Porter's Birthday Party

Sometimes I can turn into one of those people who do the whole, "I'll be happy when this happens..."  Well, I'll be super duper happy when I can just throw events at my own house. My Mother in Law and Mom were gracious enough to let me host a few events at their houses a few weekends ago.   The first being Porter's birthday party.  I absolutely love love love parties. But I am a novice and the whole planning and execution part. I plan for waaaaaay too many things, but then don't give myself enough time to execute everything.  Luckily, my test subjects for this whole planning shin dig are my boys. And they didn't seem to mind.

July is pretty miserable in Arizona. I had hired a trackless train to ride the kids around the neighborhood, but the week of the event I canceled it. And I am actually pretty glad I did. IT WAS SO HOT! Seriously. Miserable. I mean, I thought Imperial had the same temperature as Arizona, but I felt like it was hotter over there. I couldn't stand being outside and it was 11 in the morning!
Anyways, we turned it into a pool party, but hardly anyone brought their swim suits. I think they felt like it was too hot to swim, and they didn't want to have to watch their babies in the pool. All of which is totally fine!
90% of Porter's friends live in Idaho or California. So Trent and I decided to invite a huge amount of our friends from the singles ward and high school.  A lot of people were on vacation. But we still had about 6 families come with their kids, and then we had our own families on top of that. It was seriously so fun to see my friends as wives, husbands, etc. I loved meeting their kids and seeing Porter interact with them. We seriously know the best people.

 Porter jumping off the diving board. Something I wish he could have learned later in life. But whatever.

 Sweet Liam. I am seriously obsessed with him as if he was my own. I just love that kid.

Porter had no idea this party was about him. Ha!

There was definitely a house full of kids. Just the way I like it!
In the end, the decorations were pretty low key.  I made the banner, {which I forget to take a picture of, dumb!} the train signs {with the help of  my FABULOUS new friends, thanks Jana and Alli}, and the Birthday Crossing sign {also not pictured}.  I actually didn't take any of these pictures. My little sister Ashlyn took all the pictures for the party. Thanks Ash!

So. Porter LOVED the sparklers on the Fourth of July. So I thought, let's do it on his birthday while we sing.  Crazy sparklers in 110 degree weather. Such a good idea.

 This picture makes me laugh every time. Chad, being such a good sport about my sparkler idea, took one while fire is popping everywhere and smoke is flaring.  All while trying to protect Matix.  Merrells are awesome.  Needless to say, most sparklers didn't get passed out. And I had burn marks all over my hand.

Afterwards, we did an pinata. Porter had no idea why we were letting him hit this train with a bat. He was so soft with it. Haha! It was super cute. 

I love being this little guy's aunt.

Liam has got game.  He was smacking that thing with all his two year old mite.

Eventually, everyone wanted some real entertainment and made me go out there to break the train. And Trent had fun making me look like a fool and miss a few times. He is so lucky I have a sense of humor. 

It was a total game changer for Porter once he realized that there was candy INSIDE the train.

The rest of the time we ate some more, talked, and played corn hole. For the record, Kayla and I CREAMED Chad and Trent at corn hole. No, really. Like there was no competition about it. Better luck next time, fellas.

Speaking of Kayla. She is a dream best friend. The gal went and made and frosted like 50 cupcakes for Porter's birthday. And came to help set up early. Oh and the cupcakes were out of this world good. chocolate cupcakes with Oreo frosting and strawberry with cream cheese frosting. Open your own bakery, Kayla!

Any my mom made the. best. sugar cookies. It's all I ever want when I visit.

And here are just some extras for the party. Porter, you are one loved little boy. EVERYONE who meets you, automatically loves you. Happy 2nd Birthday, Portmaster.