Family Fiesta

As you've probably gathered from all of the birthday talk around here - all three kids have birthdays within 17 days of each other.  We pretty much celebrate the entire month of April.  When it was just Luke, all of our family would attend his birthday parties.  When Mason came along I did parties for the boys together and all of our family attended those parties as well.  When Griffin came along I did one party for all three of them, but then last year it was time for them to get to do their own things and it didn't seem practical to invite the same sets of family members to come to three different kids parties over the course of two weekends, so we created the "Family Fiesta".  Basically, it's a party where we get together with both sides of our families and celebrate all three of the kids birthdays at one time.  It's fun, relaxed and more conducive to everyone being able to attend.

I love the kids parties, but I think that this family fiesta tradition is my favorite party of all.  I don't do a lot in terms of decorating, I did go a little crazy with my chalkboard signs on Saturday :)

Get it?  Their ages are in cursive :)  Dave totally didn't get it. hahaha

I kept food simple and festive with a taco bar.

I picked up this balloon on Amazon and then had it blown up at our local grocery store.

I made a TON of taco meat (over 6 lbs) and kept that warm in the crock pot.  

Lots of toppings...

... queso...

... refried beans and a cute sign.  Done.

I think that Mason was more excited than anyone about this party.  He's talked about it ALL WEEK and was so pumped that he refused to take a nap in the afternoon :)  He crashed at 5:00... and everyone arrived at 5:30. hahaha

We tried to wake him up, but it wasn't happening.  So we let Luke and GG go ahead and open. 

Luke hit the Lego jackpot! And Griffin was most excited about her tea set :)

Can you spy Mason in the picture below??? hahaha

 So special that both of Dave's grandmas got to celebrate with us again this year!

While we were eating tacos, Mason finally woke up.  He ate a bit and then we all gathered around to watch him open his presents.

Attention, anyone? :)

My favorite part of the night was the birthday song and cake part.  How special that they all get to celebrate together!

Griffin  blew out her candles a couple of times before she was supposed to ;)

Having all of their birthdays so close together is so much fun - it's pretty much an entire month of celebrating - but sometimes it feels bittersweet because it's this whirlwind few weeks and then BAM all of my babies are a year older!  But, watching them all get to blow out their candles together is such a special tradition and I love that it's a tradition that will hopefully continue WELL into adulthood.  Now I'm going to go have a good cry :)