiful scenery!

The boys were so filled with excitement that they could hardly control themselves. We have a great hill in our back yard and it proved itself sled worthy.
It's a bummer when you bite the dust and snow cakes your face though!
Grant was all smiles riding down the hill on his snow disc.
Apparently his head was a snow magnet. Every year I think I should buy the kids some real snow gear but then they just grow and I know it's not going to fit year after year so I don't want to waste the money. Therefore, I dress them in 15 layers in hopes that they don't freeze. I'll buy them snow gear when they're 25 and not growing.....but by that time they better have a job and use their own money.
What's good snow without your friends? We invited our buds over and had a side splitting time! Cade A. was riding the hill after a push from Bobby.
Cavin in on the action:

The Cades gave doubling up a shot.
And Rhett double up with his bud Silas. I'm not sure, but it appears to me that the driver of this sled has zero control!
WOAH!
It's always a fun time to laugh at someone else's misfortune, and Cade A. gave us a lot to laugh about with his face plant.
I love me a good action shot!
This kid didn't seem to mind that his face was imprinted in our snowy back yard.
Bobby headed down the hill with his best gal, Eliza. Now, Eliza loves her some Mr. Bobby but it's apparent in this picture that one of them is having fun and the other is NOT. It's a wonder she ever trusted him again after this zip down the hill.
Callan was ready for some snow time fun!
Snow is not only for kids. Adults like it, too you know. I tried my hand at the disk.
I was flying down that hill and it seemed as though any second I was going to end up in the creek (just like Baylor, who somehow avoided my camera viewfinder the entire day!).
It was time to bail!
A'lyce tried to be all cool and defeat the disk
but she ended up biting it just like the rest of us!
Jason looks all smooth....
but he's not.
Ashley got brave
but the disk defeated her, too.
Brent showed up with his 4-wheeler. I know that the boys were not the only ones jumping up and down when the snowbird called off school. Bobby and Brent were planning out all kinds of craziness right along with them.

Like pulling the sled behind the 4-wheeler in the back field. The boys LOVED this!
There was fun to be had in the front as well. Our street was a solid sheet of ice. It made for some great sledding at top speeds. I really think that Rhett and Bobby both should've had helmets on but thankfully the Lord protected us from head injury.

Brent chauffeured us back to the top of the hill afterwards. That was great.
I decided to give the ice sledding a whirl. It was lots of fun and I figured that puff ball on the top of my hat would protect my head somewhat.
Cade and A'lyce:
Thank goodness we had a toasty warm house to come in to.
Hot chocolate, a warm fire, and chocolate chip cookies put a smile on everyone's face!
Here's to a good snow. Now, go away so all these kids can go back to school. A mom can only take so much!