Happy Birthday To Andrew And Shane

This morning we woke up and watched cartoons and then the kids discovered the Legos in the backroom and spent a while playing w/ those. Lexie left to go see a friend of hers and I left to go get my nails done and Mom was a sweetheart and watched the kids for us.

I got home at 11:30 and took the kids to the Dollar Store to get some presents for Shane. I got the idea from Kelle Hampton’s blog was all excited to do it the way she did. However, it didn’t go quite as smoothly as hers did. The kids both wanted to get in the cart and then they were pushing each other out of the way to try and sit at the front of the cart, but there wasn’t enough room. I finally ended the argument by taking both of them out and sending them down the toy aisle to pick out two presents for Shane and I let them pick one present for themselves. That part went a little smoother, but I was busy keeping them focused on the task at hand so I wasn’t able to take any pictures like Kelle did. I think she’s amazing.

Anyways, we came home and the kids wanted to go outside and blow their bubbles (which is the $1 present that they both picked for themselves). Autumn got a princess one and Andrew got a Diego one.

They had so much fun blowing bubbles and chasing them around the patio trying to pop them. We only did that for about 15 minutes b/c it was so dang hot outside, even in the shade of the nice patio.

We packed up the car and drove out to Uncle Robert & Aunt Sandy’s for a birthday party for Andrew & Shane. I thought for sure the kids would sleep on the way over b/c it was 1:30 in the afternoon, but they were wired and didn’t want to sleep at all. They were holding on to the little hangers and thought they were so funny.

Lexie had put curlers in Autumn’s hair again so that she would have cute curls b/c they had kind of gotten matted during the day. Autumn wanted us to take them out in the car b/c she couldn’t lean her head back.

We got to Aunt Sandy’s and lunch wasn’t quite ready yet, so we went swimming for a little while. I went in the bathroom to help Autumn put on her swimming suit and I loved how cute she looked standing on the stool to wash her hands. I love the curls in her hair, the pink tutu dress, and her chubby little butt cheeks peeking out from the bottom of her swimming suit. Why is it that that looks cute on a little kid, but is anything but cute on an adult. At what age does all of that change?

I thought this was such a sweet picture of her. I am jealous of Aunt Sandy’s cool old fashioned looking sink faucet.

When Aunt Tafta saw Autumn’s swimsuit, she tried showing Autumn how to stand like a ballerina. She said, “Put your hands in the shape of a ‘C’ and hold them over your head while you twirl around.” It was so cute.

We had a shrimp boil for dinner and it was super good and it was nice that it was inside and air conditioned. Aunt Sandy just put down a $1 plastic table cloth and when we were done we folded it up and threw it away. Some great things about shrimp boils are that they’re so easy to clean up, you can feed a TON of people, and the food is really good.

As we were finishing eating, Andrew kept going around and asking if we were done, b/c he had been told we could have cake when everyone was done. It was really funny. Heather made this incredible giant cookie w/ butter cream frosting for the two birthday boys.

After cookies & ice cream, it was time for presents. Autumn kept thinking it was her birthday too and tried to help Andrew open his presents. When she finally realized it wasn’t her birthday and that none of the presents were for her, she was super sad and came over to sulk by me. Three year olds just don’t grasp the concept that everything isn’t about them.

Shane loved the over sized sunglasses that Autumn picked out for him at the $1 store…too bad they kept breaking.

Andrew got so many toys that he could barely carry them out of the room in two huge sacks. The reason is that Mom found a lot of toys on a big sale and we won’t be there to celebrate his real birthday in a few weeks, so this was it.

Amongst all the fun and excitement of opening presents, I noticed that Autumn wasn’t in the room. I went to find her and she was in the other room playing so happily and contentedly w/ the doll house and dolls.

Here’s the two birthday boys…Shane & Andrew. Shane is going to be 5 and Andrew is going to be 4. We kept saying we’re so glad they both have birthday in July so we can have a reason to get together and celebrate.

I thought it would be nice to get a picture of the three Johnson siblings that were there. Uncle Robert got out some old home movies that supposedly showed me scraping my dinner off of my plate and onto Nick’s plate at a wedding reception when I was about 8. It appears in the video that I did that so I could go get some dessert, but I still don’t believe it…I still claim that I was sharing my dessert w/ Nick, not my dinner. Tee hee hee. Anyways, we saw Grandma Johnson on the home videos and it almost made me cry b/c I miss her. Aunt Tafta is SO MUCH like Grandma Johnson, which is a wonderful thing.

Andrew decided he had had enough and wanted to leave, especially since Jon was waiting for us at Mom & Dad’s house. We got out to the car and Autumn was sad that Andrew was playing w/ his new birthday toys and she had nothing. Well, little did she know that Mimi is AMAZING and came prepared for such a situation. She handed Autumn this new Ariel doll and told Autumn this Ariel was going to stay at Mimi’s house and Autumn’s other Ariel doll can stay and Mama’s house. She gets so upset if she leaves her Ariel at Mom’s house when we get home. But this way she’ll have an Ariel no matter which house she is at. Can you say SPOILED ROTTEN!?!?!

We had bets going on the way home as to how long it would take them to fall asleep. I guessed 20 minutes and Lexie guessed 40. Lexie won, b/c they were still playing w/ their new toys after 20 minutes, but we looked in the back seat after 35 minutes to see this…they were both zonked out. Poor Andrew’s car seat didn’t have side headrests like Autumn’s so his head kept bobbing all over the place and we were laughing so hard b/c it was so funny. He was dead asleep and w/ his head bobbing all over the place he still didn’t wake up.

We got home and Andrew ran to Jon and was so thrilled to see him. Both kids said they were hungry, so Dad fed them some applesauce. They looked like little baby birds waiting around the Mama bird to be fed.

After being alone for the past 2 weeks, Jon wanted some human interaction so we busted out the dominoes. It was a long game and we were all starting to yawn towards the end of it. It was a fun game, and I’m glad Mom came and played w/ us.

Dad got down on the floor w/ the kids and was showing Andrew how to use his new car that he got for his birthday. I love that Andrew is all dressed up in his Buzz Lightyear costume to bed. We said family prayer, and of course both Autumn & Andrew had to say one. We’ve been doing that a lot these past two weeks…having two prayers on the food and two family prayers at night b/c both kids want a turn to say the prayer. We let them both say one, b/c all too soon they will do anything to NOT have to say the prayer. Autumn & I just spent the night at Mom & Dad’s b/c I didn’t want to pack up all my crap and Autumn and drive home.