Ty's Birthday!!

I have a sweet brother named Ty.  He's awesome! He also doesn't really like being the center of attention.  So when I decided that he needed a birthday party.... he was not such a HUGE fan of the idea.  In fact, he was very against the idea.  So we decided to change things up a little bit -- we'd throw a birthday party... but not tell anyone that it was Ty's birthday! Great idea right? All the happiness of a party without the center of attention part!

It was super fun to plan this thing because it was like an inside joke for Ty and I.  The only problem was: I have a big mouth, Chelsea (my friend from home) has a great memory, and some of my sweet roommates are really good at overhearing things, meaning: I accidentally told Stacey what was going on.  Chelsea remembered Ty's birthday all on her own (you all need sweet friends like her!), and when I was telling Chelsea not to tell anyone about it my roommate Amy overheard us...

But just because half the guests knew what was going on -- it was still fun!

So.. after Church Chelsea and I made Lasagna, which I've discovered isn't actually that hard.  But when I told my home teachers that what I was making for dinner one of my home teachers was really impressed!
Home teacher: "From scratch?"
Me: "Yes!"
Home teacher: "Like with cottage cheese?"
Me: "Yep!"
Home teacher: ! (exclamation and look of astonishment)...

After dinner was made we did some final preparations.  Stacey made some place cards and we carefully planned where all (NINE) of our guests would sit around our smallish table.  Then we waited as our guests slowly filed in.

The super-packed table!

The Place Cards

Once mostly everyone arrived at our house, we found out that one of our guests would be fifteen minutes late.  I had everyone take a vote about if we should wait or not -- the majority voted to wait. So 15 minutes later our guest had still not arrived, so after voting again we decided to eat with out the final guest.  He showed up three minutes into dinner so it wasn't too terrible of us!

The Grub!

I believe my meal was smashing success! I received compliments and people were taking seconds! I've found that I really do enjoying having people over for dinner -- there's always such a sense of accomplishment at the end!

After everyone had eaten their fill, there was still quite a bit of food left over, but I was leaving the next day to go back to Wyoming for two weeks of summer -- so I was not going to have rotting left-overs in my fridge while I was away. So I re-instated the voting system -- and I had everyone vote about who was going to finish what food. BEST PART OF THE WHOLE NIGHT. I didn't think anyone would go along with it and then slowly all the food disappeared. SO FUNNY. I laughed so hard I cried. Ask Ty -- he kept telling me to calm down. So funny.

Anyway we voted again about what do next -- eat dessert or play a game.  We opted for game then dessert. We cleaned up dinner first and just as were loading the dishwasher we noticed we wouldn't have enough forks for dessert ... so we told everyone to spit wash their forks and leave them on their place cards.. SO FUNNY again.  After a few rounds of boys versus girls Catch Phrase (girls won 2-1), we came back to the kitchen for some peach cobbler (Ty's favorite!).

We all sang happy birthday to the person to our left and everyone made a wish and blew out a candle! Then Amy had everyone go around and tell everyone when their birthdays were -- the cat was out the bag. EVERYONE KNEW. Ty and I played it off well though and it was still super fun!

Here's the group:

The group with Stacey.

The group with Chelsea -- please notice our super awesome place cards! :)

Even though Ty will hate this part of the post -- I'd like to include a few reasons why I love celebrating my super cool brother.

1. He helps me a better person. Whether he's telling me to be nicer, or helping me make better goals this kid has a good head on his shoulders and often steers me the right direction.
2. He gives good advice. He's great at listening and telling me things that matter. I super trust his opinion!
3. He's funny. After Ty left for college, I think Todd and I really tried to model Ty's sense of humor.  He's just so funny it's hard not to try to copy him.  He makes some really good jokes.
4. He is super nice to everyone and tries hard to find the good in all of us. Even if I'm not as good at that, it's still nice to have his charitable perspective.
5. He's a really good older brother! He's always patient with Todd and I and I really appreciate it!

You all should be lucky enough to get know Ty sometime -- he's a really great guy! I feel blessed to be able to celebrate such a great dude!