Bradley's Big Day

Well, the long awaited day arrived! Bradley has been counting down and planning for his birthday ever since Charity's back in March. I'm not even kidding, that is when he decided he wanted to have a dinosaur party, and started making mental notes of how many balloons we would need to buy, what games we would play, and what kind of cake he wanted. It's been in the making for quite some time! It was fun that he was so excited for it though. Made it that much easier to have fun. He woke up to the usual sign and decorations, his choice for breakfast (POPS cereal), then we started on his cake (all of us pitched in :)) Nate did most of it though. It turned out pretty cute.... just a little dinosaur hapbitat thing.... I don't know what to call it. But I thought Nate did awesome!

At 11:30 Grandpa Hatch took Bradley out for lunch to Applebee's. He has been talking about going to Applebee's for a REALLY long time as well- we assume because we took the girls there with coupons they had received from school- but we weren't sure exactly why. Well, turns out it wasn't that spectacular afterall :) He totally thought there was a playground there. He was slightly disappointed, but had a good time with Grandpa regardless, AND they finagled a coupon out of the manager when Grandpa told him that Brad had actually CHOSEN to go there for his birthday lunch :) Kinda funny. He was very thrilled about the coupon though. After that they went to Walmart to pick out a present that Brad was to forget about before that night at his party :).... he did pretty good. Once he got home we were getting things ready to set up the party. We decided after much deliberation to have the party at the park afterall.... the weather was SO PERFECT!! We knew it would get a little colder as the evening went on, but I guess we were willing to risk it. At 4:30 we went to the park and began setting up. Everyone just played on the playground for the first 20 minutes. And who could stop them! They were having so much fun. Things started to get a little heated between a few of the boys so we decided to start the games. Brad's first game was "No Dinosaurs are out tonight" after the game "No BEARS are out to night".... his own idea, I thought it was clever! Thankfully Nate was all over the games. I really wasn't feeling all that up to it, and frankly, he's more fun, so it worked out. They totally wore themselves out with this game and then played a frisbee horshoe game.

After that was "pin the skull on the dinosaur" (Brad had thought of "pin the tail on the T-rex, but we found this other version at the party store and couldn't resist the $4 price tag and the idea of not having to create our own poster and everything) The kids loved it and everyone took a few turns. I love watching the kids play that game, they all cheat :) jk

we really thought Carson was cheating, but when he took off the blindfold and had no idea where his was, we realized he had played fair! cute kid :)

here's Nate spinning Kelly....

Then we did the dinosaur pinata because time was running out.

I'm pretty sure this was Noah's first time doing a pinata (At least on his own)... he loved it ;)

Kelly's killer swing knocked one of the legs off.

And Marcus managed to remove the handle with his swing!

Charity thought for sure she would be the one to break it open after we had rigged it back up there... but no such luck.

half of the candy fell out of the mouth and they all jumped in.... then there was still more swinging.

Sarah so kindly went and picked up the pizzas for us, and we had pizza. Then Brad opened his presents.

I think the fact that the sun was going down and the kids were no longer running around, made it cold. They all started needing jackets, and whining and stuff.... teeth were chattering, so instead of cutting the cake there, we decided to load up and come back home for the cake and ice cream. It was an AWESOME clean up job.... WAY fast because we wanted to hurry, so that was nice, but it was kind of crazy :). But it felt so nice to walk in the warm house.

I just think this picture is funny because you can SEE how loudly Kelly sang Happy Birthday to Brad :) Funny girl.

Brad blew out his candles and everyone had their cake and ice cream. It was such a nice party. I really couldn't have asked for better (other than the weather, but in October? I think I would have to be crazy to ask for better than we got). We were so grateful for everyone that came. Meg you are so awesome for bringing the party. Meg was the carpool for all the cousins that lived far away.... if she hadn't been so willing we may not have had much of a party!! So thank you Meg!! And all the other family that came too!! Means a lot to us. Brad sure had a fun day. He is still reminding me that we didn't do one of his games :(. I feel bad about it, but what can ya do :) He's such a planner.... we'll have to utilize this a little more in the future. He did get the birthday grumps just a little during the games.... wanting to be first and win every game, but that's pretty normal I think. He was so sweet and polite when he was opening his presents though... I appreciate it so much when my kids don't have the greediness intermingled with the presents. He did good. And the cake too- he totally sat there patiently while I dished up EVERYONE else's, and didn't say a word. I had been standing there right next to him the whole time and not noticed that I hadn't given him his!! But he was so patient. I like that about Brad. So anyway. It was a fun day.