September 10th, 2011

When Julie was pregnant with her son, Bryan, she asked me hypothetically if there were any dates that I didn’t want her to give birth.  I told her September 10th, since it was our other nephew’s birthday.  Well like any decent sister she went and did just that.  We have 2 nephews and both of their birthdays fall on the same day.  Bryan is turning 5 and Caleb is turning 7.  Julie and Michelle are very kind each year to schedule the parties on different days so we don’t have to play Sophie’s choice with the birthday parties.  This year Bryan’s party was at a playground/pavilion on Friday night in Clayton and Caleb’s birthday party was Saturday night at a playground/pavilion in North Kansas City.  We officially have themes for the weekend:  nephews, birthdays, family, playgrounds, pavilion dining, cake, and candles.  The other theme was nothing but thunderstorms and rain predicted all day on Friday and Saturday (Sunday, of course, was predicted to be beautiful and sunny).  The rain stopped about 5 minutes before Bryan’s party and about 5 minutes before Caleb’s party and never deterred our plans (but did cause a little stress for Julie and Michelle, and much looking out the window checking the status of rain and cloud patterns). 

Friday night I asked Trent to take pictures of Bryan’s party so I could mingle, hang out with my family, kid watch, help out, etc.  This is the one and only picture he got of the birthday boy:

In Trent’s defense, he did take a couple other pictures.

And there you have it, Bryan’s birthday perfectly captured.  Thankfully I know Ben was out and about taking many pictures, so when Bryan is showing his son what he did on his 5th birthday there will be evidence of a celebration with more than me, Sydney, and Lauren.

Saturday night I took over camera duty for Caleb’s 7th birthday.  No real reason why, just did. ;)

Birthday boy enjoying some swing action.

Sydney decided to make a little pretend money and opened up a food truck.  She quickly had 2 hungry customers eager to purchase pretend food and had tons of pretend money to boot.

Apparently Sydney is quite the comedian in her pretend food truck.  She’s vamping the crowds while preparing her delicious pretend dishes.  You really get your pretend money’s worth here.

Michelle made all kinds of delicious dishes and brought them to the park ready to eat.  The flies were out in masses attacking the food, so we had to keep everything covered.  It must be this time of year because I remember the flies being out of control at Bryan’s birthday last year and we had to put towels over stuff if no one was serving themselves.

Green bean casserole, a Bond family favorite.

Corn soufflé.

Baked beans.

 

Michelle made pulled brisket for sandwiches.  She had a crock pot of pulled brisket that looks like your normal bulled brisket fare.  Then she had a second crock pot and the brisket didn’t shred, so she served it in strips.  It was amazing!  I actually liked this version better because it was like little steaks with a delicious sauce, really tender and tasty. 

Hot dog option for the kids and the young at heart.

Hope all Caleb’s birthday wishes come true!

When we got back from the party, we gave the kids a much needed bath (muddy playground and all), and put them to bed.  Trent and I then hung out with Kirk and Sally for a little bit and decided to watch a movie we brought from Netflix.  While we were watching the movie, we noticed we had a friend free loading on our movie action on the window.

I had no idea frogs had a thing for the Twilight series, she must have a mad crush on Robert Patterson or something.