We finally did it!

After 3 months of denial (denial was on MY part) we finally had Benjamin's first birthday party! It was a small party, just family and a couple friends, but it was very nice. I decided this was going to be the party where I impress everyone with my awesome cake baking skills. I designed the cake I wanted to make, wrote down ingredients, weng shopping, baked the cakes, all I had to do was decorate! Then, FLOP! I will spare you all of the heart wrenching details as to why my cake FLOPPED, just know that it did...and I'm still a little upset about it! LOL! Instead, I decorated chocolate cupcakes with a white frosting I used food coloring to change blue (to match the theme of his party) and then formed the cupcakes into the shape of a 1. Woo hoo! NOT what I wanted, but it worked. So, we had cupcakes and ice cream, he opened all of his presents (he got lots of fun new toys!!) and then we said goodbye to everyone, INCLUDING his 4 big brothers who went to grandma's house for the night! Benjamin closed out his party with a nice 1 hour nap. :)

Thank you everyone for making our last little baby's FIRST birthday party such a success!!!

Our 4th of July weekend...

Last weekend Dan took the 4 oldest boys camping overnight. I stayed home with the baby. If you remember from my first entry I am not an outdoors person, therefore, I do not camp. :) Now, I'm not saying I never will, but for now there is always a reason why I "can't". This time, I have a baby. (yes, I know a baby can camp too but shhhh!)So we spent a few hours getting everything together they would need, I was counting down the minutes until peace and quiet! (they were just joining my mom and step dad for the night and my mom already had meals ready so all they really needed was clothes) Finally the time came. They were all so excited to be going camping with daddy. I waved goodbye until I couldn't see them anymore and then.......FREEDOM! Now, don't get me wrong, I love my family, but have you ever had 5 kids/boys? They kind of wear you out! The baby had just gone down for a nap so it was just me, and me, oh, and ME!

After their departure I had options on how to spend my time. Now, I could sit, relax and do nothing or I could finally clean house without a bunch of boys bothering me. As obvious as this sounds it was actually a very difficult choice. I made the smart decision and opted to clean house. I managed to get the entire upstairs clean (downstairs required another weekend) it was so nice having a clean house for 24 hours!!! On the 4th of July at 12:02 pm, my freedom ended as my family came home. As weird as it sounds I really did miss them. It was nice and quiet, but it was almost too quiet. I actually found myself thinking about them the whole time. I found myself feeling sorry for those of you who only have 1 or 2 kids, it was kind of boring! What? How weird is that? The boys came home smelly and hungry, so they all got showers and then lunch.

Would you believe that in about 2 hours the house was back to looking lived in? How does that happen?? Oh well. I had nothing to show for my weekend! haha! After everyone rested from their busy weekend we went to the 4th parade (and got lots of candy), came home for a cookout and then went and saw fireworks.