Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Monster Truck Party

About a month before Cru's birthday, I saw that monster trucks were coming to Salina, so I thought maybe {just maybe ;)} he would like to invite a few of his friends to the show for his birthday "party" instead of having an actual chaotic all boy party. 


He liked the idea...for about a day.  Then told me, "I've thought about it, and I want a HUGE party with my friends."

Grrr.  Fine.

So, we stuck with the monster truck theme, picked a date, and waited until the week of to start planning!  Haha!

It actually turned out to be a lot of fun!  I made sure to have activities for nearly every single second all those boys were be there!

Here's a recap....

Our old neighbor who made Everlee's cake also made Cru's.  I just added the trucks and cars!





I knew I wanted a monster truck photo booth, so thanks to my neighbor remodeling her kitchen and Chet's coworker, I accumulated enough boxes to created something of a monster truck....



Quit laughing!

That's what you get where your mom is the "engineer" and you {the almost six year old} is the painter!

When the boys first arrived, they made foil cars....that we never got around to crushing later.



 Then we went monster truck bowling, which all the boys LOVED!





Then we had several different relay races.  Again, Chet's coworker pulled through for me with boxes, and I was able to make monster trucks for each relay team.  We also used tire pool inner tubes, which were such teasers for out of control behavior :)


































































Asher with the perfect monster truck face ^^^ "racing" down the "road" to smash the "car" {pop balloon}.
































































































































Presents and cake!




































































Gosh, I love him ^^^

Then, a little photo booth time!  They were acting like they were riding in an actual monster truck together...this could really happen in ten years!!!































It really was a great party!  I think our little man had a lot of fun!



And what made it even better was having Grandpa Rod here from Florida!



#photobombreese



What we didn't know when we decided to have a monster truck party is that the night before the party Chet, Everlee, and I would take our own monster truck ride!

It was Aunt Casyn's senior night in Topeka.  Weather was rainy and snowy, but all roads were {for the most part} clear.  Reese and Cru stayed back with my parents because Cru had an indoor soccer scrimmage. 

There we were just cruisin' along....Everlee sound asleep....



































I had just rebuckled my seatbelt after reaching to the backseat of the truck, taking the blanket off Everlee's head, and making her a pillow instead.  Chet and I were mid conversation and literally out of nowhere, we hit black ice.  We spun to the left, then spun to the right which turned us 180 degrees, then started going backwards down the ditch.  At this point, I swore we were going to tip; I was scared to death!  We would have tipped on driver's side; Everlee's side.  Everything was in slow motion.  We didn't tip, but were still going backwards.  Then, we hit the barbed wire fence {plowed through two sections} and finally stopped in the field.

We started sliding backwards where the semi is at.


























































































When we came to a stop, Everlee said, "Whoa, that freaked me out."


































I know we were quite a ways down the ditch in the field, but what baffled me is not one single person who drove by stopped to help.  A small child is standing in the snow wrapped in a blanket for pete's sake! {The truck smelled hot so we thought it best we get away from it.}

A Kdot worker finally stopped.  His advice...get the truck out of the ditch as fast as possible to avoid getting a ticket.

Seriously!

May want to rethink who you hire. Haha.

He left, and Chet was able to drive the truck out of the ditch.  We called highway patrol, then headed back to McPherson {we were about ten miles east of Salina on I70}.  The truck sounded a little "funny" plus neither of us felt comfortable with the thought of driving home from Topeka in the dark with Everlee.





It was a pretty quiet ride home.....



































Chet and I went over a few "what if" scenarios {always frightening}, but mainly, I just wanted to get home to the other two kids. 

Just so very thankful God was watching over us and we were all ok.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

#cruturnssix

It just doesn't seem possible our little man....






































is now 6!!!



































He started asking BEFORE Christmas if it was his birthday!  And I made the mistake in telling him it's after Christmas.  So, he thought literally the day after Christmas was his birthday!  December 26th to February 26th was a loooong two months!

But we made it!

Per his request, he took chocolate chip muffins to school for all his friends...even if it took me pulling the last batch out of the oven at midnight!  We spent the afternoon playing like we always do.  Then, per Cru's request, we had his birthday supper at La Fiesta!  #tradition  Followed by candles and a presents.









































^^^Coolest remote control car!  Drives on the wall and the ceiling!^^^





























































































It was a great day!  But now, the count down was on until party day!