Parties and attempts at overachievement

...which failed by the way.

We had several parties this past weekend.  Due to several work situations and other things we didn't get around to Jesse's party until Friday.  Then we had a family party for Jesse, Vaughn and Tracen on Saturday so it was a weekend full of partying.

I always tell the boys that they have two options for birthday parties.  They can have a party and invite friends and we'll have cake and ice cream and play some games but they'll have to help me clean and get ready etc etc... or they can take one or two friends and we can go do something like lunch and a movie or bowling.  Ty always picks that one, Jesse always picks the party.  So we had 12 kids at our house Friday (including Tracen) 11 of which were boys.....this is what that looks like...

There were lots of boys in my backyard.

We had planned some games and stuff.  Jesse wanted to play bingo so I made a bingo game.  And about 5 minutes before the party started he said he was so excited to play pin the tail on the donkey.  I thought "oh crap"  So, we got a piece of cardboard and I drew the most amazing (or not) donkey on it which Jesse praised and said it was the best donkey every.  And then I drew the ugliest tails ever, which he loved.  Then all these boys showed up and they played outside and on the hill and down in the wash before we finally had them come up to eat and have cake and ice cream.  We were just getting to the ice cream when mom's started showing up.  So the boys played the games later with each other.  It worked out anyway!

Jesse wanted a cowboy party.  On his cake he wanted a picture of a horse with him on it and a cactus and a few other things.  This is what he ended up with but he loved it anyway...

As a side note I tried to make the icing red.  Heck I used almost an entire container of red wilton icing.  But it was pinkish orange.  He liked it anyway.  I'm glad he's easy to please!

Saturday was the family party.  When planning these parties I got online to find "EASY" cake ideas that I could make.  Well there were lots of dang cute cake ideas out there, and by the way I found out they're not that easy.  We did a farm theme and since Tracen is in love with cows I found some really cute cakes out there I tried to replicate...it didn't really work.  Here is the cake....

So were going with a few things here to make this cake ok.  Our cow is an old girl....she's turning grey.  I couldn't get it black!  And cows are lumpy (just go with it)  the cake started falling apart when I iced it.  And besides the folds in the green, the grass turned out ok.  Tracen got all the farm animals as one of his presents from us.  K cakes aren't as easy as they look, even when you used to decorate cakes....lesson for the day.

We had fun though, we had hamburgers, lots of yummy food and homemade ice cream.  We even coerced Grandpa into helping blow out the candles.  I mean it was his party too.

Happy Birthday to Jesse, Tracen and Vaughn!!