Ashley and Hoyt's Birthday weekend

We celebrated Hoyt's birthday a few weeks early, since his Uncle Ben and Aunt Lydia were out for a visit. So we ended up doing Ashley's birthday on Friday night and Hoyt's on Saturday. 

Owen is very excited here because he had just turned all the lights in the house off. I have weird brothers. 

We didn't have candles, but I had some sparklers we hadn't used this summer, so we decided to give them a whirl. Okay, mostly I did. There were a lot of naysayers who turned out to be right (the sparklers got stuff all over the cake) but the cake was heavily frosted, so scraping a little off was no problem. And it was cool! Plus, the kids loved it!

Pretty cool, right?

A Momma and her boy-o

This was Hoyt's birthday the next night. Owen decided we should wrap the streamers around the fan so at the end, we could turn on the fan and have it do the (so arduous!) work of taking down the streamers. Yeah, he is a brain-iac. 

Owen's other big decorating idea was to tie streamers to each fan blade in the living room. He was pretty sure Martha Stewart would be featuring it soon in her magazine.

Lily and Orianna love Ben and Lydia, and made them play a LOT of games of Operation, which Lily got from Grandma for her birthday. They are good sports.

Grandpa and the birthday boy! Ben decided he needed a blue tail. 

Apparently guys with streamers go a little crazy.

Gilbert being delighted by Ashley decorating the cake.

Grandma reading yet another Cotten child Our Animal Friends of Maple Hill Farm. My kids have all loved this book, which Mom has read them countless times. 

Hoyt and his cake. I love his expression. "What is going on...?"

He was pretty timid with his cake, insisting on a spoon. He made up for his manners on his real birthday, when he dug into cake with gusto.

Hahaha! This is Owen trying to get out of the picture before I took it. He was busily trying to unwind the streamers that got wrapped around the fan and caused problems. 

Sunday afternoon, Owen brought a calf down for the kids to see.

Hoyt is so precious in his little boots.

Owen, being a wild bull rider, with his feet on the ground and the calf plodding along. He did last eight seconds, though.

The queen of the corn. 

Here is the Hoyt-boy on his birthday, getting cake-y. Totally stole this picture from Ashley's facebook. Shhh.