Birthday Bonanza 2015 – Part 2

In case you ddin’t see that late post yesterday, here’s the link to Part 1 of the Birthday Bonanza post.

We made sure and had an actual birthday party during the birthday weekend…

We found the majority of the fabric for $1/yard and scooped it up immediately!  We just made some simple bunting and table runners and Wrexy sewed the backdrop.  God bless him…

Grandma LOVES her family and LOVES pictures, so I made bingo cards with family faces and we played that during her party.

That project, honestly, was one of the more time consuming.  Each card had to be different and random…glad that one’s over.  🙂

I covered some tin cans with cute paper and scrap fabric,  attached a few horses and filled them with flowers for centerpieces…

Wrex made a barnwood plaque and we shaped an M out of a rope (for Maxine) and hung it on the backdrop…this was probably my favorite part of the whole thing.

My fabulous friend Stephanie (who also made Wryder’s tractor cake) made me some flower cupcakes and they turned out sooooooooo cute!

Since we couldn’t fit 80 candles on a cupcake (or even a larger cake) we made a cake plate full of candles for her to blow out.  Apparently, the fire/smoke detector is INCREDIBLY sensitive at this place and before we even had them lit, the fire alarm went off!  THAT was something we’d never forget!  Thankfully they got it shut off, the building was still standing and she got them blown out in 3 tries!

We ate and drank and played games and then watched the video I talked about yesterday.  I didn’t intend to make everyone cry but there were a few wet faces in the crowd…it’s been a life well-lived for sure…

The other thing Grandma really wanted to do was to have a talent show.  She thinks she has one of the grandest, most impressive families on the planet and she wanted to see us do our thang!

There was ribbon dancing…

Vocal performances…

Skits…

Bedtime stories…

and a lot of smiles and laughter!

We played a little more pitch and then went to bed far too late, yet again.  🙂

We worshiped together on Sunday morning and Clint shared a message with us about family…a good word!  We took communion together and remembered what the Lord has done for us….oh. so. much…

We ate one last meal together, packed up, cleaned up and went our separate ways…  We sent the troops off with some trail mix and a hand stamped keychain.

I found all of these vintage boots and guns on Etsy…

and then we bought some metal blanks and memorialized them.  I LOVED how these turned out!

Our prayer has been for Granny to feel so loved…to honor her…for her ideas and imaginations about her birthday weekend to be met or exceeded…and for this to be a catalyst for future and more frequent get togethers.

We pray we have countless more years together with our sweet Granny but none of us are guaranteed our next breath.  We get ONE family; one crazy, imperfect family that most likely loves the stuffing out of us.  Carve some time out of your schedule for them.  We all make time for what’s important to us – it can’t be disproved – what does your schedule say is important to you?

All-in-all, it was a magnificent weekend!  We had so much fun with the family and we had so much fun working together.  There is no one I’d rather do all these crazy projects with than this handsome man of mine…  There’s been lots of talk of doing this whole reunion thing again and these Phipps are on board!  🙂

Grandma, we love you.  This was just one tiny little way we could bless you back for all of the countless ways you’ve poured out your love for us.  Happiest of birthdays, sweet lady!

Oh!  And one other memorable moment from the weekend (besides the fire alarm scaring the heck out of everyone in a 100 yard radius?!)…Sawyer lost her first tooth!  She was so excited and the tooth fairy found her even though she wasn’t in her normal bed!

Pardon her poor eyes – it was early!  There’s one more that is just hanging on by a thread!  I better get to the ATM….