Eight is GREAT!!

Stacey III is 8 - yowza!!! 

                                            

His birthday fell on a Sat., this year so we enjoyed a leisurely morning with all the usual b-day flare. 

 After Wyatt's birthday he of course requested a balloon avalanche of his own. :)

 Breakfast Popsicles! Juice and gummy vitamins. I mean who doesn't enjoy starting the day with a Popsicle?

 After a nutritious breakfast :) we opened a few presents.

#8 shirt

Tummy Stuffer, oh the power of advertising. But he does LOVE this thing.

New backpack and water gun from the aunts.

Wyatt wearing his tiny build-a-bear house shoes.

After all the gifts had been opened the boys rocked out for a bit.

Band of Brothers

Then Honey and GP stopped by with...a BIG GREEN MACHINE!!

They also whisked away our tiny minions, Coyt and Crew, for the day because it was about to be Party Time!

We opted for a unconventional kind of party this year. Summer birthdays a tough because everyone tends to be traveling and we have done just about every kind of water party under the sun so this year Stacey invited just three friends and our plan was to spend the day hitting up some of his favorite places around town.

Despicable Me 2 had just come out so the movie was at the top of the list.

The bigs and I made these crazy purple minion Gatorade's the day before. I mean I can plan an unconventional party but I had to add just a tiny bit of traditional party decor. :)

Minion decorating kit.

Perfect - HA!

Our guest of honor!! Sadly Ryan was sick and his other buddy's travel plans changed last minute so it was just Hudson, Stacey and Wyatt, but honestly they were SO easy and had a ball!

The Birthday Bus was ready to ROLL!!

If you look closely you can see the eight year old on board.

Can you feel the excitement!

First stop, Pizza at Double Dave's.

Next up Dollar Tree. Each of the boys had five dollars to spend and were pretty hilarious contemplating which five things they would pick.

They ended up with tattoos, giant spiders, sticky lizards, water guns, glow sticks and one of my personal favorites big money glasses!

Then it was time for the main event, Despicable Me 2.

we LOVED IT!!

A few birthday calls for Mr. Big Stuff.

7-11 for Slurpees!

And finally the pool. The water guns were put to good use, but the $1 value proved short lived, go figure.

We had such a fun day with our Alpha and according to him it was the "best birthday ever"!! High praise from III!!

Celebration of Aunt Margaret

After our long weekend at the Lake we headed to Kerville to meet up with some extended family for a memorial honoring Aunt Margaret. Aunt Margaret is Grandma E's (Stacey's grandmother - his Dad's Mom) sister. They were two peas in a pod and after Grandma E passed away our time with Aunt Margaret was even more precious. She was a second grandmother for sure and followed this blog keeping up with us and keeping us in the loop regarding her family.

She passed away about a year ago and her two sons coordinated a memorial and reunion of sorts. They did a great job and we really enjoyed meeting Aunt Margaret's grand kids - who I have heard about for years but never met!!

On our way we stopped by the Alamo Springs Cafe for lunch. This spot is in the middle of nowhere but was DELISH!!

After everyone shared some sweet words about Aunt Margaret (I am just assuming they were sweet because I was trying to keep these two monkeys quiet, an exercise in insanity, while sweating to what I really thought might be my death) we headed up to a the house for swimming and dinner.

This was a home that Aunt Margaret actually lived in many years ago on a BEAUTIFUL piece for property and the current owners graciously let us gather there for the evening.

 The whole gang. I just kept thinking how much Aunt Margaret would have LOVED to have been there with everyone.

 Little bits running free.

We stayed in a hotel that night and Nannie insisted that we stay in their room and they would stay with the kids in ours.  I tried to refuse but my hubs wisely agreed to their generous offer and apparently we missed out on a rough night with this stinker as he refused to sleep. You'd never know it seeing him innocently enjoy his breakfast in bed.