Madi's Fourth Birthday.

I surely do wish I had a count of how many times I've started a post with "Better late than never". And like the countless others, here we go again. This time it's all about Madi's fourth birthday!! And that was two weeks ago!! Sad, sad Mel with the very belated blog post.

Staci let us know that the crew would be meeting at Chuck E. Cheese's. We swung by Target, which was right around the corner, and came in with these awesome party hats to surprise our favorite cousin!

When Gabs hits Chuck E. Cheese's, she doesn't do it in "walk" mode!

And there she is, the queen of the hour!

These two are two peas in a pod. They LOVE to play with each other. They never seem to tire of seeing each other, and at our house, first option for someone over to play is always Cousin Madi!

And you better put on yo jacket, cause hell may be freezing over!!! Hayden was at the soiree'! That's just short of a miracle!

I was so excited, I HAD to get him (BRIBE him) to take a picture with me.

We occupied three booths with our crew.

And speaking of miracles... this is Jake's little coinpurse. And those are Jake's little Chuck E. Cheese tokens in it. Staci said, "I am making progress", as she showed me that she was using the tokens for tonight's party.

I was really proud of her. She has several things of Jake's, and whether or not it is "healthy" or not to hang onto a deceased child's things is definitely not for me or really anyone, I suppose, to decide. I guess she just felt like she was "ready".

She also showed me a ticket which I am pretty sure had credits Jake had earned at Chuck E. Cheese's (remember how much he LOVED to go there?!!) We took him for his third birthday RIGHT after he went in for a check up at St. Jude. I can remember that like it was yesterday. He had on a navy blue polo shirt, and both of his brothers were in town for it. Now I'll have to go back and look at those pictures. I LIVE by my pictures!!

And now I may need to put on one of those Poise pads, cause I may pee down both legs!! HUNTER was there too!?? WHAT?!! Both of the teenage boys hangin with the fam. What a great night!

Wonder where Pops is?!

I'll show you in just a minute.

aha!! Here he is, monitoring the comings and goings of one Gabbi Louanne Groves.

Gabbi gets totally consumed with rides and games and action.

Meanwhile back at the PIZZA!

I had to step back and get the sign on the side of this machine!! Wow.

These two liked any machine that required minimal effort and spit out all kinds of tickets!! Ellie figured out which machines did that in nothing flat.

Someone who may like gaming as much as Gabbi Girl is her Aunt Staci. She and Pops, actually, are the two in the fam who could play games all day long.

This is that game where you strategically drop in the coins and they push the other coins forward until some of them may or may not drop off. I can get rather obsessed with this one myself!! It's where I can spend all my money at the fair!

And then we heard this little voice....and it was Gabbi Girl, with her shoe caught in the netting. POPS TO THE RESCUE.

Wait until you see how he got in there!

And then, consequently, OUT of there!

This opening was literally about knee high.

Good Ol' Pops. He saved the day. And out he emerged with little tan espadrilles!!

And this happy monkey continued on her ascent!

Now THIS was FUNNY!! Hunter never changed his expression. AT. ALL.

This boy was wanting to WIN and was wanting to earn himself some tickets!!

Madi and Ellie were at the table taking care of busieness. Ellie was helping Madi open her gift from us. These two are kind of all about Hello Kitty stuff these days.. And Gabbi was loving her "precious" winnings from cashing in her tickets.

Ellie's tickets got her this awesome blue hair headband...which you can get at the Dollar Store. But, here, it only cost us about $20!

What. A. Deal!!

No matter, though, cause it was our fave cousin's fourth birthday....and there's only one of those!!

MO