Dawson's 9th Birthday

March 20, 2015

Poor Dawson, I was gone to my sisters reunion in Arizona on his actual birthday.  He was such a good sport about it.  Our sisters reunion was planned while I was out of town, so I didn't get a say in when it was.  It was also Taylors birthday while we were gone.  So James and Alyssa decided they wanted to throw a party for Dawson and Taylor. 

James and Alyssa are so nice.  They had the boys sleepover, took them to the nickle arcade, got them pizza and a cake, and had a Nerf gun war with them.  James and Alyssa had TONS of Nerf gun items. They has so much fun.  Then when it was time for the boys to go home, they let the boys divide up all their Nerf guns and ammo, and let them keep it.  Dawson was sooo dang excited!!  I still am in awe at everything these guys did for these boys.  It was a dream birthday, so obviously they didn't care that their moms were not there :).  Thanks James and Alyssa for being the BEST cousins in the world!!!  I know these boys will never forget this birthday.

Also on Dawsons actual birthday, he opened a gift from Daxton.  When Dax left the MTC, left a package with some things he didn't want to take with him to Argentina.  Included in that package was a birthday gift for Dawson.  It came a few weeks before his bday, so Dawson was dying to open it.  I tried to get him to wait till I got home from Arizona to open it, but Dawson would not wait another day.  So instead he facetimed me while he opened it.  

This is the package Dax sent from the MTC.  Dawson is holding the birthday package he sent for him.  It was wrapped in a girl scout cookie box :).  Such awesome wrapping paper from the MTC!  It was perfect.

 Dax gave him this little Book of Mormon with this cool little case.

Dax bought the same case for his scriptures :)

This is the cute note Dax sent with the gift.  Dawson was so excited that Dax remembered his birthday.  What a good big brother :).  Thank goodness all these awesome people came through for Dawson to make his special day awesome when his mom couldn't.  Dawson is one lucky guy!

We ended up celebrating and having a friend birthday party on March 20th.  After having such a fun Nerf gun party with James and Alyssa, and having receive a ton of Nerf Guns and ammo from them, he wanted to have another Nerf gun party.  Since it was March, it was way to cold to have a war outside, so I got the grand idea to reserve the church gym.  It was the best idea in the world.  It was so fun!! 

 All the party attendees:

Back row:  Jeremy, Jackson, Hudson, Ollie, Dawson, Shawn and Ryan

Ground: Clara and Hailey

Lucky boy, he has such great friends!

Just look at my beautiful Jada Babe...

There was so much work involved in getting this party ready and decorating.  I am so very grateful for Dave, Jada and Brayden.  They did sooo much to help me.  I could not have done it with out all of their help.  Thank goodness Jada has her drivers license.  Lets just say she had to make A LOT of trips back and forth between the house and the church.

The cute decorations...

Dawson's cake...

 The kids had so much playing with Brayden.  

It was so fun to have an older brother in on the war :) 

 The kids were CRAZY!!!

Dave made each of the kids their own blow dart guns out of PVC pipe.  They worked so good, and the kids loved them.  I got the idea off of Pinterest :).

 The blow dart guns were the hit of the party... 

Brayden could blow the dart so hard.  He thought it was super funny to keep hitting me.  He hit me so hard in my nose it seriously felt like it was broken.  I had to do everything in my power not to cry :(. He was trying so hard not to laugh.  Brayden is dangerous with his blow dart gun!!

One of the games they played was knocking over soda cans with their blow guns...

Dawson picked the menu for the party:

Hotdogs, chips, applesauce, cookies and soda

Dawson thought he was going to open his presents in this box.  He finally realized it wasn't going to work out to well :).

Lovin all the gifts from

his cute

friends!!!

He wanted these Vans so bad... 

He wanted to be just like his big brother Dax :)

All he wanted for his bday was beef jerky, duct tape and cool whip...

       So excited to be opening gifts...

Would you just look at all those gifts...

he is one spoiled boy!!!

Getting ready for cake...

Such good buddies...

The next game was shooting down the army guys...

The final game of the evening was seeing how many balloons you could hit around the room.  It was so funny, some of the kids where freaking out because they weren't doing so well.  They kept asking if they could start over.  It was so funny how badly they wanted to win a prize :).

This was an awesome game.  The only problem I didn't anticipate was the pile of chairs, and the bullets flying behind them :(.  Jackson climbed back behind them to get a bullet and got stuck :).

Finally it was time for the highly anticipated pinata...

Notice the awesome blindfold... In all of my hard work and planning, yep, I forgot to bring a blindfold.  You would think we would just run home and get on since we were a block away from our house, but no, we just used a grocery bag :).  We told the kids to keep their eyes closed while they were hitting, but you can see Ollie peeking.  I am pretty sure they all did.  Good thing Dave and Brayden kept the pinata swinging.

Ollie...

Jeremy...

Ryan...

Dawson finally broke it :)

Everyone went crazy...

There was so much candy, they all almost filled their bags.

Luck kids...

Dawson was a little sad the pinata broke so quickly, so he wanted a few more whacks at it...

The night ended with six stinky boys having a sleep over.  Oh, and notice they put Cruz right in the middle of all of them.  Dawson sure loves Cruz.  I swear he thinks he is his brother instead of his dog :).  Dawson had such a great night.  Hopefully it made up for not being here on his real birthday.  I sure do love my littlest guy.  Happy Birthday Dawson!!!