Soaring With the Haaks: Eight is Great!!

This post in only about a month late, but I finally squeezed in the time to get her finished.
Mr. Smiles turned 8 just two days after Good Lookin' turned 6 and our house was party central the end of April.
Interestingly enough, even though both boys decided that they wanted separate birthday parties this year, they didn't care for it as much and asked to celebrate together next year. Those two never cease to amaze me because they are so so different and a full 2 years apart, but they have very similar interests.
Since I had now done one cake with Fondant, I felt (only slightly) brave enough to tackle the cake Mr. Smiles asked for over a year ago. R2 D2.
I made more than my share of mistakes with this one, but if he ever asks for it again, I'll know what to NOT do...try and drape the whole thing. It only gave him a bleeding neck look because I had run out of white frosting and had used orange as the base frosting. He didn't care and most of it wiped off.

I found this awesome party pack at Walmart that had an all-in-one table decorating kit for only $8! We used it for about a week afterward as well much to ALL 3 boy's delight.

Precious Jewel, as the only girl present (aside from myself), wore her hair in tiny little Princess Leia buns. She was fully accepted by the boys for this. : )

A good portion of the party was spent with our brand-new baby kittens that were born on the back porch. They still didn't have their eyes open at this point and everyone was really sweet and gentle.

The Crazy Crew

Mr. Smiles was just that... all smiles when he saw his cake after waking up that morning.
"It's AWESOME!!" was music to my ears.

Legos and a Star Wars movie was all he requested for the evening.

This was also Mr. Smile's first ever sleep-over party and they were all so funny in their sleeping bags on the basement floor. The newly-turned-8-year-old is in the blue bag...ever so willing to have his picture taken.

For the life of me I couldn't get this picture to turn around, but I found these gems right after Easter at 75% off! Nothing beats party favors in the shape of a Light Saber with candy inside. At least, all the boys got excited.

Party # 3 of the week

The next evening was a family part where only grandparents and cousins were invited. Something about a house full of crazy boys does NOT excite girl cousins.
It was so funny because I constantly get asked if Mr. Smiles and Good Lookin are Twins.
Yes, they are brothers and yes they definitely have the same gene pool running through them, but to me they look VERY different...except last week when we were at a friend's house and I hollered across the yard at who I thought was Mr. Smiles and Good Lookin turned around. Then I realized that they DO look A LOT alike.
Good Lookin is a little bean pole with NO fat on him whereas Mr. Smiles has more muscle. They also have drastically opposite personalities. But this last year Good Lookin has grown so much that he and Mr. Smiles can now share all but a few clothes.

Which brings me back to the Twin part. Luke's family (much to my true delight) gave them all gifts that were basically the same. Grandmama and Papa gave them new bikes that they had each picked out on their own. Yeah!!! They LOVED them. Cousins and Uncle Tony gave them both the same Lego sets but in different colors and both bows and arrows. No favorites. No one got bigger or better and they were BOTH really excited for each other and themselves. I had a moment when they were opening the Monster Truck Lego sets at the same time that, at least in this small moment, this must be what a taste of what it is to have twins.