dannell and b.g. have a birthday

Dannell's birthday was yesterday. The party was today.

This picture of t.c. cracks me up. See his missing tooth? And his uncle harassing him?

This was a very hyper crowd, giddy laughing, running around like crazy.


Luckily nobody tripped in the dirt or was slammed in the door. No injuries to report.That's my sweetie, l.c., funny as ever.

This girl had to leave before cake to go play volleyball. She's going to a Lady GaGa party tomorrow and was working on her costume. Dang, now that's a Friday night for you.


These guys are tired after a long week, hiking around that high school. James likes it, but says it's very loud there, all day long.


Okay, here's b.g. and Dannell opening gifts.



And these two ladies:



And this little peanut in a tutu.


There we go, two candles for our guy! Kari picked out those toys to decorate the cake and yes, she washed and dried them before she put them on there. It was pretty festive, not gonna lie.

b.g. looked at the sea of us all singing to him, and the look on his face was a combination of surprised and pleased, and a little bit of awe. Then he blew out those candles and we all cheered.

(His big party is on Saturday. Dan calls it the Hanukkah of birthdays, every day, for eight days it has continued. It's all good though, nothing wrong with that.)

Dannell's cake? Definitely the harder job on candle blowing.




But with assistance, it was easily accomplished.

Oh, and gawd, they were all eager-beaver again to scoop ice cream. Small children are not designed for the scooping of ice cream, but we let them. John helped.




Okay, and Dan's shirt? He bit a Lindors truffle in half and it was full of some kind of sweet syrup which flew down his shirt. He thought he was biting into a solid chocolate, but no.

Everyone who encountered him said, "Dan! What happened to your shirt?" until he had told the story about half a dozen times. He said he thought maybe he should do like a megaphone and make a family announcement about it. Will it wash out? We hope so.

Oh, the end of the night--this is shortly before John was leaving with a kid in each arm, and tripped over a carseat sitting in the entryway, and l.c. got a bumped head in the deal. Oh, yeah.

And this sweet picture of Dannell watching the kids makes me smile.

Dannell.

We have loved you since you were a girl, and are glad you stuck around and became one of us.

This family is nothing but lucky you're here. Happy Birthday, Honey.

We all love you so, Val and Jay and all the kids.