My what a busy weekend! We had a surprise birthday celebration for Grandma this weekend. Much of the family came to town. I had to be the one to get her to the party (luckily she cooperated well with me!) and I think she was sufficiently surprised :) The party started with a surprise breakfast. The Collier crew wasn't there yet, but my little family was there and Greg and Kathy and Carl, and Grandpa and Grandma, of course!

Surprise!

Greg and Kathy brought the coolest balloons for the kids. They are helium balloon animals, but with slightly weighted feet so they just hover above the ground. They were a huge hit!

Eve walked "Pinky" around the restaurant for a long time and even taught her to jump!

Grandpa and Eve

This picture makes me laugh. Everything about it. :)

In the afternoon we went over to Grandpa and Grandma’s house for presents and dinner.

This was our gift to Grandma. Eve picked it out. At the party Eve named her "Hottie." Why? I don't know. But I think Grandma liked the present :)

Once again we managed to sqeeze everyone around the table (with the help of a fold-up card table too!) and we all enjoyed a delicious meal of lentil soup and salad and bread. Yum!

Dinner was followed, of course, by dessert! This lucky woman got TWO cakes.. well, a crumbcake and an apple pie. We also had chocolate cookies and LOTS of ice cream.

After dinner I took the kids outside (ok, really they took ME outside) to watch fireworks the neighbors were shooting off. We also enjoyed the super bright moon (almost full) and we did lots of running around. Remember the desserts I mentioned above? The kids ate lots! As we were getting ready to leave Kathy told us that the giant leaf pile the kids had been eye had been raked just for them. So instead of leaving we played in the leaves for awhile.

Leaves by moonlight. The kids were in heaven!

This morning we went apple picking. It was hot and sunny and packed. Good times! :)

I was hoping to get a nice sibling picture here, but Eve wasn't cooperating.

Barney was happy to cooperate :)

Eve wanted the apples that were "just" out of her reach. Foruntately she had a helpful uncle nearby.

When the helpful uncle wasn't nearby she had to take care matters into her own hands!

They make homemade donuts at this place and sell them by the million, I think. Today we saw the donut making process. If you look closely you can see a huge mixer in the back, the next nearest thing is full of batter and slowly pumps out rounds of batter, dropping them into the hot oil. There they boil for a minute or so until a rotating screen lifts them up and flips them over. Another minute or so later they arrive on a conveyor belt which brings them out of the oil and dumps them into the big paper-towel lined bowl in front. It’s a pretty cool process.

Donuts!

Lex got tired and sat down next to Barney to wait for Rosy and Eve. Then he grabbed some pumpkins and laid down. Had I left him alone for a few minutes maybe he would have taken a nap in the sun. :)

Once again helpful uncle was there to give these kids a lift. This time is was a tired boy who needed a ride back to the car. A grownup to kid ration of 3:2 is helpful at times :)