Birthday all week!

What is a birthday without a few parties to remember it by? We started out with our traditional Sunday dinner with family. Tanner chose Chicken Noodle soup, his favorite. It was perfect since the day was very cold and rainy! We ended up having Grandma and Grandpa Clayton and Uncle Troy and his kids to eat with us. The rest of the grandparents couldn't make it. But Tanner's three boy cousins got to come, so that made it fun.

Monday was his actual birthday so mom surprised him by picking him up from school and taking him to eat at an all-you-can eat pizza and salad bar. This too is a tradition I have with my kids. We then went and picked out a treat for him to take back to school to share with his class.

Grandma Pam came from Utah and was here when the kids got home from school. Her tradition is to take the birthday kids out to dinner and shopping. Tanner allowed his parents and baby sister to go to dinner with him and grandma and mom took him to the mall to shop. He got some great deals on the things that he wanted. It was lots of fun.



The sad football cake...

Grandma Clayton just loves her grandkids and treats them so well! Tanner was excited to receive money for shopping!

Reading yet another card...thanks mom and dad...

Friday night brought the friends sleep-over party. Tanner chose four of his school friends to come. Since dad went on an overnight high adventure with his Priest group and took Tucker, it worked out perfectly! Bayli went to stay at a friend's house, so it was the boys with mom and Bridget!We started out making individual pizzas. The boys were told that there would be prizes for the "most unique", "the scariest", "the most edible", "the most original" and "the most animalistic". It was hillarious watching five boys roll out dough and slap sauce, meat and cheese to make something they had to eat! We ended up with the The Menan Buttes, a football helmet, a pig, a meat-lovers with about two pounds of meat, and an "I love Kinzy" (that would be Tanner's). Even Bridget joined in the fun and made herself a "baby pizza".

One thing about boys is you don't have to do too much to keep them entertained. They played night games (thank goodness for the beautiful night), and watched two movies until about midnight!

Getting ready to create... Tristan, Kempton, Tanner, Brandon, and McKray!

Tanner and Brandon dig in to the toppings!

McKray meticulously works on his football helmet!

Looks good enough to eat!

Look mama! I made a baby one!

They turned out pretty good, and of course everything tastes better when you douse it with some ranch!
The pizza dough was a bit much and the pizzas ended up really big, but they did their best to eat them until they were sick! Kempton and Brandon dig in!

Tanner got some really fun presents which made him happy since he "only" got money from his parents and grandparents this year to shop with! Did I mention how hard it is to shop for 10-year old boys?

He is so excited about this Denver Broncos water cylinder...thanks Brandon!

This mom has officially decided that next year there will not be any sleep-overs. They can come and hang out late, but then, good-night boys in your own beds! They were too much for me to handle (not to mention poor Bridget)!