THE MATRIARCH IS 76 YEARS OLD

My grandmother turns 76 years old today (happy birthday Grandmom)! It's amazing to think that she's so young with 7 children of her own, 23 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild. We celebrated family-style at my parent's house and although the rain drove us inside at the beginning of the party it eventually stopped and the family games began.



Mom, Grandmom and I (three generations of good looking women)



My cousin, Lucas, cracks me up in this picture. I think he was preparing himself to help Grandmom out if she couldn't blow out all of her candles. I also really enjoy the fact that we had three lemon meringue pies, one chocolate pie, cake pops, homemade fig newtons and cream puffs. More desserts than dinner foods? Always a plus.

My cousin, Frances, who is 12 years old is a baking genius and always makes the cutest cupcakes. This time she decided to make these cake pops that look like bees. This was my first cake pop experience and omg! it was fantastically sugary.

If you eat that much dessert you have to find a way to work off the sugar highs...

When my family gets together we have a new family tradition of playing competitive games. This time around we played "Cheater's Croquet" which was for all of the cheating relatives (coughagnescough). They didn't have to keep their cheating ways a secret anymore... The game involved adults playing the game and kids using water guns as a distractions. The kids were more fun to watch.

 The second game we played was a take off of "The Amazing Race" and we had mini-competitions to complete. I was on a team with my cousin Grace & Aunt Celia. We called ourselves the CGCs.

The competitions involved running down a hill blindfolded (or in this case wearing goggles covered in tape) and trying to find flags, putting together puzzles, making paper rings and moving an oreo down your face into your mouth only using your facial muscles, lolol; all silly stuff but so fun.

The winners of the race overall?? THE CGCS!!! WOOOHOOO!!!

I never win anything because my husband is a game genius. So I'm glad he didn't play and I got to win something!!! Yayyy!!!!

And of course, a family blog isn't complete without Miranda. After the rain stopped my sister actually let her baby play in the rainwater. She loves being in water and splashing around!

PS: Hey look! Kyle finally made the blog.