Party Hardy

We got home from California 6 days before Nathan's birthday BUT Ken had to leave 36 hours after we got home to go on a business trip to Italy. Sooooo we quickly unpacked and threw a party for Nathan the day after we got home from our month long trip.

Thankfully, Nathan slept in quite a bit so we were able to quickly get some grocery shopping done and buy Nathan presents. We have a tradition in our house for parties. Ken takes the day off from work and we spend the day partying as a family with whoever's special day it is, doing whatever they like to do.

Nathan's favorite breakfast: Biscuits and Gravy

I think he only took two bites before Darin couldn't wait for his brother to open his present from him.

The boys like to play tricks on each other with their wrapping.

And he finally ot to the last wrapping!

Of course he couldn't just stop at one present:-) His breakfast was cold before he ever got around to eating it.

Darin wasn't at all interested in Nathan's presents, can't you tell???

Nathan's idea of a great day is playing with his brother, playing on his DS, and playing games with Mom and Dad. It was pretty easy to deliver!

For dinner we had Nathan's favorite: Chicken Wings, Watermelon, and French Bread.

Rose LOVED helping decorate Nathan's cake. Pretty simple, he requested white cake with blue frosting.




Nathan totally won our game of Settler's of Catan Cities and Knights.

We LOVE this Birthday Boy! Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of Ken at this party, but honest he was there at the early celebration.

So for Nathan's actual birthday we (minus Ken since he was in Rome) went to my sister's house. It was a good distraction for Nathan. He loves his cousins Abby, Cassidy, and the newest one Baby Ella!


Lola and Nathan. Lola made Nathan some of his favorites food, Won Ton Soup and Steak. It was YUMMY!

Papa and Nathan. Papa took care of all the little details like picking up the cake and helped Lola in the kitchen.

Rose loves Nathan so much! They have a very special bond.

Ginger and Darin

Nathan and Cassidy

Me and my Cuddly Baby! He always has been my snuggler and I make him promise to stay that way at least once a week.

Nathan is such a sweet boy and really brings our family closer together. He nurtures relationships and is a ton of fun to be around. His humor is really starting to come out too.

And here he is blowing out his second birthday cake. Ken was pretty miserable on his trip. It was very hard for him to be away from one of our children on their birthday. Especially because Nathan is very close to his Dad. Ken called him like 12 times during the day, it didn't dawn on him until the 6th time or so that his Dad was calling him more then normal. Nathan took Ken's absence pretty well and was only a little sad.

I think that staying in the hotel helped. We swam and had a slumber party with his cousins the first night. The second night we went swimming again and stayed up late playing. I think it hit me much harder not having Ken around (and feeling very far away) on our baby's birthday. I missed not having him to see the special moments, and I especially missed our talks at night after one of our children's birthday as we reminisce over their special moments, talk about how proud we are of them, and dream about what their future will be like. We did it over the phone for a few hours but it just wasn't the same.

And for the 3rd Party. His Party with his friends. It's always so hard to do summer birthday parties. Especially when it is at the end of summer and it's kind of weird to invite school friends he hasn't seen for 2 months. Thankfully he has quite a few church friends. We had a swim party at our neighborhood pool. It was lot of fun! The boys swam and ate, and played water games in the pool. Thankfully Ken was home for this party. Although by this point we were even more terrible at taking pictures and this is all I have.


Happy Birthday Son! We love you SO Much!!!