Mason's 2nd Birthday

Finally having a chance to catch up after a few weeks of visitors, followed by a busy work week.  

As we all know by now, Mason's 2n'd birthday was a few weeks ago on May 23rd.  As with his first, we didn't want a big birthday bash, as that seems so unnecessary at his age still.  But my parents flew out for the week (more on that later), and we wanted to at least have a small celebration with our family & close friends...who also happen to have children who have become Mason's close friends.  You've met them all here before - brothers Tyler, Brody & Cal, Winslow, and sisters Charlotte & Iris. 

All the girls showed up before the boys did, and I was joking that it looked like Mason only had a lot of girlfriends.  I tried to get a cute picture of Mason with all his ladies, but apparently he wasn't so interested in doing that.

Finally the boys showed up so Mason wasn't quite so outnumbered.  They spent all evening playing in our backyard.

My mom captured a really cute photo session with all the kids around some posts.

The menu consisted of hamburgers & hot dogs on the grill, yum!

Mason & Cal enjoyed dinner with Gigi, BG and Charlie.

Gigi keeping Cal company, love this pic.

And then of course it was time for cake!  I found an awesome truck cake at Vons, and Mason LOVED it -he even got to keep the trucks.  And the cake was so cheap, and SO good - vanilla with fresh strawberries as filling and cool whip frosting.  This prego mama had a few slices :)

He did great - waited patiently as everyone sang "Happy Birthday", and knew exactly when to blow out the candles!

Here's the whole event.  After they blew out the cameras the kids went CRAZY, wanting the trucks, a slice, yelling, screaming.  Eek!

You saw my reaction to the noise above, and apparently it was also captured here.

We finally got everyone settled down with their yummy slices!

And then for the highlight of the evening - a Cars pinata!  You'll remember Mason had his first pinata experience at Talia's birthday party, so I thought he'd enjoy it again.  Well he did...at first...

After Mason got his turn we gave all the rest of the kids a turn, from youngest to oldest.

By the time Tyler got his hands on the pinata, the car was toast.  All of the kids were excited to find the candy inside, except for the birthday boy.  Apparently, he caught onto the fact that by hitting the car, his friends were actually DESTROYING it...and he was devastated that his car was broken!  The poor guy was so upset!

We finally got him settled down with a lollipop...well, kinda.  And we also realized, that we're such good parents, we've now succeeded in making our child cry on both of his birthday.  Remember the ice cream cake?  Birthday fail #2!

Last but not least, we opened presents.  We weren't planning on doing so with everyone there, but all his friends were SO excited for him to open what they got him, we decided to do it.  By this point, it was almost bed time and Mason was pretty much over the attention, so Addison & the little boys had a blast helping him open his presents (AKA just opening them all for him)!

Mason had a great time!  He spent the rest of his birthday weekend with Gigi & Pop while Tristan & I were at Alana & Matt's wedding.  They had a blast, and got some awesome pictures, which I'll post soon.