3 Birthday Weekend

This weekend we celebrated my mom's, my sisters, and Lincoln's birthdays.   We had some brats and hot dogs and a pretty glorious fruit salad, if I say so myself.  My mom baked a three tiered cake that was yummy and my sister brought the macaroni salad... that had bacon bits in it.  Every thing is better with bacon.  For real.

Birthday Boy!  Lincoln turns 8 on October 5th, but we don't have the kids that weekend so we celebrated early.  (Joey, my sister's son, is photo bombing!)

Lincoln got a really soft blanket, Infinity Two Point Oh (2.0) from Ryan and I, including Captain America! My mom and dad got him a couple more characters for the 2.0 including Spider Man.  He was in X Box heaven.  

Kara spent a lot of time with her friend this weekend and I really missed her.   Ryan did get to paint Kara's and friends toe nails.  What a good dada.

Oh!  We went to play laser tag and Lincoln and I got creamed!!  It was Andrea and Friend against Lincoln and I.   But seriously, I was wearing a dress and flip flops.  AND my laser wasn't working.  I am not kidding!  We were at a total disadvantage.  We did start out pretty strong, but failed to nail down a strategy like the girls did and we left our base wide open for attack!! It was a great 15 minutes.  The kiddos also beat me at Pac Man.  There's no excuse there, I suck.

The fall weather brings cooler nights and it was nice to have a fire downstairs on Friday.  Ryan and I went a couple of weeks ago to get firewood at my aunts house (who lives in a great house on the mountain side).  It was hard work chopping wood, even with the equipment, but totally worth it.  I love that we have a wood burning stove in our basement.  We did s'mores the last time the kids were here!

More cute pics:

Could this guy get any cuter?!  I don't think so!

The fam watching Lincoln open presents

My mom and dad, cousins Matt and Joe and my sister

USSIE!! (like a selfie with us) 

Totes McGoats (Is that right Andrea?)

One of the missionaries looks like a king!

The kids trying to make the other missionary king-like too! 

Naomi is such a cute lil peanut with her Styrofoam hat!

A couple of other happenings this weekend included Maddie falling asleep on my lap.  I told my friends that I look like mother of the year right now, but this NEVER happens anymore.  But last night I got over an hour of cuddle time with my sweet girl.  The night before, I had been up with her almost every half hour to hour.  And Ryan was up with her a time or two as well.  She kept having bad dreams and didn't get good sleep at all, so it's no surprise that she was so tired.

This is a good one:  We came home from church and the kids had color pages.  I (being the mom of the year) usually throw them away!  I mean, they generally don't color them and I have a hard time with the clutter.  So Mickie goes to the trash can to throw something away and sees the discarded color page.  She says, "mom, why did you throw this away?"  I said, "No one wanted it; nobody claimed it."  She takes it out of the trash and gives me the most hurt look you've ever seen.  I am talking very disappointed.  She walks to her room with her color page and as she passes me, going down the hall, she solemnly says, "Mom, this is from God."   I turned to Ryan and couldn't contain my laughter.  My sweet, sweet girl couldn't believe that mommy would throw away God's coloring page.  Talk about cute.