Braedyn's 4th Birthday

So my baby boy is a big kid now, which is still a little tough to cope with! We celebrated Braedyn's 4th Birthday this past weekend. We decided to get a bounce house this year, which prompted Ben's bright idea of inviting Braedyn's classmates. You know, so we could "get our $100 worth out of the bounce house rental". I reluctantly agreed as more kids equals more stress for the hosts. And when I say "HOSTS", I really mean just me. However, Ben did reassure me that "only 1 or 2 kids max (out of 11) will show up".

Seven RSVP's later, plus siblings, plus parents, plus any neighborhood kids that got picked up along the way, plus our normal guests, resulted in a total of 43 people. As opposed to our normal group of 15. So just to recap... in an effort to get our $100 worth from the bounce house, we tripled our guests, and doubled the cost of the cake, food, drinks, gift bags, wine needed for the aftermath, etc. Did I also mention that both Ben and I are CPA's? Yeah, umm, you probably shouldn't seek our advice for financial planning. Just saying...

But in all seriousness, everything turned out great, and Braedyn LOVED seeing all of his friends at his party. I think it made him feel really special. And as I found out, the best way to entertain a bunch of little kids is with a bounce house.

Luckily, we escaped the party with no broken bones or lawsuits (that we know of yet). After a ton of bouncing, the kids took a swing at the monkey pinata. And would you look at that... our "For Sale" sign finally came in handy for something. It's about time we got some use out of that thing!

Braedyn recently discovered Madagascar, which fits right in with his love of animals. So that was the theme for his party. As always, Publix produced a fabulous Madagascar/animal-themed cake.

And after 4 long months of Braedyn asking for his birthday so that he could get birthday presents (I have no idea where he learns this stuff from), the moment finally came for him to rip into his stack of gifts. He oohed and ahhed over Every. Single. Gift.

(I bet you've never seen three people this interested in a plastic pig spaceship before!)

A cute picture of Braedyn and Daddy checking out his new farm animal figurines in the gift box.

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The best part of the entire party was not the bounce house, or the pinata, or the gifts, but rather the moment that Chase was caught on camera sneaking candy out of someone else's pinata candy bag.

And here is Chase thoroughly enjoying the stolen loot.

Every time I happened to look at Chase, he was putting another piece of candy in his mouth. I wasn't quite sure how he was able to open each piece so quickly. But things started to make more sense after I came across this picture on my camera...

And I can only assume that this next picture is Chase and Grammy scrolling through her pictures, trying to get rid of any potentially incriminating photos. (Take note of the candy in Grammy's hand, which was most likely in Chase's mouth 15 seconds later. Just saying...)

So a big ole' THANK YOU to Joy, for being my party photographer, and for catching all these incriminating photos!! And of course, thanks to everyone who came over to celebrate Braedyn's 4th Birthday!

The bag Chase was sneaking candy out of belonged to our friends' daughter, Mackenna. I later found her bag still here after all the guests left. I would like to believe that Mackenna and Mommy accidentally left it behind, but let's be real here, we all know Chase had something to do with her bag getting misplaced. But don't worry, Chase was kind enough to eat all the starburst for Mackenna. And the smarties. And all but two lollipops. He's such a helpful child, isn't he?