CrazyBusy - Gabe's 7th (Cowboy) Birthday Party

CrazyBusy

May. 3, 2008

Gabe's 7th (Cowboy) Birthday Party

Posted in A Day in the Life (of our homeschool)

Gabe's not quite 7 yet (not till the 15th) but due to time constraints mostly, we celebrated his birthday yesterday.

We usually just have birthdays at our house but we did things a bit differently yesterday. The children had co-op in the town next door and this is also where all of the grandparents live. So my mother-in-law offered to have the lunch/BBQ part of the party at her house immediately following co-op. It was SO nice not having to scramble to get everything done the day before, including my house!

It did take a lot of planning though. I brought almost all of the food, down to the burger toppings and condiments. We had a western theme going on. I brought a huge duffle bag with all of the children's changes of clothes (they do PE at co-op- cowboy boots just don't cut it for PE), hair things, etc. I asked the grandpas if they could dress up as cowboyish as they could and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the grandmas dressed up a bit too! I got hammered a bit for being the only one NOT dressed up in Western attire, but I'm sorry, I don't have any western tops to begin with, let alone MATERNITY western tops! I had jeans on? Doesn't that count?

Anyway, there was another reason we wanted to stay in *that* town for the party. We had some tricks up our sleeves. You'll have to read all the way through this long post to find out what that was. I dropped Kenton & the children off at co-op (except Josiah), and headed over to Costco to pick up drinks, buns, chips and some other things. Then I stopped by my in-laws house & unpacked all of our stuff, including Gabe's presents. I had time to saute some mushrooms and brown up some onions for the burgers and then had to go pick everyone up. My mother-in-law finished the rest of the food prep and my father-in-law grilled burgers and hot dogs while I was gone! I was so thankful! Oh, and my mom had some baked beans already made from her recent company, so she just brought those! I tell ya, I got off easy yesterday!

After I got the rest of my family there, I had them change and re-did the girls' hair. I got a group shot of everyone (but me) before we ate. I should just warn you now, I had a little fun processing these pictures, so some may look a little weird to you. I took WAY too many and didn't get any I was impressed with but here's a snapshot of our day.

Doesn't everyone look cute all dressed up? I wish I'd had a better spot to take this- the background is way too busy, but it was raining at the time (don't get me started on that). See the drops by Gabe's feet?

And then I attempted a group shot with just my children. I didn't get one good one. Here's one where everyone looks good but Josiah:

And then Josiah finally cooperates and no one else (except Gracie) does:

Birthday cowboy:

Believe me, the burgers WERE as good as they looked! Thanks Dad!

Mmmmmm......

My MIL had the table set so cute! She found some of Kenton's old plastic cowboys and set those at the top of Gabe's plate.

So lunch was wonderful. We had BBQ'ed hot dogs and hamburgers with LOTS of fixings for the burgers. We had chips, potato salad and baked beans too. And then it was time to open presents. Here's Gabe waiting patiently for everyone to gather around. Papa was cleaning his glasses for him.

The girls close by for moral support (actually, Gabe's reading the card they gave him). My children declared yesterday that they love giving gifts better than getting. Even after just asking Kenton & I what we liked best when we were children, and we gave them our selfish, honest answer that when we were little, we liked GETTING. Doh.

I love this one of Gracie.

My moms do NOT like me taking their pictures. At least my mother-in-law just gives in and smiles.

This is the only picture (out of 5 or 6) I got of my mom where she's SMILING instead of SCOWLING. The stinker. My parents.

So Gabe got some really cool gifts from his siblings. He got a tiger Webkinz from Gracie (a first for us), a fun Rubik's Cube game from Emilia, a toy shotgun from Alek, and some sidewalk chalk and Hot Wheels cars from Josiah. And then we rolled out our gift to him. We had all of the children (except Gabe) sit with their backs turned to Kenton with their eyes closed so that nobody would blurt it out before Gabe got to see it first. Gabe got a new bike & helmet! He was SO excited!

So after Gabe got to go outside and try out his new bike for a while, we brought them all back in and told him he had one more gift from us. He didn't look too impressed when I handed him a stick horse I'd picked up at the dollar store, but didn't say much. I told him that cowboys had to have a horse to ride, right? "Yeah." You don't want to ride this one? "It's not real." Oh. Would you rather ride a real horse? "Yeah." Okay, let's go! At this point the children all began squealing. Really? Really, mom? Yes, really! Let's go!

So on to the second half of the birthday party, to a young homeschooled teenager's house who does birthday parties and gives horseback riding lessons for some income. She had a little room all decorated in the barn with tables and chairs, paper plates, party streamers and balloons all ready for us. Her horse, Casper the Friendly White Horse, had been groomed and even had glitter in his mane. This was a hit, I tell ya, and the other children are already asking if we can do that for THEIR birthdays!

Gabe got to walk the horse from the barn to the arena.

Of course Gabe was the first to get to ride.

Clint Eastwood. I mean, my father-in-law.

I don't even know what to say about this little ham.

Hunky Hubby.

Alek's turn on the horse. He got to ride without being led.

I don't know where he gets his silliness.

Josiah even got a couple of turns to ride. He was not a BIT afraid. He smiled almost the whole time.

Gaber.

Wearing the double crown of Egypt. An easy way to hold someone's hat for them.

Even Papa got to ride! Which do you like better?

I think my dad was SO excited that a) he didn't eat it while trying to mount the horse, b) he didn't fall off while riding and c) he didn't eat it while dismounting, especially since he knew I was right there to joyfully capture the moment if it'd happened, that he did this when he was safely back on the ground. And in case you're wondering why this is such a feat for him, watch the video in THIS POST:

So tough.

So a little over an hour later, after all of the children had 2 or 3 turns each (and Papa got his turn), we went back to the barn where we had our cake... and ice cream. It was an ice cream cake. Gabe wanted a cowboy cake and since we don't have a REAL bakery around here where we can do special orders and our 2 grocery stores are limited to making only what you see in the books AND they BOTH said their photo cake machine was down (which makes me wonder if they share it), Gracie gave us the idea to get the cake at Baskin Robbins. THEIR machine was NOT down and the lady didn't show me any pre-made cowboy cake pictures, she just asked me what I wanted it to look like. I was SO impressed with her work! Gabe's cake turned out SO cute! Just look:

Those specks on the edible photo part are frost. It was really yummy!

And then the grandparents gave Gabe their present from them- 4 horseback riding lessons from the same girl who did the party! He is very excited about that. We had a great day yesterday.

From there, we went back to the in-laws, packed up our stuff and followed the parents to a duplex they're thinking about buying. It would be so cool if they did! They're going back to look at it again today. It's only 20 minutes from our house (as compared to 45 minutes), it's in OUR town, it's SUPER SUPER close to our church, we could visit them all at once, it's at the end of the road.... I hope they get it. :)

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Comments

May. 3, 2008 - Fun!

Posted by Anonymous

Looks like a great time was had by all. Love the photos. What textures did you use? -- Pam