T.J. Turned Thirty!

It's not every birthday that you see a cake with THIS many candles!

 haha.

We usually use one candle for TJ's or my birthday, but since this is a milestone birthday, I thought I better enhance the significance by adding a whole 30 candles.

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And guess what he got for his 30th birthday....

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 A daughter!

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Just kidding! haha.

We had the pleasure of my niece Ave and her mom/my sister Candice, along with my own Mom who were all visiting us during the same weekend. (Ave had TJ wrapped around her little finger. Isn't she a doll?!)

The boys weren't about to be left out of the biggest candle blowing-out that they'd ever seen. It was pretty exciting!

 We were a happy bunch!

 Cake + Chaos = A Happy Birthday!

 Silly little guys make the simplest party so much fun!

 In this photo, TJ's holding up a Sugar Wafer cookie. haha. A few days before TJ's birthday, I took the boys to the dollar store to pick out gifts for TJ. While we were there, they also picked out a snack---some sugar wafers. When we got home, they'd eaten over half the package, so I set it aside and asked them to help me "wrap" TJ's gifts. ("wrap"= I forgot to buy wrapping paper, so we compromised with paper lunch bags---decorated by the boys, of course.) So, while we were decorating & wrapping, Nathan grabbed the remainder of the Sugar Wafers and emptied them in one of the bags, saying "We have to save these for Daddy's party." So we did. Can't you see the excitement on TJ's face?! haha.

P.S. Nathan chose some Mouth Wash, cinnamon flavor, for TJ's gift. And Trever chose a fake-snake-skin-covered Lighter, saying "I just know Dad is going to LOVE this!" haha. It was pretty cute.

I'm actually glad I forgot the wrapping paper, because the bags the boys decorated were so cute, covered in cars, moose, fishing and TJ with his sons. Definitely worth keeping. However, I did come across a little bit of flower print wrapping paper that I used to wrap a few things, turning the print inside-out, of course.

And, as you can see from the above photo, the boys were just as eager to help TJ unwrap his gifts as they were to blow out the candles. (This has become the norm at all our birthday celebrations.)

While my lovely mother looks on from her seat on the bench. (Isn't she pretty?!)

And doesn't he look happy?!

I was so glad that he enjoyed our simple 30th birthday party for him. Just me and the boys and a few of our favorite people. TJ said, in Brazil, the only thing the people needed to throw a party was a cake. We threw some big family parties for the boys this year, knowing that we'd be moving away again. But, most of our birthdays tend to adopt that Brazilian party concept, and I've really learned to embrace it. First of all, it's easy for me; and second, some of the best memories we have are of simple times like this.