Grammy Helps with Party Preparation!

We were so blessed to have Grammy come to Texas for Ian's and Ryan's birthday parties! Once we found out that Grammy was able to come, we planned the parties for the weekend she'd be here, one party on Saturday morning and one on Sunday evening!

Grammy arrived late on Wednesday night and stayed through Monday. As you'll see, most of what we did together was party-related. :) Actually, Grammy, Ian, and Ryan had a lot of play time, too, but since Momma was running errands for the party during that play time, there just aren't pictures of those fun moments. :)

We kept telling Grammy that we wouldn't have been able to do it without her help. Not only did Grammy help with child care and the actual party preparations, she also helped think through a lot of the logistics and kept us all calm and organized! We were thankful to have an experienced hostess in the house! :)

One morning, Grammy helped Momma cut out oversized tools from posterboard. Then, Ian and Grammy worked together to paint them.

This reminded Ian of the fun project (another Pinterest gem) that he and Momma had tried a few days before with (old) milk, food coloring, and dish soap. Grammy was as impressed with the results as we were. Momma was surprised that Ian was able to talk Grammy through all of the directions for the project. It's like both of his parents both of his grandmas are teachers or something. Ha ha! :)

Then, Ian and Grammy worked together to fill the favor bags for Ryan's party.

Despite his expression in this pic, Ian was excited to help Momma and Grammy bake his birthday cake.

Grammy and Kim waited until after Ian was in bed to make and decorate the hammer cake. :)

My mom's trick of freezing the cake before cutting and icing it worked like a charm!

It turned out well. Kim was just glad Ian requested something easy. :)

Daddy and Ian worked to clean up a water table Grammy, Ian, Ryan, and Momma found on our walk in someone's garbage. God works in such cool ways ... this worked perfectly for the under-the-sea party.

Ian helped Momma put together a posterboard of tool pictures to prepare for the tool scavenger hunt.

Grammy baked Ryan's cake and cupcakes with Ian while Momma was out running errands.

The boys loved their time with Grammy! Grammy even planned a little scavenger hunt for Ian to find the birthday gift from her and Papa. She read Ian various clues,

which all led to this box. Under the box ...

... was Ian's very own tool kit! Boy, was Ian excited!

Grammy showed Ian how many of the tools worked.

Ian's favorite tool was the mini saw. Grammy brought some Styrofoam from home for Ian to cut into pieces. I think Ian may have spent 30 minutes cutting it up into a million chunks. He was in heaven!

He wanted to do it again a few days later. This time, we got smarter and did it outside. :)

Ian absolutely loves vacuuming, so he was thrilled to Shop Vac up the little pieces.


Before Ian's party, Matt worked hard to gather all of the tools that he wanted to show Ian and his friends.

Right after Ian's party was done on Saturday, we started getting things ready for Ryan's party.  Ian was happy to help with the fish cupcakes. His primary jobs were sorting M&M's by color and sampling the candies.

Again, Kim and Grammy waited until post-bedtime for Ian to attempt Ryan's birthday cake. This cake wasn't too hard either, though we did start to get nervous that the layers were going to slide apart.

We were especially glad that Grammy stayed an extra day on Monday so that we could JUST focus on playing!

We went to Meyer Park together after some time playing with trains in the toy room.

Thanks again for coming, Grammy! You were a HUGE help! And it was extra special having you celebrate the boys' birthdays with us. We love you very much!