If You Give Some Boys a Party

Happy 10th Birthday, Lawton Man! Today. We hope you had a fun time celebrating with your friends. We enjoyed celebrating with you last night.



If you give some boys a party, they're going to want their picture taken together. Especially when it involves sharing the celebration of your birthday with a very cool cousin who is turning 10. We will look adoringly at our Lightning McQueen cake while everyone else gets ready to eat. And later, we will antagonize our Grandpa who is brave enough to share a table with five little boys.

If everyone eats, then surely it will be time to open presents. After a little wrestling, the birthday boys will sit down with their arms around each other in front of their gifts with high hopes that this will speed up the process of getting to the important task of gift opening. While they wait, Kekoa will make sure to look up and ask Lawton, "Are you still sick?" (He'd been sick a few weeks back with a very sore throat and swollen tonsils to the point of having trouble swallowing or breathing.) And following that up with a very concerned, "Are you feeling better?" It's a good time to get caught up on all important personal news.

If the boys are sitting down in front of their presents, it's also a good time to get pictures with your cousins. As mentioned before, anything to aid in getting to the gift opening.

If the cousins are all sitting down, it's definitely time to open presents. We will literally shake with excitement as we frantically open one gift after another. The most prized gifts will be the big ones... a Lightning McQueen chair for Kekoa and LEGO sets for Lawton!

That is... until Grandma M. takes the cake with her gift. Kekoa's very own bike called "My First Schwinn". And of course it's good to have daddies to help open the present, uncles to help ride it, and grandpas to supervise. Every once in awhile, you will have to stop and take a break from this hard work of bike riding to practice taking a drink out of the water bottle on the front.

If the presents are all opened, then for sure it's time to have a waterfight with the water guns Aunt Terrie brought. It's best if squirting a very patient and longsuffering Cousin Jordan. Cousin Jordan will attempt to coax her Uncle Craig out the door with the distressful cry, "Your son is in danger!" Her thinly veiled intent being to ambush him with the squirt gun hidden behind her back.

Or maybe time to start putting together the LEGO sets?

If everyone's worked up an appetite from LEGO building and water gun fights, birthday cake will be the next step. Uncle Randy will help find the lighter (Right, Aunt Michele?) and light the candles. As you can clearly see, these boys have no problem with being sung "Happy Birthday". Must come from observing parents who struggle over who gets to be center of attention.

If you're waiting for your cake and ice cream, there's no better way to pass the time then donning party hats and putting the blowouts to good use. You can even sword fight with them.

If the food has been eaten, presents opened, and cake and ice cream served and eaten, you will likely find the gracious hosts, Uncle Randy and Aunt Michele, crashed on the couch.



If the gracious hosts are crashed on the couch, then that is a good sign it's time to head for home.

And that's a wrap, folks. Until next year's party.



The only "catch" with Christmases and birthday parties (for the parents, anyway) is that little boys with new presents to play with have a hard time sleeping and get up quite early the next morning. Which also means everyone is in for a "grumpy" day. Fingers crossed that tomorrow is better.