Tuesday, December 21, 2010

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!!

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

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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.

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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. Smile

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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.

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

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Ready and waiting…

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Michael's Birthday 089

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

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

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

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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. Smile

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Michael's Birthday 108

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.

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Michael's Birthday 165

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He’s too cute.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

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. Smile  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.

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Em's Birthday (24)

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

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

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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?

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

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

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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.

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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!