Miles Turns 7

Miles celebrated his 7th birthday on Thursday.  There's nothing more exciting at his age than a birthday.  He counted down the days and would tell me (even while we were at Disney) exactly how many days until his birthday.  I think he needs an advent calendar of his own for the month of October. He was smiling ear to ear when he woke up that morning.  We immediately got dressed and ready.  **Sidenote:  Thursday was a whirlwind.  Plano had selected that day for parent/teacher conferences so I had to find a way to schedule three separate conferences AND host a birthday party that afternoon. This would be easy to do if Matt hadn't started bowling this month, and the team practices land on Monday and Thursday each week. Did our  mention my lives are crazy, busy this month???**  We actually had to be at school at 7:45 because I had a conference with Isaac's teacher.  We up bright and early and got to give Miles his birthday gift.  I think he and Isaac managed to get each and every package opened and played with before we left. 

Can he get any cuter!?!?  Ms. Ferry was putting on his birthday hat when I got to her classroom that morning.  I wanted to let her know that I would be bringing donuts to the class that afternoon.  But first, I had another teacher conference to attend with Karson's teacher at 9:15.  I managed to get all three of my conferences in that day somehow.  

We are fortunate to live close to Chaney's Dairy Barn, and I thought it would be the perfect place for a party this year. I asked Miles what kind of cake he'd like and his answer was like music to my ears, a chocolate cake.  Woo hoo.  I love a good chocolate cake.  However, I didn't really have a party "theme" so I did my best to try and figure out what color scheme and idea would go well with Chaney's.  I went with a cow patterned theme.   Since our local Wal-Mart bakery is under renovation, I didn't want to take a chance on ordering my cake there.  I chose Kroger.  What an excellent choice it was, and I will probably go there in the future.  The bakery people are super helpful and attentive.  The cake was also delicious and as affordable as Wal-Mart.  I think the cow cake turned out adorable.  I was also able to find some brown and white table cloths and paper plates at Mighty Dollar.  We got complimentary balloons with the rental space. Brown, white and red were in abundance along with bandanna patterned napkins.  It was the perfect place for a fall party.

Little did I know that the weather was going to actually turn cooler this week--why, hello fall.  The day started out real rocky.  The skies were gray and overcast and a light drizzle was falling.  I was keeping my fingers crossed it would clear up (it had rained the ENTIRE day before).  The forecast said it was supposed to clear, but it certainly didn't look that way.  Fortunately, around lunchtime, the sun started shining, and all the clouds started to roll out.  Whew.  Chaney's is designed for outdoor play--there is not much to do inside the dairy barn itself.

The kids had a blast playing at Chaney's.  I think they were all just excited it wasn't raining. They were running all over the place.  Once all the kids arrived, we got to go on a hayride.

We even got to see and pet a baby calf.

Our wild crew!

My life!

Happy birthday to you Miles! 

Miles must have set a record of some sort for opening up presents faster than anyone.  He couldn't wait to open those presents, and I held him off for much of the night because I knew it would be fast and furious (and it was).  We are so fortunate to have such loving and generous family and friends.  Birthdays are a wonderful reminder of how lucky we are and how good we have it! 

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We spent this afternoon working on carving our Halloween pumpkin.  It's right around the corner, ya know!  Everyone in the family had a job.  Miles and I worked on carving the top and getting all the insides scooped out.

Isaac, the artist in the family, drew the face for our Jack O'Lantern.  He did a couple of sample drawings on notebook paper and let us pick which one we liked the best.

Working at hard at drawing the perfect face.

Karson and Matt did the carving of the face.

SPOOOOOOKY!