When Logan turned 1, I had to basically help him dig into his cake...he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. If memory serves, I think he just licked bits of it off his fingers. Aiden did a pretty good job, but he was way into feeding himself with an actual fork so that wasn't a very productive "smash cake" (he couldn't really do much with that fork!). Brady on the other hand....couldn't be held BACK! I went to order him a little cake for his birthday party, and the smallest they had was a 1/8th sheet cake so he got a NICE piece of baked good to man-handle! Sadly, we had so much going on at his birthday party that we didn't do cake until it was a little past his normal bedtime, but that's OK since he had to be put into the bathtub immediately anyway!!! Here are some pictures of the party!

We did a combo party for Brady and his cousin Max who turns 12 later this month. Max and his brother Zach usually want to leave any family party these days after a couple of hours. I really wanted Max to have fun at his party, so we set up a Rock Band competition. It was a bit hard to get going because we also did "make your own pizzas" (Brian ended up making a lot of them...especially for the kids) and there is always a lot of ruckus when you get all these kids together. Here, Brian's older brother practices with Max and Zach before the competition gets started.
I've never taken a picture of the rock band screen for the blog before and you can't really see this, but Brian and Max did a battle of the guitars. They played the same song at the same time to see who would get the best score. Brian won by a land slide (Good work Bri! You don't even have a 1/4th of the time that Max has to goof around on this game....it's all natural talent!!)

Here they are doing battle.

Aiden loved to dance to the songs. He was running all over the dining room / kitchen doing some very cute little moves (seriously....he can grove!)

A bear on one of Bear's gifts. Mom and Dad gave him a hammer that makes noise when you hit it on the ground. His brothers gave him a little people ferris wheel. He got some great cloths from his cousins/aunt/uncle & Memaw / Grandpa. Even Grandma Maria gave him something....a really cute GAP coat to match the ones his brothers have.

Brady gets more than a little help opening his gifts. What are brothers for?!

It didn't take long for Aiden to find all the balloons and claim them for his own. He managed to gt all 16 of them into a bunch, tied them on Logan's shopping cart and ran around with them. Later, he wanted them to sit with him for dinner!

We bought all these matching shirts for the 4 youngest grandsons and tried to get a picture for Memaw's Christmas card. It was crazy...just like our attempts with only 3 small kids! Logan and Aiden gave me a nice smile before we started trying to get everyone.

This one was pretty good, but we had three cameras going so no one was looking at mine! :)

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Brady's cake pre-smashing. That's his little hand getting in there already!

Logan, Aiden and even Zach step up to test the cake for Bear before we sing happy birthday.

This is the cake post-smashing. NICE JOB Bear!

I eventually took the WHOLE cake away and gave him a little plate instead. He actually put the plate up to his face and licked the frosting off!

He was so tired! He is actually yawing while eating his cake. Poor baby!
Here I am....taking Bray up for his bath and for bedtime. Good work dude!