TN trip #4: Celebrating birthdays!!

On Sunday, after Nathan returned safely from Indianapolis, we got ready to celebrate two special boys' birthdays. Elijah turned 1 at the end of May and Amos' 3rd birthday was coming, later in the month.

Bethany and Abby made us dinner that night--Beth made manicotti lasagna and Abby made pizza. It was such a great dinner!

The boys got birthday balloons and after dinner, they were spoiled with piles of presents!! They got so many good things and had fun ripping apart the paper!

Amos got lots of fun things--a harmonica and a guitar from Beth and Dan from Malawi (so cool!); a new giant truck and small bulldozer from Great Grandma Sheehan. It was like Amos had a toy overload--he would want to spend time playing with each thing, but we had to keep it moving since it was getting close to bedtime!

Since my parents sent me a picture message on my phone of a mini drumset (and Amos saw it), he's been waiting to have his birthday so he could receive the drumset...we kept telling him, "maybe for your birthday...!" It was the highlight of the night for him, although, the mini "electric" guitar from GrrMe, Aunt Christen and Uncle Aaron was a huge hit with the young and old alike. Amos would play the guitar then hand it to an uncle/dad/GrrDada to play it with him while he banged on the drums. (And even to this day, he loves playing them both, running around the house making noise! Nothing like multiple loud instruments for a three year old to play!!)

It was loud and it was fun.

Then it was time for cake--Aunt Bethany made carrot cake from scratch with cream cheese icing. She was sooo excited to have real cream cheese. We all loved it too--Elijah ate all of his cake, (as usual!) and Amos ate two bites of his, since he was excited to play his drums again.

After cake, we danced! The Birthday Song was as loud and fun as ever. Elijah went to bed, still barely awake and the jam sessions continued! It was a great night, all together.

After cake, there were fireworks in the front pasture. But Amos was so freaked out by them that the only place he would watch from was our bedroom dormer upstairs. So we got ready for bed and watched fireworks. It was a great night!