Belated

Way back in the first week of February, two and a half weeks ago, Mom Beutel celebrated her 50th birthday! We really wanted to surprise her with a small party, but she's a tough one to surprise. Greg and I had supper at our house on the day of her birthday (with the help of other siblings who brought food), and then we planned a party for one week later, hoping she'd be thrown 'off the track' with the celebration on her actual birthday.


Elena and Max decided that Grandma needed help opening her gifts.

Elena was quite sad that all the presents were for Grandma; none for her...so Nate 'wrapped' a dinner roll in some of the crumpled wrapping paper for her to open. She was happy as a clam!

Nora being goofy

Then, all three grandkids decided that Grandma needed help blowing out her candles.

I'm going to switch gears here in the middle of the post because that weekend, we stayed overnight at U. Steve and A. Diane's house in Bloomington. Saturday night we went out to eat with our out of town potluck while Nic and Amanda watched our kids. (Thanks, guys!) We had already planned to be at Steve and Diane's on Sunday afternoon, so we just decided staying overnight would be easier. The kids had a super time and it saved us from driving home late on Saturday and coming back over on Sunday.

Max and Nora LOVED Midnight...and to her credit, she was quite tolerant of them laying their heads on her, etc. I think she was probably glad to see us go home, though. :)

Tommy, Midnight, Max, and Nora

Okay, so back to the birthday celebrations. I'm happy to say, that Dad B. and us kids pulled off the surprise! On Saturday morning (the 12th), Tim and Melissa and me, Max, and Nora showed up to their house. It's not super unusual for us to just stop by, so Mom didn't know what was going on. When Paulo and Roseli showed up, though, carrying a big birthday present, she knew something was up! At that point, Dad told her we were "taking over her day." Dad and Paulo had planned on cooking a suckling pig, which takes hours to cook, so they headed down to the cabin to get it started. Eventually we all ended up down at the cabin for lunch and hung out for the afternoon. (I had to take the kids home for naps, so we left after lunch and came back just for supper.) The fun part is, Roseli's birthday is a few days before Mom's...and she had no clue that this party was for her, too! Around 1:00 some of her and Paulo's friends showed up at the cabin...there was much hugging, exclamation, and almost some tears. :) It was fun to see her so surprised.

The two beautiful birthday ladies (Mom got her tiara at the party at our house...we were trying to keep her from being suspicious, remember?) :)

Max helping blow out candles again

Annnnd, one more time. He's really into this birthday thing!

Last birthday related picture...the next day we celebrated February birthdays at Dad and Mom Rassi's house. Max didn't nap at all that day because Greg took him swimming after church instead. He did surprisingly well, but this is what we found when we got home that night:

Sacked out. Greg took several pictures of him, flash and all, and he didn't even flinch other than squeezing his eyes shut. I guess it was a little too much birthday!