Birthdays!

We celebrated the kids' birthdays on August 9. We had a wonderful party, that was actually 3 parties in one! Hannah hosted a Spa Party for all of our little girlfriends. Her invitation looked like this:


The little ladies were invited to the "Rosebud Spa" and their invitation was to confirm their reservation for the "Hannah Treatment".

Across the room, our rowdier two were hosting a LEGO party. Their invitation:

We had the party at the community center, which is the same place we had the boys' party last year. It is just TOO hot to do anything outdoors, and with a house full of family guests, I don't want to have 20-30 kids at the house...so it is much easier to rent out the community center. The kids made a grand entrance. After almost everyone had arrived, I announced Samuel and Jacob Irving....who danced their way into the party to "We Will Rock You"

After her brothers made their debut, we switched the music to "Life is a Highway" and our little princess was driven into the party in her remote control red sports car.

It was so cute to see her little car come through, as Auntie Liz opened the doors and revealed Hannah in her sunglasses. Kevin had a great time driving her around the room so that all of the guests could greet her! We then broke up into the two different parties. I posted enough pictures, so I didn't add these - but we had the room broken up into two areas - The Rosebud Spa, and Legoland. The Spa was all pink and white, and the tables had tiaras, feather boas, nail polish and make-up for the girls. They also had an area for making bracelets. The boys area was all primary colors, balloons, and of course, Legos.

Hannah started her party by getting her very own pink tiara.

Grammy and Traci helped her try on her boa...she wasn't really sure what to think of the boa!

The boys got started with their own party! We had several contests for them. They broke into Team Samuel and Team Jacob. Team Jacob one the contest to see who could build the tallest tower that didn't fall down...although both towers fell down multiple times!

Team Samuel won the relay race! They had to hold a Lego on a spoon and run across the room to the bucket on the other side, and dump the Lego into the bucket. (I think Jacob cheated a little!)

Then each boy was given a slip of paper with something on it to build, and they were given about 5 minutes to come up with their creation. Then we viewed each boy's creation and awarded him for his creativity. The winners of each activity received medals.

Samuel's team is here diligently building their tower! I was actually glad it fell down, since they had already won the relay! I had to do some fast "counting" to make sure that Jacob's team went home with some medals!

Over at the spa, the girls were busy getting manicures, pedicures, makeup, body glitter and fancied up in the tiaras and boas. Thanks to the WONDERFUL staff at the Rosebud Spa; Grammy, Traci, Jill and Aunt Liz. Hannah is getting her toe nails painted for the very first time by Traci. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it and kept trying to see over her high chair to determine what in the world was going on down there!

Overall, she was pleased with the handiwork of the lovely Miss Traci!

Once the boys' Lego contests were over, and we were sure that all of the girls had worked their way through the Rosebud Spa, we headed outside for the pinata! Aunt Liz, with the assistance of Emma and Jack (only a little bit of help from Jack, Emma wanted us to know) made this awesome pinata, that looked like 3 Legos stacked together.

Once we let all of the little kids have wacks at it, we started with the big kids. The boy after Samuel broke it open, and one more swing took it down! Poor Emma didn't even get to take a swing at her awesome creation! SORRY EMMA!

We headed back inside for cake! The Lego cake was awesome! It looked like Legos all stacked up. Samuel and Jacob each had their own "Lego" with their names on it, and plenty of room for just the right number of candles.

Our little Rosebud had her own little cake, complete with a rose-adorned #1. Her party guests dined on cake balls of various flavors, also topped off with sweet pink rosebuds.

The boys did a great job of blowing out their candles.

And Samuel was apparently pleased as he broke into some fancy air guitar dance, that only he could do!
The guests of the Rosebud Spa were a little more civilized, as they dined on their cake balls and drank their sparkling pink lemonade.

Well, maybe they weren't ALL more civilized... Jacob was very happy with his birthday cake!Of course, Hannah had to be topped off with a fabulous party hat, to demonstrate that she is THE birthday girl...in case anyone didn't know already!
Samuel enjoyed all of his friends, and stopped the fun to pose for a picture with his dear friend, Riliegh.Riliegh's dad brought over their horse, Spirit, and our little cowboy got to take his first ride on a BIG horse! Jacob loved it! Samuel, Jack, Emma and some of our other party guests went for rides as well.



We did our annual cousin picture...one of these days, we'll get Jacob to get in the annual birthday picture as well!


All of the Lovely Ladies of the Rosebud Spa took a picture showing their lovely made-up selves!


And all of the party guests joined in for one big picture...what a great group of friends we have!



The girls departed with little tote bags that included a nail file, nail polish, lip gloss, a jewelry box to hold the bracelet they made and a CD of the Irving Birthday Party Mix. They also kept their tiaras and boas. The boys each got a Lego set, some Lego gummies and the party mix CD.

It really was a fun day! We had a lot of fun seeing our friends, and were so thankful for those that were able to share in Samuel, Jacob and Hannah's birthdays. They are so special to us, and it is so nice to see that they are so loved by others as well! And now, we just have to figure out what in the world we are going to do next year!