Birthday Bash!

This past Saturday, we celebrated Joe, Bella, Jay and Uncle Doug's birthdays in a Mitlo family kinda way.  The first step of the family soiree is picking the menu...usually the host will pick the main course and all the others will bring the appetizers, sides, dessert, pop, etc.  I always, always, always leave the menu picking and assignment distribution up to Jay simply because I don't care.  Spaghetti pie?  Great!  Burgers and dogs?  Great!  Ham and potatoes?  Great!  See?  I'm no help at all. 

Well, Jay decided he wanted to do "Pizza Olympics".   What?  You've never heard of "Pizza Olympics"?  Allow me to explain....several people call different pizza places and order the same thing from each place at the same time.  As the pizzas arrive, prizes are given to first, second and third place.  Everyone at the party guesses which place they think will get there first and cheers for the confused delivery person upon arrival.

We called Papa John's, Vocelli's, Carol of Casey's, Fox's and Vincent's.  And yes, we are well aware that Vincent's doesn't deliver...we sent our brother-in-law, who invited Jay's dad along for the ride, to go get the pizza.  They were gone for about an hour and smelled a bit like hops when they returned.  They did not win.

Papa John's came in first place!  We were blaring the Olympic music so loudly it sent children running.  Joe tried to present Dude with an actual (fake) gold medal and baggie of goodies.  Dude did not care.  At all.  I think he may have had a baggie of his own goodies on the brain.

Vocelli's came in second and this guy was such a good sport!  Though as he drove away, he quickly stopped and backed down our street to confirm that we played fairly!  What did we order from Papa John's?  Did we order at the same time?  We assured him it was all on the up and up and he was free to carry on.

Casey's came in third!  This guy was just confused...though, I imagine it has to be a bit nerve wracking to pull up to a house with a bunch of people screaming, music blaring and taking your picture!  This white pizza, by the way, was my personal fav!

Fox's came in fourth and got nothing!  I felt bad about that and wanted to at least make a goodie bag for the guy.  What does a fourth place Olympian receive, Jay asked me????  Ummmm nothing?  That's right, nothing!  He's still got his tip, so I guess I didn't lose any sleep over it.

As I said before, Bob and Poppi took their sweet time returning from Vincent's to come in fifth.  Now, a Vinny pie experience is taken VERY seriously by the Mitlo clan.  We may have even had a moment of silence for Vincent who recently went to the pizza place in the sky.  Even after jokes were made that there were a few extra ashes on the grease soaked pizza board, no one was deterred from finishing the whole thing...even the scraps on the board.  I, myself, do not partake in a Vinny pie  Or really any food that I have to pour grease off of first.

This was my brother's first time eating a Vinny pizza.  He likey!

It was also Baby Trey's first Vinny pie...we eventually had to stop giving it to him.  I thought I heard his tiny arteries hardening.

Moving on to our craft portion of the evening....

Everyone had a good time decorating an eggshell, then planting mung beans inside.  When the beans sprout it will look like the egghead has hair...and it can be eaten, too!

Baby Trey had had enough shenanigans and was sick of people telling him to stop falling off chairs, so off to bed he went.  While he talked to himself in his crib, everyone opened their gifts in a flurry of bows, tissue paper and screams of excitement.  Then, onto cake and ice cream.  This shouldn't be a big deal, right?  Well, clearly you've never sang "Happy Birthday" with this rowdy crowd.  Everyone must be sung to individually in the slower traditional version...then we sing the Chi-Chi's style version as loud as possible about 12 times.  Seriously.

Baby Trey loves this part of any party...so we had to get him out of bed to sing with us.  I think I've read that in a bunch of parenting books...ya know, how it's a good idea to get your kid outta bed, get him all riled up, then put him back in his crib?

Anywho, the party was great (minus an unfortunate silly string incident that ruined my hair and almost burned down Poppi)....though, strangely no one stayed to help clean up....