We celebrated Steve's birthday with extended family on Saturday, March 27th. The day before both Jared and Alexa helped make the fruit salad. They pretty much did the entire thing, cutting up the strawberries and melon, and pulling the grapes from the stems.
Steve's sisters, brother-in-law, and parents were there, along with my side of the family, including cousin O. His brother's family came two and a half hours later. I had cooked up two crock-pots full of BBQ beef, so that plus store-bought potato salad, the fruit salad, and rolls, made dinner very easy. After dinner, everyone was so helpful with cleaning up (we met at Steve's parents house since our house is tiny and wouldn't hold everyone), that I didn't even realize everything was cleared until I had finished eating.
Steve's family has a little tradition of carrying the cake out, blowing out the candles, opening up presents, and then eating cake, in that order. So, that's just what we did. Of course, the kids, including the cousins, loved blowing out the candles too and licking them afterwards.
Some people went in together and bought Steve a tiller for the garden (which I selfishly love, too!). He also received a smoker, so that will be fun to do this summer. Steve never will buy whole coffee beans for himself, he thinks it's a luxury not a neccessity, so several people bought him whole beans.
On his real birthday, the 30th, the kids and I spent the whole day getting ready for a little family party when he came home from work. Usually for our birthdays, he takes off work, but with Good Friday at the end of the week, and all the travelling he's been doing lately, he has so much to get caught up on at work.
The kids and I went to the store and bought balloons, birthday cards, small presents (Jared bought Steve a new Sudoku book, Alexa bought him more coffee beans from Starbucks, and I put some money in a card towards clothes), and wrapping paper. We headed home and spent quite a while drawing and coloring a Happy Birthday banner, wrapping presents, and cooking a birthday dinner - shepherd's pie and zucchini. Alexa was very proud to help peel the potatos. Then we played with the balloons a bit before Steve came home.
After dinner we had yet another cake, and then Steve opened his cards and presents. We wrapped up the evening with a game of balloon volleyball. Happy Birthday, Steve!
Jared picked out a Batman card that played the theme song. Definitly more for himself than for Steve!
No comments:
Post a Comment