The Party

The birthday party was a success. I was a little worried having never thrown a party before and I've only been to one but it was recent enough that I kind of had an idea of what to expect. We invited most of the kids from nursery and five of the six were able to come so we had a good turnout. It was great because the kids just played with the toys while the adults visited. I felt like this was a big step for me because it's hard for me to put myself out there and get to know people. I usually stay home with M. We don't get out to socialize much and I'm in the nursery at church so I don't get a lot of adult interaction there either. Anyway this was our party.

Yes, I staged the toys. Travis teased me for this but I had fun doing it.Of course, it was Thomas themed. The balloons were a big hit with the kids.

The cake was marble flavor. Super yummy. The train from the cake goes on outings with us so M will have something to keep him happy and Mommy sane.

He needed a little help blowing out the candles. I guess we didn't practice enough during the week. I think he'll be able to do it on his own next year.
This is after all the kids left. I think it looks like M leaves it on a daily basis. Travis thought it would be messier so he was pleasantly suprised.

Of course Travis was in the living room on the computer so he wasn't the one to clean up the kitchen and this was only the table. The counters were just as bad if not worse.
All said and done, the party was great, the food was good, the kids had fun and I hope to do it all over next year.

The Birthday

I think that when we got up on M's birthday Travis and I were more excited than the birthday boy. But only because we knew what he was getting and that he would LOVE it. Travis had to work the morning of and he didn't want to miss out on the Thomas Time so we had M open all of his non-Thomas presents in the morning and the rest after his nap when Travis was home. As soon as all the presents were open I think he played with them for about two hours.
We went to Taco Bell for dinner. You can probably guess who picked where to eat. Yes, I'm a sucker for Taco Bell.
M didn't just get train stuff for presents. He also got clothes, matchbox construction trucks, a motorcycle, and some books. He also got a little bit of cash from grandparents and I think I know what we're going to get for him with it. Sometimes we have a hard time getting him to part with his beloved wooden trains at bedtime so we got on amazon and looked for plush Thomas toys and found one that I think will make bedtime much easier. Lets hope so.

From Mom and Dad

Matchbox trucks from G'pa Smith

Motorcycle from G'ma and G'pa Turner

G'pa Smith also gave him expansion sets for his tracks. They are a lot of fun.

And that was the birthday. My baby is two years old now. It's weird to say that but I'll get used to it. Probably in time for his next birthday.

Easter/Conference Weekend

M got this little train for Easter and it's part of the Thomas set. He has been obsessed with train for a while now and he was so excited to find this in his basket this year. Travis got up with him that morning and as soon as he changed his diaper M took off for the living room and ran back to the bedroom to show mommy what he found. I don't think he even noticed that there was candy in his basket.

We had some yummy crepes with fresh strawberries and blueberries or eggs and bacon for breakfast. In the past we've had leftovers and ended up throwing them out later in the week but this time around we ran out and I was kind of wanting more. Oh well. There is another conference in a few months as well as another round of crepes. I think I can wait that long unless someone wants to feed us crepes while we are in Idaho visiting family. *wink, wink*

We weren't sure what we were going to do to keep M quiet for conference and Travis came up with this idea. I don't know where it came from but we have this big roll of butcher paper and we took some of it and drew and colored some train tracks for M so he would have some tracks to play with his new train on. It worked out really well. We had fun making it and M was more than excited to get to use it. It kept him busy for almost all of conference.

Overall, we had a great weekend. It was really nice to just spend it at home as a family.

It's been a while

So I guess it hasn't been as long as I thought since I posted but it's still been longer than I planned when I started this blog. It isn't necessarily because M keeps me too busy to sit down and work on posting; it's more that he gets jealous if I'm giving the computer the attention that he thinks should be given to him. This post isn't in any particular order. I just emptied my sd card onto the computer and I'll share some of the best pictures and/or videos.


Here goes:

I think M wanted a little more time with the baby powder. He wasn't pleased when he got caught with it.

I think it's funny that he rarely eats anything from the end first. He tends to start in the middle.

I had the hardest time finding this stuff he had shoved behind the drawer in the entertainment center. That snack cup and the two cars were missing for two or three weeks.

M loves to put his spiderman chair on the couch. I don't think he meant to tip over.

He loves this kind of music.

More Florida

More Catch-up

So we got home from Idaho on Jan 2 and stayed up until about 2am doing laundry so we could pack for our trip to Florida.

I thought people went to Florida for the warm weather but I guess we got lucky and it was cold. We went to the parks anyway and had a really good time. A picture is worth a thousand words so here you go.

Busy, Busy, Busy

The last month has been really busy. We went to Idaho to spend Christmas with family and stayed for two weeks. We had lots of fun (as soon as we started feeling better). I started getting sick the day before we were to leave. Travis started getting sick on the day we left and M waited till we got to Idaho. He wasn't near as sick as he was over Thanksgiving though.

I dipped more chocolates with my mom so I could bring some home. I ended up with more than I thought I would too.

Christmas Eve and Day were great. We went to parties on Christmas Eve and started Christmas Day with the Smith side and ended on the Turner side.

Travis got a Wii, a nice suit, a booklight (M broke his so this was from him), a briefcase, a temple bag and more. I got a nice set of pots and pans that I can't wait to use, as well as a griddle, a watch, a temple bag, and Santa brought us Wii Fit Plus. M got lots of fun toys that he loves, and some clothes that he didnt't get real excited about (but I did). We also got some yummy homemade jam from Grandma Turner and Aunt Shon. Good stuff.

We decided to head home on the 31st. That seemed to be the best day for weather and we didn't want to be out on the roads late on New Year's Eve with all the party animals. So we left Thursday morning around 8:30 and made it to Kimball NE. Not as far as we wanted to get but far enough to get home the following day. If only. We woke up Friday morning and one of our tires was near flat (about 5 psi). We aired it up and had to drive to Colorado to get it looked at. It's not easy to find a tire place open on New Year's Day. I think the trip down to CO cost us about two hours on the road and another 1 1/2 to 2 hours waiting for them to find a leak in the tire. Turns out they couldn't find a leak but they put some air in it anyway. We didn't want to drive on it overnight and potentially get a flat in the middle of nowhere and have to empty the trunk to get to the spare and all that, so we only made about 5 hours progress and ended up in North Platte. Saturday morning Travis took the car to a tire place to see if they could find a leak because we had been adding air to it about every 1 1/2 hours all day Friday. This place couldn't find a leak either so we said a prayer and left for home once again. The tire held air the whole day and we made it home in one piece.

We thought it would take us 24 to 36 hours to get home and it ended up taking three whole days.

So today we had to unpack, do laundry and pack again for a trip to Florida first thing Monday morning. I'm glad we're flying for this trip. I'm getting tired of sitting in the car.

Having some cheerios for breakfast Christmas morning.

Shouldn't the smaller of the cousins be riding, not giving the ride?