Birthday Festivities

If you have been following along for years (and lets face it, since my blog followers include my friends and mom--Hi Mom! and sister--Hi Tiffany! and aunt--Hi Aunt Betty!) you probably have been.  You may know that I enjoy a good race (here, here and here) at Southside Speedway.  Well for my 32 (wait! how did that happen?!?!) birthday, there happened to be a race at our favorite short track in VA!  So I decided instead of a fancy dinner to celebrate (ahem--last year we did Buffalo Wild Wings), I wanted to go to the track with as many friends as I could muster!  Well my friends came through and we had a fantastic time!

Kathryn, Sara, Jeff, and CJ

BEAUTIFUL night for racing!

me and Anna (she even provided the camo hats)

Even Gary Bear made it!

My cousin Matt made an appearance too!

Kevin, Emily, me, Courtney and Scott

Most of the gang--wait there is someone else in there--LILA!

It happened to be meet and greet, Gary and I got our picture with one of the female drivers:

How adorable are these cute little cars?  Even 9 year olds can race them...

Saturday after the race, I took Gary and Sara around Richmond.  Gary had driven through but never really seen the city, so we went to a few hot spots, here we are at Hollywood Cemetery, overlooking the James River:

Sara points out Elizabeth Monroe's (Jame's Monroe's wife) measly grave site, right next to....

James Monroe's grave and "birdcage"

Sara and me:

Unfortunately Sara and Gary had to head out of town early Saturday afternoon, but fortunately for me, the parties did not stop there!  Emily and Kevin's little one turned ONE on the 20th, so they celebrated with food, family and friends!

Three generations:

Birthday Cake (which he obviously loved):

CJ and Caleb:

All in all, it was a great way to spend a birthday!  Surrounded by people that I love!  Thanks to everyone that helped make my birthday special!

August happenings

It is absolutely crazy how quickly this summer has flown by!  I find it hard to believe we are a mere 4 days away from September!  WHAT IS HAPPENING!?!?!?

Anyway, before August gets away from us, let me update you on a few of the smaller August happenings....

THE WATERMELON FESTIVAL: 

A Richmond staple and not to be complete without a picture of beautiful, juicy watermelon!  YUM!

LL BEAN is coming to Richmond, so the bootmobile was there giving out coupons and allowing for pictures with it!

FLYING SQUIRRELS:
Before the season was over with, I felt it had to be done!  We picked the best game ever--Tie-dyed t-shirt night for the Grateful Dead.  So we arrived at 5:40 (gates opened at 5:30) and guess what?  ALL THE SHIRTS WERE GONE!  So sad, but we did get this epic Nutsy picture, where he is attempting to eat me sunglasses??!?!?

BREW-B-Q FESTIVAL:
Not to be out-done by the bacon festival, BBQ must have its own and the BREW-B-Q was perfect!  Yummy new offering from Bold Rock (a cider IPA--delicious!)

EMILY'S BIRTHDAY: 

The wolfpack got together for a night to celebrate Ms. Emily's birthday at none other than P.F. Chang's!  Always a grand time with these 3 ladies!  

Emily blowing out her candle!

FRANKIE VALLI:
Waaaaaaaaaaay back in May, I gave Bons tickets to see Frankie Valli at the Altria Theater, knowing full well the show was not until August.  So after a long wait we finally got to go and he did NOT disappoint!  His voice is still as wonderful as ever and nothing brings the house down like a bunch of baby boomers singing and dancing!

BIRTHDAY FUN:
Maybe one of the reasons I am always so sad to see August ends is because my birthday is done and over, but not without a few celebrations!  On Wednesday of last week, I met Kristi and Bethany for lunch

Then that evening, my bible study fixed dinner and cookie cake for my birthday!   My favorite!

On Thursday, I celebrated with Andy and Mom at Bellytimber with some good food, good drinks and good family!

Stay tuned for a post about how I really went crazy for my birthday and did it up right at Southside Speedway!  What all did you do in August?  Are you sad to see summer end too?

Happy 2nd Birthday Holden & Garrett!

I just posted about how Tiffany and the boys came to Richmond, well the day after they left, Bons and I got in the car to return the favor and grace Norfolk with our presence!  The plan was for us to go down there Friday night, help with a yard sale on Saturday morning, then have the party on Sunday.  Well, the weather decided not to cooperate for a yard sale, so we dragged everything outside and then 5 minutes later the rain started.  So Tiffany and I ended up dragging everything back inside!  

But the weather cleared up Saturday afternoon, so we got to spend a little time outside at the park, while Mom and Dad went on a lunch date!

Waiting patiently for Mom and Dad to get home from a date!

 Saturday evening, while trying to save Garrett from the A/C unit, Gaga took a nasty spill and cut her lip, a trip to Patient First at 10pm and two stitches later, we returned with a fat lip.  Corbin wanted to try to imitate her for a picture:

Then Sunday, was party day!  My sister has learned over the years to just leave it to me.  So her and Josh packed up the kiddos to go to the park for a birthday fun time.  While leaving me at home to get to work on the "E-I-E-I-O" party theme (aka Old MacDonald--but the boys cant say that yet).

I found these cute animal poofs on pinterest and could not resist making them for the party:

Lamb

Horse

Pig

Roaster

I also made a farm house cake complete with animal cupcakes!  This was nice cause each boy got to pick the animal they wanted... Garrett, of course, chose the Cow and Holden picked the pig, and Corbin got the lamb that he wanted!  A win for everyone!

 A birthday is not complete without presents...

The James got the boys matching fishing sets and they LOVED them!

Then it was time for singing and cake...

Holden figured out the blowing out the candle thing right away!

This next picture cracks me up, cause little Corbin is off to the side looking so sad that it isn't his birthday celebration (just wait little one, you only got about a month now).

Family Photo!

As it turns out, none of them really love the cake aspect, but were totally down with some icing licking...

Big Brother shows how it is done!

 Coordinating with one of my favorite little guys:

Want to create you own Old Macdonald birthday party, Betty Crocker has some great ideas here.  Plus a tutorial on making that cake yourself!