Michael Turned 1!

You know, 6 months ago, anyway. Somehow I never blogged about it, and I’m feeling a blogging block right now, so I’m just going to post the pictures from his 1st birthday party that I always wanted to post but for some reason never did. Better late then never!!

The first present Michael opened. Lily was very willing to help, but we managed to hold her back.

Cars! This kid got lots of cars for his birthday, and he loved them all. Still does!

We had a party the Saturday after his birthday. I really wanted it outside and since we were still in the condo at that point, Stephanie let my crash her place! We had it in her backyard and it was awesome. Actually, I only went to the last half of it because I had been feeling pretty under the weather that day, but fortunately I started to feel better just in time to watch my little guy blow out his candle on his first cake.

At the party we played Guess how old Michael is in Each Picture. I was pretty proud of myself for my picture choices, almost everybody was really stumped. Ashlyn won by a pretty fair margin.

My parents brought their ball pit, and it was easily the kids’ favorite part of the party. All the kids were in and out of it all morning.

The cake! Polka dot was the theme of the party – I had a lot of fun making the cake to match.

Ready and waiting…

Tentative at first, Michael went straight for the candy circles.

It didn’t take him too long to dig in though! Obviously, he loved it!

Little kids sure know how to enjoy themselves, don’t they?

Mmmmm. Washing it all down with a cold sippy of milk. He wasn’t so happy a minute later though when we were trying to clean him up!

While Michael chowed down on his piece, we had cupcakes and the rest of the cake for everyone else. I love watching little kids eat cupcakes. It always makes them so happy.

After that it was present time and then nap time. I’m pretty sure Michael fell asleep on the car ride home. Everything was lots of fun, and we all had such a good time celebrating our little guy turn one. And now he’s almost a year and a half!! I love watching my kids grow, but sometimes it happens too fast.

He’s too cute.

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday might have been almost 3 weeks ago now, but I still wanted to write about it, because I had such an awesome 25th birthday. Birthweek, really.   On my birthday, Ben took the day off from work and we spent all day doing Christmas-y stuff. I love Christmas, so this was pretty much perfect. We went and got our Christmas tree that day too, which is always one of my very favorite traditions. We have to go cut one ourselves, and it always takes much longer than it really needs to, because we’re not leaving until we find the absolute perfect tree.

 

(I made him wear the cowboy hat. Doesn’t he look HOT?!)

Can’t skip the Candy Cane for the drive home!

Unfortunately for Michael, he was a little too tired.

After we got the tree home, I enjoyed my favorite salad for lunch while Michael napped and Lily “helped” us with lights. She also tried to put the star on the tree, but couldn’t quite reach. Maybe next year?

Blue cheese, candied pecans, cranberries and sliced apples with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Oh yeah, and lettuce. Yummmmmm!

Another salad shot, cuz I know you all care so much.

Eeeee! I love this picture. Sorry to everyone else’s kids out there, but I seriously have the cutest kids ever. Look at those little buns! (K, I’m done gushing.)

Wanna hear a funny story? I decided I didn’t want cake for my birthday, but an apple pie instead. I was super excited about it because Ben makes really yummy apple pie, and I wouldn’t even have to share cuz the kids were already in bed. We take it out of the oven and try to let it cool, but it’s getting late and I didn’t want to wait any longer, so we stuck some candles in while it was still warm. I’m sure you all can guess what happened a lot quicker than we figured it out.

 
I noticed that even though Ben had put them in straight, the candles were looking kinda wobbly. But I just decided that it was cuz the apple filling is not as firm as cake and doesn’t hold them as well. I didn’t even figure it out when I pulled one out to adjust and there’s an inch of wick hanging from the bottom of the candle. It took until after I’d blown out the candles and started to pull them out and they all had an inch or more of wick hanging from the bottom to put two and two together and realize that I’d totally melted my candles inside my obviously-still-too-warm pie. I know, I’m a total genius. We were able to eat around (most) of the wax. Good thing we only put in 6 instead of 25!

Bethany’s Baptism and Rachel’s Birthday

Mostly a picture post, I wanted to get the pictures from these events up because I know there are family wanting to see them. Bethany turned 8 recently and had her baptism on November 13th, the same day Rachel turned 3! Both events were lots of fun, and it was really nice to see Ben’s parents again. We hadn’t seen them since May when Matthew got home from his mission. Ben’s brother Dave lives in Portland, so that’s where we stayed the weekend of Bethany’s baptism. We had a really good time taking some time away from home just to hang with family and of course be there for Bethany’s special time.

Pretty Bethany!

The whole family – from left to right there’s Savannah (3), Nathan (6), Dave, Debbie, Charity (1.5) and Bethany.

Everyone who was able to come. It was great to be all together for the weekend.

The birthday girl!

Rachel opening presents. Lily enjoyed being the one to hand them to her.

Cute cake Andy made. It was yummy too.

The end. I didn’t take my camera out much, mostly because I was too busy doing other things with everybody!

Behind

Obviously I’m a little slow getting pictures of our corn maze/pumpkin picking adventure up, but it was such a fun day I wanted to share. So excuse my tardiness, and enjoy some pictures!

My cute sister came with us. She’s fun to hang out with, and she’s really good with my kids. Score.

Michael took awhile to decide that he liked walking around the corn maze. It might have had something to do with his needing a nap – it was kind of a spur of the moment decision to go to a Pumpkin Farm and not just Safeway to get our pumpkins, so we didn’t plan around naptime. We tried to carry Michael at first, but had to settle for chasing him around, herding him in the right direction, and playing lots of games of “jump out of the cornstalks roaring like a monster.”

After the corn maze, we were off to pick our pumpkins. I wish we had planned ahead a little more and done some of the other activities, like the petting zoo and some of the other kids’ activities, but there was no time. Next time!

It was a really big pumpkin farm. I think we explored all of 1 1/2 rows of pumpkins before grabbing ours. So many to choose from!

My mom’s cute boots on my sister. I really wish I had some cute rain boots! You know, my birthday is coming up…

Picking the perfect pumpkin. It’s apparently a complicated process including how they smell.

Our multicolored finds!

Driving home! Ok, not really. I was surprised that Lily was excited about the tractor and wanted to sit in it. She really liked it though.

I can’t seem to finish this post, so that must mean it’s getting too long. Part two to follow!