Happy 40th Peter

 

Yay! Peter is finally 40.

All the members of his district at work kidnapped him and took him to Luby's on his birthday. 

They said that's where old people eat. Ha.

They also supplied him with Depends, Ensure, prunes, and other needs for older folks.

His birthday was Thursday, so I had planned for his closest friends and their families to come for dinner.   We had an italian creme cake made for him and cupcakes for all the kids.

Rudy's BBQ was our entree for the evening and they made it so easy. We had the marg machine crankin' and appetizers. It was a great way to celebrate his 40th.

I love this picture!

I used simple brown wrapping paper as the table runner and the kids decorated it with lots of sayings.

The small cupcake in the above picture is a mini carrot cupcake. One of Peter's faves.

Campbell & Ian

The 2nd grade boys spent the evening playing video games.

Randy, Peter, Eric and Greg. These are Peter's closest friends.

 For decorations, we had pictures throughout the house of Peter at all ages. He liked it, and said he hadn't seen some of those pictures in a very long time.

Peter with pictures of his life until now.

Happy Birthday love!

Carnival Time

 Us Austin Hardin's are suckers for a cake walk. 

 Conleigh loves to be  creative with decorating. Above is her creation for this years cake walk.  Chocolate cake with Kit-Kats as a border and filled with M&Ms.  Goo-Gah!

 Campbell loves red velvet. She went simple and added some sprinkles to the top of the cream cheese frosting. A friend of ours chose her cake.

 Alex decorated with a helicopter and fire equipment. I bought a few things at the Dollar Tree and Alex put it together.

 Conleigh and her posse of friends. Not sure why she has such a goofy face. 

 Campbell ran around with her friends. Obviously, they decided to partake in the hair coloring.

Alex had to take off early from the carnival to play ball.  It was a great weekend of baseball. Two wins and Alex earned the game ball on Sunday.

Learning the tricks of my Mac

We had a great weekend in Austin last weekend with my mom & dad!

garage door trauma and cute people...

Instead of showing the glass window in the garage that Peter broke playing basketball this week, 

and instead of showing the new huge dent in the garage door that I did 

the very next day by running into said door with the golf cart,

I'll show you these precious pictures...

Campbell has been wanting to make a pumpkin pie. Thursday after school, we fulfilled that wish.

  

Today was the foam party for 2nd grade boys. It was open for siblings as well. 

What a foamy fun time the children had.

Sadie and Campbell

Bishop, Alex and Matthew.

sudsa fun

Alex and his cottontail

Crazy egg hunt!

Alex has now decided he wants a foam party for his birthday.

Trip pics ~ day 3

We were up and out of the hotel early to go visit Peter's grandparents, Ralph & Betty.  It was great to see them. I think we've been to Irvine five times since Conleigh was born. They live in a great community and Ralph has been greeting walkers around the lake weekday mornings for years. He and his friends meet at "the bench," and say hello to many a'walker.
I've heard about the bench for a long time, but I've never been to 'the bench.'  This trip we went to 'the bench.'  The weather wasn't great, so sadly his friends didn't come that day, but he still greeted people he recognized and those he didn't.

We all went out to lunch, and then we spent a little time at their house. There is a playground right outside their door. Times sure have changed because we just let the kids go out there by themselves this time. No parental oversight.

Grandma had made 'the birthday cake.'  The famous Hardin birthday cake!

Conleigh blew out the candles...

Peter played with the new camera. Pretty cool shot of the hummingbird....

and Alex and Campbell wrestled.

Trip Pics ~ Day 2

Welcome to Hollywood! What's your dream? Everybody comes here; this is Hollywood, land of dreams. Some dreams come true, some don't; but keep on dreamin' - this is Hollywood. Always time to dream, so keep on dreamin'. 

We drove up the coast on Thursday through Oceanside where they have had a farmer's market open the past two times we have been by.  This time we left with a new poncho thing for me. I love it. And a huge jug of olive oil.  The 89 year old man selling it said he made it himself.  Not until we got back to Austin did Peter notice the package says, "made in italy."  We laughed.

Michael Jackson's star

We headed for Hollywood. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the sign. blah.  Needless to say, it is underwhelming and the kids were sticking close.  Peter said it is better than he remembers it as a child, but there are still too many bag people for comfort.

Look our singer Campbell has her own star too!!

For you, Dad!

 There was a wax museum, and Guinness World record museum and Ripley's Believe it or Not.  I convinced Peter we should do one of them, so we went into Ripley's. It was a good call. Weird stuff, but it entertained all of us.

Creepy unicorn man.

Conleigh chillin' with MJ.

 From Hollywood, we drove through Beverly Hills. No star sightings but a ton of traffic.  We landed at the Santa Monica pier.  You always see pictures of it but I loved being there and it wasn't overly crowded which was great too.

see the girls in the back car of the pier coaster? they were the only ones on the ride.

Alex chose to give a game a try for his activity. No luck.

See my new poncho?

We ate dinner in Venice beach and fell into beds at the hotel. Seriously, our lights were off by 8:30pm (which is 10:30 in TX).

Trip pics ~ Day 1

Good intentions of writing the blog this year have fallen to the way side.

We went to San Diego over spring break to see dear friends and family.

We all had a wonderful, relaxing, yet filled with fun time.

We flew on Conleigh's birthday. Southwest was cool and made an announcement on the plane about her celebrating #10. Then on the way off the plane, they let her get in the cockpit and take a pic. It is on my phone, so  I can't post it here.

birthday girl

Thankfully, we had a direct flight and arrived in SD before noon Cali time. We set off for Balboa Park. Beautiful place. Gardens, museums, parks, flowers. It was wonderful.

checking out the Koi pond at Balboa.

Beauty.  We are loving our new camera!

Silly boy.  I wish you could see how blue his eyes are in this picture.

 After that adventure, we headed to our friends Karri and Kevin's house. We were all excited to see them and their kids, our God children, Ashley & Brandon. It has been 2 years since we have seen the kids.  Basically, we dumped our bags out of the car and hit the road for birthday dinner on the beach per the birthday girls request.

What a great looking group of kids!

Guess which photographer requested this silly pose? Peter, of course.

True personalities!  Nothing beats the beach!

All five kids slept in Brandon's room. Boys on the floor, Campbell on top bunk and Ashley & Conleigh shared the full on the bottom.  You can imagine sleep time didn't begin when we said goodnight. It was a party in that room every night. :)

Goodnight!