The Third Bandito

This past weekend the third Bandito (see him here, here and here) turned 2. Happy birthday Evan! 

Our clan of four spent the night in Athens on Friday [more on that later] and headed to Madison mid-day Saturday to partake in the celebration. We’ve learned what a party is, and we’ve learned we like what a party is. And we, as parents, hoped that the love of parties was enough to keep Cole and Grady happy during what should be naptime. Could have been great, but could just as easily turn into meltdown city in a hurry.

Thankfully the boys cooperated, and a good time was had by all. Aunt Angela and Uncle Ken decided on a racecar theme for the party. See how generous I am on this blog? Ken gets credit for picking the theme, too. Grammie gets credit for the cake.

While we waited for all the guests to arrive we entertained ourselves by playing with some of Cousin Evan’s toys. He had a really fun beach ball, and thankfully Grampie is a good ball throwing buddy. And he knows his colors, too.

 

 

And Grammie is an excellent snacktime conversationalist. She’ll even go get your food for you and bring it to you as you lounge on the couch.

Once all the guests arrived, it was time for party hats. Evan got his on and did a little dance.

And Cole, under the supervision of Miss Amanda, got his on as well. Here Cole is giving Amanda what I call the forehead hug. The kid loves rubbing his forehead against other people’s. He is rather different, I agree. You might recall that Grady monopolized Amanda at the boys' bday party, but this day Cole claimed her attention as his. Grady looked on after he made it very clear that he did not want to wear the hat.

 

  What? You want a better picture of that cute cupie face? Ok.

Alrighty, enough self indulgence, lets’ get back to the birthday boy. He did a great job blowing out his candles.

Then, with the help of some older party attendees the kids went at the racecar shaped pinata. Amanda's brothers Adam and Alex helped.

And that help was needed, because Cole and Evan did their best, but didn't put any type of dent in the pinata.There may have been a skirmish over yellow bat possesion between the second and third banditos, but Aunt Angela did a fine job refereeing. 

Seeing that it was a birthday party, there was some present opening. Dada was in charge of the camera at this point, and all we have to document that part of the party was not the presents, but Grady chilling with his GG. A while back we all decided that we would call Keith's mom Grammie. We had been calling her Gran GG for a while, but decided Grammie would just be easy. Grady objects, and still calls her GG. He won't be told what to do!

The picture below is too funny not to include, sorry Amanda! The look you see on Amanda's face is Cole & Grady's kryptonite. They laugh hysterically when she does this, and I think its part of the reason they are so attached to her. If only we could move closer to Camp Keller, I feel like we'd have an excellent babysitter on our hands.

Remember how I was worried about the boys not napping and being cranky? Turns out they did just fine for the party, but Keith and I have witness many a skipped nap that resulted in a hellish drive home. So saying that we were apprehensive about the drive home is an understatement. And Grady did give us a good 5 minutes of grumbling and wailing, and prompty fell asleep. Score! Cole fell asleep a few minutes later, leaving me and Keith to drive to our next stop in a cake and ice cream induced haze.