Chris's Surprise Party

On Sunday we were able to go to Chris McDonnell's surprise 30th birthday party. It was a lot of fun! Ania had Chris blindfolded when they pulled up and I managed to capture his surprise face:

Turning Chris in the right direction. :)

Ready...set...

...SURPRISE!

After Chris made his way down the line of party goers he looked around and asked "Where are we?" Ania had driven in some circles after blindfolding him to get him confused. :)

We had delicious meatball subs and a large variety of sides. Max (our pickiest eater) ended up having chips, brownies and cake for dinner. That wasn't the plan of course, but oh well. It wasn't a huge crowd, but a nice sized one. Of the McDonnell family the Brown's, Aunt Lorrie and Uncle Fred, Ali and our family were able to come (and of course Chris's whole family, Aunt Linda, Uncle Jim, Kimmie, Amy and Dustin and Hadley, David and Cheryl).

A bunch of the McDonnell's there

Chris is Max's godfather but he is also (I think) one of Max's idols. Max LOVES playing with Chris. Actually being the wild monkey that he is, Max probably needs to settle down quite a bit when around Chris. :) For large chunks of the party all the kids were at one of the two playgrounds, but whenever Max was in the pavilion he was usually hanging off of Chris in some way or another. Sorry Chris :) We have pictures from back when Max was only 1 and 2 years old, when Chris's family would come to our house for Thanksgiving, and Max is tackling Chris then too!

Notice Joey in the left hand corner watching?

So cute! Everybody was laughing at Uncle Jim in the pictures. You can't tell in this picture but he looks hilarious in a couple of the pictures!

The cake was so cute! It had the cutest picture of Chris on it. I didn't get a good picture of the cake so this will have to do:

Wondering about the fingermark in the top righthand corner of the picture on the cake? That was Ben of course. He also removed a candle, licked it, put it back in the cake, took it out and licked it again and was going for a third dip before someone next to him realized it and took the candle away. lol...needless to say, that became a piece of cake for Ben.

Getting ready to cut the cake. Notice the knife in Kimmie's hand? lol

Kimmie was cutting the cake and she cut huge pieces. Of course all the kids were like "woah! This is so big! I get to eat all of this?"

Another one of the differences between the McDonnell and Anthony family. If my mom started to cut those size pieces at an Anthony family party all the adults would start teasing her and saying things like "really? Teresa those are WAY to big! ect." however McDonnell's are like "yeah! bring it on! dessert! yes! ect." lol, is it hard to figure out which is the sanguine dominated family?

Being fed cake by (I think) Kimmie.

Left: Ben and Hadley                        Right: Hadley

The balloons were a big hit with the little kids. They loved them!

Left: Joey watching the balloons while Haley Walsh ties his shoe    Right: One of the cutest pictures ever!

Cheryl!

Most of Chris and Ania's friends that were there. (Plus Cecilia)

About to open his stack of cards

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It was a great afternoon spent with fun people. Happy Birthday Chris!

We're pretty busy getting ready for our own big party, our 4th of July McDonnell family party, with most of the elephantine McDonnell clan on the 4th this Monday.
Love,
Mary Kate