Cole's Monster Mash - Cole Turns 7!

And just like that, 7 years have come and gone.  Cole chose a Monster Mash birthday this year and invited his 1st grade class and friends to the house for a costume party.  It was a little chaotic given I was gone all week on a business trip and got home Friday night.  On top of that Johnny was deployed to Puerto Rico helping with the disaster relief of Hurricane Maria.  But I was able to pull it together!

Within two hours of getting home from St. Louis I had most of the decorations up and the table and tableware set and ready for the next day.  I still needed to get the mums purchased and planted so the house was presentable - all my flowers died since I forgot to leave a note to water them while I was gone.  I needed to grocery shop, pick up the cake, make the balloon spider for the ceiling, make the skeleton lanterns and of course get the dry ice for the magic potion!  After getting all I could done, Reagan and I took Cole to Cheesecake Factory for his birthday dinner with my friends Vicky and Justin. It's his absolute favorite so of course we had cake and sang Happy Birthday.

The next morning we had a lot to get ready but it went smoothly.  Mums were purchased and planted.  We were visited by a beautiful memory of Kendall when a butterfly landed on one of the mums.  When we got home one of Johnny's co-workers stopped by the house to drop off a present for Cole with a balloon.  He and his wife then offer to get the dry ice for the potion - huge help!!  After they left Cole looked at me kinda sad and said, "mom, it's not fair this whole day is about me and nothing is about Kendall.  Can I send this balloon to her in Heaven?"  My sweet, sweet boy...so we wrote her a note,  he let it go and we watched as it disappeared into the beautiful blue sky.  It was a bitter sweet day holding the party on the anniversary of her loss, but I love that he was thinking about her and wanted to give her something for her birthday.  Not a day goes by that we don't think about her and wish she were here.

Overall the party was a success, but I had a lot of rowdy 7 year olds!  The kids had fun playing on the moon bounce, painting pumpkins, beating up the eyeball piñata and running crazy in the basement.  One thing I love about our house is that we have a basement made for play.  Between the rock wall, monkey bars, air hockey, roller coaster, balance beam, see-saw and drum set with microphone for singing, there is something for everyone. For those who didn't come in costume I had lots of options for masks the kids could wear and then take home.  And of course they were able to take home the pumpkins they painted.  Cole's costume this year is the Scream character with a two layer plastic mask that releases blood when you squeeze the "heart" bulb in the costume.  I never would have imaged that two other boys from his class had the exact same costume! They thought that was pretty funny...but I doubt any of them have actually seen the movie or they wouldn't be laughing!  The kids had eye ball cake pops, chocolate covered finger pretzels, mummy hot dogs and a magic fogging punch (with dry ice).

Needless to say we were all exhausted by the end of the day and slept well!  We also celebrated Cole's birthday Sunday with my parents and sister and then again on Monday with Johnny's parents.  So it was a four day celebration!  It was hard not having Daddy there, but we are so proud of the work he is doing to help the people in Puerto Rico and hope he will be home soon!