More Birthday Fun!

It's time to celebrate another birthday in our household! This past Monday, my used-to-be-only-5-lb peanut turned NINE! Where does the time go?? As I told you earlier, we do parties every other year for our guys. So Gavin's birthday was a pretty low key day at home. But he did get to have a couple of friends stay the night, and he had a blast! (And I am thankful that the house is still standing! lol)

Gavin's Lego Harry Potter cake.  Took me two hours to make the perfect Harry layer by layer & I managed to screw up the wand.  Don't make fun of me! ;)

Blowing out candles, laughing at Natalie's rendition of "Happy Birthday to You, you smell like a zoo..."

Having cake with Carter & Gabe

What sleepover could be complete without glow-in-the-dark grillz?? lol

Of course I have a story for every event in our family. Thankfully I have a kid who goes with the flow.
So we ordered Gavin a Kindle Fire for his birthday from Staples. They were out of stock in the store, but offered to ship one to our house free of charge. Awesome. Done. It came in two days & I thought we were golden, but of course not! The box looked like it had been drop kicked and had clearly been opened and poorly re-taped. The Kindle inside had a dent in one side and was half opened with a box cutter or something on the other side. Uncool! Especially since we didn't pay the $50 for an extended warranty, we didn't want to keep it knowing it was more than likely damaged.
SO... We returned the damaged Kindle. But! In that few days' time, they released the shiny *new* kindle! After some discussion, we decided to order Gavin the newer one (straight from Amazon. No more of this silly Staples business). Unfortunately that meant he needs to wait. Bummer. But my kid is excited anyway and happy we decided what we did. He'll get to have birthday all over again when the mail comes on the 22nd! :)

Present time!

Doubled over "I can't breathe" kind of laughter from his brother's card.  It had some kind of hotdog/weiner reference.  Oh boys! lol

Opening the mock Kindle Fire.  I wrapped one of his books & taped a picture of the kindle fire to the front.  He was excited, then quickly confused.  I'm a mean mom. ;) lol

Part Two: Natalie Cuteness
Okay, so I have no segue from birthday to housework, so I'll just make this part two because its so darn cute & totally blog-worthy.
Miss Natalie helps her daddy at the house on the days that I work. This day he gave her a project: hammering her name with nails.

So proud! :)

She did such a good job and was so proud of herself that he had to use the board she used on the house.

The wall of the back room, Natalie's board

Now Natalie will be forever a part of this house. Even if it's inside the walls and we're the only ones who know. ;)