October

It's a special month in our family. Probably half of my mom's side of the family has their birthday this month. Instead of throwing six different parties we all get together and celebrate one day during the month. This year the party was at our house and we also had Jason's actual birthday party on the same day. To make this year's party more entertaining we rented a bouncy inflatable castle.

Best decision we ever made.


Bright and early at nine in the morning they came to set up our vinyl behemoth. There were six sets of eyes glued to the back door. All of them excited for the inflating to begin, and the set up crew to be gone.


Once it was set up, the castle took up about two thirds of our teeny tiny yard. The kids heard the delivery truck leave and they practically teleported themselves into the bouncy house.


And that is where they stayed for the next six hours.


Angel's hair was super cool.


Birthday boy was stealing people's jumps.


Even James liked to be in it. He was bounced all over the place and just laughed it off. Definitely a boy.

I jumped for about 7.5 minutes and barely had enough leg strength left to get myself out. How do kids have the energy???


While the kids were outside, all the adults were cozying up around the tv to watch Sunday morning football.


Interesting fact: My mom met her husband, Stan, while working at Office Depot. Same way I met Mike. Apparently Office Depot is a great place to meet future husbands.


Eventually they did come in to open presents. In the picture is Noah (the boys' new bff), Ryan, Jason, Marcus, and Amanda. She is a serial texter.


Amanda who is texting some more, and Brianna.


After presents we were childless again so we played some poker. I did sucky and was the second one out, good thing Mike had my back.


Sharon took us all down in the end.


More bouncing.


Cake and ice cream time! They are all sweaty, guess where they just were. Our happy birthday singing was pretty pathetic. Next time we will have to figure out an order to say all the names.


When you tell Marcus to smile, this is what you get.


The legs of steel clan. And some baby belly.


Marcus is already requesting a bounce house for his birthday. There were actually some tears shed when they came to take it down. It was a great time!

My baby will be twelve years old tomorrow. Makes me both happy and sad, he is turning into a young man right before my eyes, but I still remember my first precious little boy. The boy that showed me what it is to be a mom.

Life is sweet.