Frogs and snails, and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of.

The little man turned 4 yesterday, but I have to tell you first of his birthday party on Sunday. We had a total of 25 people, and only 2 were not "blood related". One little girl was a neighbor, that I think Daniel is sure she could hang the moon, and the other "not blood related", was our dear friend, Carol. Cliff is usually right there with her, but everytime he comes to my house, he has to leave quickly, as all of my animals, mostly the cat dander, give him troubles breathing! We also had an additional "dog", as Bandit joined us around 5:00 when Dave arrived, having been to see the Packers play the Jaguars downtown. My cats were none too thrilled to have that thing in their house!

We had a great time at Daniel's party. There were a total of 25 people, 10 of them being children, aged 3 to 16, and of those 10 children, only one was not a cousin! I think at one time, all of those children, or at least a good portion of them, were on the John Deere car he got for his birthday last year. It now makes a very disturbing noise, and John suggested it might have burned out the gears. We did see at one point a total of 5 children on the thing, the oldest being 13 years old. The John Deer did some damage of it's own, when I think it was the 3 year old cousin, Morgan who was driving, and ran into the pump to the irrigation system. Thank goodness they came into the house and yelled.. "we broke a pipe"! Flipping the breaker to the pump stopped that disaster in it's tracks, until John can find the time to repair that. We had a Spiderman cake, and enjoyed watching him open his presents. Among his many gifts included a Hummer with the Bass Pro Shop Logo on it, a canoe and a little man to drive it, three different Spiderman figurines, one having a scuba tank, and now he can't wait for spring, when we set our pool back up, and he can go swimming with him! Hot Wheels.. oh the Hot Wheels! There's a carry case for up to 7 cars, that shoots them out when selected, a stunt track, a set of 'crazy stunt cars', and my favorite.. the Ice Track! It's a Hot Wheels ice track, that has a motorized section that shoots the cars around the track. So Cool! John and I purchased a race track that has shake em' riders, but I don't think he's nearly as impressed as he is with the Hot Wheels! The dog likes both sets, but is very excited about the ice track as well!

We waited until 5:30, and very few of the 25 people actually left, so we ended up breaking out the Bubba Burgers and hot dogs! During the food preparation, I realized we'd ran out of sodas, so I ran up to the store and picked up a few more 2-liters of Coke, etc. and a bottle of wine for my sister in law. I now have half a bottle of Merlot, that I won't be drinking anytime soon! I do not like Merlot! Everyone finally filtered out of our home around 7:30, and as I walked back through my living room, I found my brother in law's laptop in it's case sitting on my living room floor. John and I quickly found our cell phones, and got a hold of them, as they had left about half an hour before, heading back home to Summerville, SC. Thankfully, they had only made as far as the first exit on I-295 heading north, so John said, turn back and head toward's Mom's, and I'll meet you there! Had John not done that, it would have taken an additional hour and half out of their trip home, and as it was, they returned home shortly after midnight! I would not have wanted to make that drive. We did that once when they first moved up there, and Hanna was a baby. It was all we could do to stay awake on that drive home!

I do believe Daniel enjoyed his birthday party very much, and the festivities carried over to his 'real' birthday on Tuesday, when we took cupcakes to school for his class, and then went out to dinner with our dear friends, Hughey and Leanne, and their children.