Marathon Birthday weekend

Ahhhhh. That's me sitting down and breathing a sigh of relief after an extremely fun, but exhausting weekend. The boys had a great birthday party with lots of family and friends, and the dinosaur pinata was a big hit (literally). They boys and their cousin Wednesday probably could have spent the entire afternoon whacking away at it, without much success, but we enlisted the efforts of the older girls, and within a few tries, Meagan sent the dinosaur's head flying. Since I had neglected to tell the kids WHY they were whacking the pinata with a T-ball bat, they were utterly surprised when the goodies started falling out. Wednesday was probably the most excited. "Hey, there's DINOSAURS in there! There's lots of candies and toys!" After all the good stuff had been whacked out of the pinata (and into a crowd of unsuspecting children) by Aaron, Riley ended up with a fireball, Connor ended up with some gum and starburst, and Wednesday had collected all the dinosaurs into a little pile. Give the girl some credit, she knows how to get the good stuff!
Cupcakes and presents followed, with Uncle Mark and Aunt Tina (officially Aunt Tina as of Aug 25th, congratulations guys!) winning the best present award for the second year in a row. You can't go wrong with a toy nail gun and drill. The boys didn't put them down all weekend!
Eventually the excitement and sugar overload (Riley ate the frosting off of 2 or 3 cupcakes!) got the best of them and we had a couple of minor meltdowns, but all in all, it was a great day.
Sunday we spent time with the visiting grandparents, Grandma Darrell and Grandpa Rob and Grandma Helen. We attempted to put the house back in order, went to the park, then spent the afternoon painting the trim, windows and gutters on the house. The boys played with the new legos and "designer family" for a while, then headed outside to help us on the house, with the new nail gun and drill, of course! The house project seems neverending, but it is REALLY looking good.
Now it is back to the grind, Aaron is leaving with Mark for a short work trip up north before we leave for our anniversary weekend. 5 years! We are heading out east to Maine, without much of a plan except for having some fun and spending some time together without the kiddies. Hopefully that hurricane hovering off the coast of South Carolina doesn't ruin our weather for the weekend...
Here's a pic of the progress we are making on the house...