Graydie turned 1 on the 19th of this month. We waited until the weekend to have a party…
The Virginia folks (hello!) sent along gifts for Graydon, so she did get to open presents on her birthday.
To be technically correct, I think Gabe did a bunch of the opening for her.
Graydon and her Aunt Paula share the same birthday, so we had a joint party. The big hoopla we decided to get for both the kids was to turn the backyard into a kid friendly place to play. With that in mind:
Step 1: Till up the back yard to help level it out.
Jennifer and I took turns, we’d till until our hands were numb and switch.
Step 2: Lay landscape fabric to hopefully keep the weeds out.
Steps 3 and 4: Spread 3 yards of mulch and build a playground.
This took a ridiculous amount of time. My neighbor came over and helped me put this thing together, which was a lifesaver, because there was going to be some disappointed kids if she hadn’t helped.
Step 5: Playtime!
(Ryan’s got a pretty good arm- check out his form!)
(Grillmaster Roydog is finally getting a chance to enjoy the fruits of his labors here. He was pressed into grillmaster service as soon as he showed up. He pulls the cover off my grill and starts laughing, asking me when I had last looked at my grill. This is something like hour 20 of the till/mulch/build playground program, so my sense of humor was somewhat strained. I asked him what he was laughing at- turns out a squirrel or some little animal had made themselves quite a little winter home- the main grill section was full of little acorn shells and flocking from the grill cover. No animal, thankfully)
(That’s Ellie Kate!)
Jennifer went with a princess theme for the party. The birthday girls got tiaras and princess hats:
She also made them a special princess castle cake:
The playground was a big hit, made the all the heavy lifting we did worthwhile. Here it is, starting to get a little dark, and Sam W. and Gabe are still at it on the swings:
