8th Birthday party

No pictures tonight. I'll have to add them once I get them uploaded.
We had the boys' birthday party this afternoon. My worries and disappointments about not having enough kids come were quite unfounded. I always forget how little boys, when they come together, multiply at LEAST three-fold in activity and volume.
We had 5 kids come, and honestly it would have been insane with more. As it was, Mosey got a little too wound up. He really wanted this one particular piece of cake (the snake's tail, more on that below), and asked me about 7 times if he could have it. I assured him each time that he could. Then he told me to make sure I gave it to him, because I might get confused with another boy, because "we all look kind of alike." (to be fair, 3 of the other boys also have blue eyes/blondish hair.) He told me to check his swimming suit because no one else had a swimming suit like his. Should I be worried that my son isn't confident I will recognize him in a crowd? Then when I actually WAS cutting the cake, one of the boys joked and said he wanted the whole snake, and Mosey about went nuts, reminding me, quite vociferously, that HE wanted the tail. After giving Joseph his piece (the head), I gave Mosey the end of the tail, and he was finally ok. I have no idea what made him so obsessed about it. Most of the time, though, he was mixing it up with the other kids and having a great time.
Ben couldn't get home from work until halfway through, and so Benjamin was a huge help. He supervised games in the pool, an impromptu game of soccer, lifted and threw 50+ lbs of 8 year old boys into the pool over, and over, and over. The dad of the neighbor kids stayed when he took his kids over, and manned the grill. It was so hot and I really couldn't stay outside for long. Ben got home just before dinner and helped to organize the feeding of the mob kids. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, Doritos, grapes, and juice.
I had spent the morning making the boys' cakes. Joseph requested a snake cake which turned out pretty well, even though Benjamin thought I was a little over-the-top for redoing some of the orange diamonds on its back. Anything worth doing is worth doing right, right? :-) Joseph told us it was a "Brazilian Boa Constrictor." I was so happy to make a cake to make up for the disaster last year. Benjamin actually made the cake, I cut it out, and he helped me to ice it, so it was a joint effort. Thank you, Benjamin!
Brigham invented his own dessert. We had about half of the 9x13 cake (strawberry) left over from the snake cake, so we cut that into cubes and mixed it with a small amount of whipped cream and pressed it into the bottom of a flat-bottomed glass bowl. Then we blended strawberries and cool whip and spread that on top. Then we sliced up a couple of bananas and layered them on top of the strawberry/cool whip, and THEN we spread a quart of softened vanilla ice cream over all of that. We topped it off with crushed oreos and let it set up in the freezer. This was entirely Brigham's invention, and it was GOOD. I think it will have to become a Turner tradition. Brigham's birthday delight.
After more swimming, we dragged the kids out of the pool, sang Happy Birthday, blew out candles, and ate cake (only one small piece of the snake cake left, and most of the strawberry oreo concoction got consumed, so I'm even happier that we won't have much leftover). Then presents (robotics set, electronic set, solar-powered robotics set (sense a theme?), star wars legos, Scrabble Apple game, Bop It game, and cash from grandma. A good haul. The kids all stayed about another hour after the "end" of the party (another sign of success, I think). Then the boys spent another hour and a half after the party putting legos together, assembling robots, etc. I had to practically chase them off to bed.
So I'm feeling very relieved and really looking forward to the boys' birthday and baptism tomorrow morning.