La-Tee-Dah-Tee, We Likes To Pahty!

Well, this has been quite a busy Saturday for our little family. I had to run to W@lm@rt this morning to grab a last minute gift for a birthday party we were going to (yes, I suppose I was suffering from a brief, oh who am I kidding, PERMANENT bout of insanity to go W@lm@rt in Nogales on a Saturday with my almost 3 year old), then to a great huge BP hoopla from noon to 3:30 and from there we headed to 2-year-old Manuelito's birthday party.

The BP barbeque was nice: burgers, (some with cheese, some without), hot dogs, brats, a small fly infested salad, some pasta salad, lots of cookies and soda pop. Some kids got to break this itty-bitty pinata and grab a coupla suckers and run around with them while their parents yelled at them to stop. Since it was at the park just down the street from us, Noah got to play on the equipment for a few minutes and then we had to go to the birthday party.

Soooo...on our way to Lito's house (He is the 4th Manuel, so they call him Manuelito, Lito for short), we see this huge air filled bouncy thing in their yard, like the ones you see at the fair. That was just the beginning! We walked in and Lito's dad says he's glad that we could make it and he'd have someone bring us a plate of food. Since we had just eaten, we asked for a small amount and went to sit down. While Noah booked it to to the bouncy thing, we were brought a plate full of the most tender beef I have ever eaten, beans, potato salad, pasta salad, rice and a tortilla. Then we were offered any drink we wanted as well. As I shared as much of my plate of food with Noah and my friend Brenda as I could and listened to some kickin' Mexican jams, I couldn't help but notice a HUGE-MANTIC Lighting McQueen pinata sitting on the back porch. It must have been 4 feet long and so stuffed with candy that Helaman could hardly pick it up. We commented on it and he said the he (of course) got it in Mexico and since they were so cheap, he bought 3 instead of 1. Thinking that he was going put the other two away for another time, I asked where he was going to store them.

"Store them?" He asked, perplexed. "We stuffed them!"

So we had the jams, the friends, the food, the candy, the fun, and then...the dessert. Lito's mom told me to go into his room and check out the cakes. Yep, cakes. Plural. So I go to check them out. And there are these two giant cakes (full sheets), one with a penguin on it and another with a little Mexican girl on it.

"The first one is banana cream custard, and the second one is strawberry cream custard." She told me.

My mouth started to water.

So, while I got to carry on competely adult (ahem...I mean grown up) conversations (Noah would not come out of the bouncy thing), and listen to fun music and eat fantastic food and watch all the kids swing for their little lives at the scary paper mache creatures, I realized something...

DANG!!! These people know how to PAR-TAY!!!!