First Birthday Party

Happy Birthday to Brandon....B, B-Man, Mr. B, and Chunker Monker! It's hard to believe that we added him to our family just over a year ago. Wow, how time flies when you're having fun. We celebrated with two parties - the first in Springfield with the Ritchie Clan - Nana, Ivan, Aunt Leslie, Sarah. Then we celebrated north of 80 with a party at our house. Too bad that Mother Nature didn't cooperate completely. Just about the time the party was supposed to start, the skies opened up and POURED! Fortunately everyone was a good sport and we managed to party-hardy anyway :)

Our theme was cupcakes with ONE candle.

Grandma helped coordinate our theme by making lots of cupcakes! The coca-cola chocolate ones were my personal favorite...tasted like mini TX sheet cakes....yum!

And we had this giant cupcake balloon!

Brandon was on the move and it was hard to keep his interest in opening presents. But he had soo many and received lots of neat things. Lots of the other kids helped open them.

Great! I got this big box...it's perfect for climing on!

And some ribbon?! Perfect for chewing

Somebody knows that we like trains in our house. (Yet to be determined whether Brandon will be Train Geek #2! hehehe)

Yum.....my 2nd taste of CAKE!! The first was last weekend at cousin Brynn's birthday party. Thanks to Brynn for sharing her actual birthday with Brandon!

I'll just put this entire cupcake in my mouth. That'll take of things!

WHAT are ya'll staring at and what's up with the singing?! (Brandon didn't quite know what to think when 35 people sang happy birthday to him. He just looked around with a confused look on his face.)

Jill's girls - Kailey, Ally & Camryn with Ryan & Brandon. The girls LOVE Brandon. They are soo excited these days when he stands up. Will he take some steps soon?? Notice Camryn's snow cone? Ryan got a snow cone machine for his birthday, so I had a fabulous idea to make snow cones for the kids. Went over well, but would have been much better if the rain hadn't made it 65 degrees out (at least that's what it felt like!).

And our other brilliant idea for an activity for the kids was this water slide. Used to be Cousin Alex's, but he outgrew it and got a bigger one, so he passed it along to Grandma & Grandpa. Would have offered hours of entertainment for the kids, but again, was a weeee bit chiiiillllyyy after the storm passed through. But that didn't stop the kids from giving it a whirl.

Here's Matt!

And Abby!! She & Ayden were racing down the slide (there's actually 2 paths next to each other).

And Ayden!

We're so lucky to have such a great circle of family & friends to celebrate with! And now that July is over, what will we do without all the excitement?!