Our weekend

My niece and sister-in-law both had birthdays this weekend, so we headed down to Mama's house (2 1/2 hours away from home) for the weekend.

We left after work Friday evening and got there about 9:30 p.m. The frustrating thing about the ride down is that sometimes Biscuit gets sleepy in the car, which means he could sleep for 15 minutes or he could sleep the entire 2 1/2 hours. Naps aren't innately bad, but when the nap happens about 7 p.m., all bets are off for the rest of the night.

What usually happens is that we get to Mama's, and Biscuit is wide open. Then it takes us until midnight to call him down enough to sleep. Then, since he isn't sleeping in his own bed, he wakes up early. 

Then Saturday, we spend the day with my parents, my brother and his wife and three kids, which often means no nap for Biscuit. Then he gets overly tired and hard to deal with on Saturday night, which means he sleeps restlessly and talks in his sleep. 

Then we go to church with Mama on Sunday morning, have lunch with everybody, hang out for a while, then we come home. Usually, Biscuit is so tired from his off-kilter sleep schedule and from playing with his cousins, he crashes on the way home. He usually sleeps away most of the trip, then by the time we get home, he's rested and wide open. 

It sounds like the trips are terrible, but compared to some of the stories I've heard from other parents, Biscuit seems to handle the weird sleep schedule pretty well.

Plus, he's just so excited about being at my parents' house and my brother's house. My parents live in the woods. My Daddy has a tractor, a riding lawn mower and a dune buggy, all greatly appealing to Biscuit. The dune buggy is a 60s-model Bug that Daddy rigged up with roll bars. My brother and I both learned to drive on that thing when we were about 7 or 8. It's a stick-shift, so after learning to drive on it, I was really confused the first time I got into a car with an automatic transmission.

My 8-year-old nephew is learning to drive it. He drove Daddy and Biscuit around the field in front of my parents' house. It's funny to me how relaxed my Daddy is about the whole thing. He just sits in the passenger seat and rides, occasionally throwing out some instructions.

My niece's birthday party was Saturday afternoon. The theme was flip-flops, and I made her cake after finding a cute example to follow online.

I made the top of the cake look like it was covered in sand (crushed vanilla wafers). I also made some candy sea shells in lavender and white with sprinkles.

My brother and sister-in-law have birthday parties down to a science. My brother cut a piece of plywood a little bit smaller than those rectangle table cloths you can buy. He sets it up on sawhorses in the garage, and that's where the cake, plates, napkins and presents go. Another table is set up with a cooler under it for drinks. Then they set up a fold-up camping picnic table and a small picnic table my brother built for his kids. 

The kids arrive and immediately go out to play. My brother has built a playground in his back yard. Actually, that's what Biscuit calls is ... the playground. There's a playset that has three swings, two slides, a fort, a sandbox, a trapeze and monkey bars. There's a seesaw. There's a trampoline. And there's a tree house that has a club house door in the bottom and a fireman's pole that you get to by climbing out one of the windows.

After the kids play, they come in for food. We light candles and sing. Then everybody gets cake, ice cream and chips. After they eat, the kids go back out to play some more.

When it's time to open presents, the gift giver sits in a chair beside the birthday kid. That way, you get a picture of everybody there, plus if presents get mixed up, you can look at the pictures and tell who gave what.

I went inside my brother's house at one point, and I saw the photo collage I made him for his surprise 40th birthday party. I was happy he had it hanging up somewhere. He's pretty stoic about most things, but he really enjoyed that party, and I think this collage with everybody's signatures will be a good reminder of that night.

So despite missing a good bit of sleep, we all had a good time. It's always good to get our whole group together. When we're all at my parents' house, we tend to split up into small groups. The kids play together in the living room or outside. My Mama, sister-in-law and I often sit at the dining room table or on the front porch and talk. Jeff, my Daddy and my brother go to my Daddy's shop and shoot pool. But even when we're scattered about, we're still all there together.