Happy Hurricane...er..."Birthday Party."

 Welp.

Without fail, every single birthday of my big boys' life - save maybe one or two - we have had not just rain, but torrential rain for their celebration.  And every year, we have just decided to roll with it, adopting our family motto of:  "It is what it is."

There's something about Memorial Day Weekend that brings the water.
I guess it's better than bringing the blackflies....
Now, there's the optimism we're looking for!

However.

This year, with a two week old baby, I just didn't have it in me to do the whole travel to a State Park and tent in the rain for three days.  So, instead, we brought the party to our backyard for the day...

Above:  A visual of what it did all day...
Below:  With gale force winds added in for extra funsies...

Thar she blows!!!

And so, we started the celebrating with all of the boys tenting out in the backyard overnight - amidst the rain and the tarp flap flapping against the sides of their tent because of the crazy winds.  Apparently, the Littles woke up around 4:00a.m., went out and set their squirrel traps at 5:30, and bombed inside by 6:00.

Mom, London, and I "camped" inside for the night...and were ready with a big breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and eggs for when the Hoolies bombed in first thing the next morning.

Mmmm.  Dee-lish.

A meal that takes 2.5 seconds to inhale by the men in my house...
We were going to eat breakfast outside, as well -- but I decided that for at least one meal, I wanted to be dry.  And warm.  And cozy.  And dry...

And so - breakfast was inhaled.  Inside.
And then, gifts from us and the grandparents were opened.  Inside.

And then...
The tarp setting up party of glorious fun and amazing awesomeness began in earnest.  Outside.
For like hours.
On end.

Because things kept blowing away......
And landing way up in the trees...

I must say - everyone had pretty good spirits about the whole thing.
Especially me.  Because I was still inside.  And dry.  And cozy. And dry.
So, I found things to be hilarious.

And this picture?  I love.

This image - minus the drill and poncho - is the image that I grew up seeing in my kitchen back home just about every day of life.  And this image is the one that I want my four Littles to grow up seeing and saying:  "Grooooossss!" to but with the biggest smiles ever and twinkles in their eyes....because you know they secretly love seeing it, and you know it makes them feel safe and secure knowing that you two love each other so much.....and you know this because you did the same exact thing when you saw your parents kissing -- but you secretly loved it, too.

Anyway....back to the birthday of Redneck Gloriousness...

And so --
After hours of tarp setting up...what we ended up with was a tarp over the porch, so that I could at least lay out all of the foodies, and a tarp to the left of the garage with a wee little fire pit made so that the kids could at least roast their hotdogs...amidst the growing pond of water that also kept accumulating over there...

And then, we spent the rest of our day in the garage.
That's right.
Because who doesn't want to celebrate their birthdays in the abyss of a trashed garage?
That's what I thought.
Man - those kids were lucky, weren't they?

And we spent our time eating...visiting...and playing crazy Minute to Win It games.
Girls against boys, of course.
And the boys kind of took it away....

Behold, I give you the "Tissue Pull."
The girls took this one.

We played until London woke up and needed to be fed, and then when I went inside Kev and Dad took over the festivities.  Kev set off a whack of fire crackers, the boys went and trashed the already soaking wet tent, and the girls helped Dad make some campfire fudge.

Ooooooh, Heaven in a pan, Baby.
This is the only thing in the world that I am addicted to.
I do believe I partook of about 10 pieces yesterday.
And I wonder why the scales haven't moved one ounce since my Mama has been here...

And so, we rounded off the day with cupcakes and ice cream cake....with cowboy coffee and fudge...with candy and junk galore.  The kids went home soggy and wet - but they were troopers and fantastic sports about the whole "adventure."  And my boys crashed for the night around 6:00 p.m.  They were gone...

And London?
Well, her day pretty much consisted of this.
She had it rough.

And I went to sleep with visions of little girl tea parties swirling in my head for when London is old enough for birthday parties of her own.  Inside birthday parties.  That are dry.  And cozy.  And warm.

And dry.