Jensen's 1st Birthday

My Baby Boy is a year old!  It's hard to believe he is already this big, the year has just completely flown by.  I wasn't ready for the day, but it came anyway.  The kids were so excited to celebrate his birthday and have a big party for him...   

Of course we had to start his first birthday with his first birthday muffin...

...wondering what all the fuss is about.  Ohhh, there it is!  Still a little sleepy, but he did enjoy that muffin! 

We had a very busy day that day that involved 2 trips to the school, (well 3 counting including our regular Kindergarten pick up)  Jensen was great all day and happy even with my dragging him around half the day.  Our first trip at 9:00 was for me to do my final "Reading Store", I've been in charge of our PTA's reading store this year, where the kids get prizes for their reading minutes.  The 3rd and last trip was for the end of the year awards assembly.  Pierson received an award for "Outstanding Academic Achievement" for scoring a 99% on his end of level Language Arts test!  He was so excited to get an award and I was very proud of him!  In between those events I made frosting and frosted cupcakes like crazy, then after school it was time to set up and get ready for the big party!  

We had our cousins, Grandma and a few friends over for a front yard BBQ.  (Backyard doesn't really work for us what with all the dirt and all, but thankfully our front yard has great shade in the evening) Ryan grilled and everyone enjoyed delicious food while the kids played.  The friends we invited were all of my close friends with babies,  AKA Jensen's girlfriends.  Seriously, can you believe he is the only boy out of 5 of us having babies in the same year?! 

The babies of 2011 - Jana & Kapree, Kathryn & Heidi, Julianne & Sarah, Me &  Jensen, Staci & Alli 

I love these girls so much, I am so very blessed with such wonderful close friends! I know this picture will be a treasure in 20 years.

He got lots of fun gifts and had plenty of help opening them!  

We were all excited to make Jensen a giant cupcake for his birthday and it did not disappoint!  I loved how it turned out, so fun! 

And now, what the party was really all about!  Here's our sweet, sweet boy enjoying his birthday cupcake...

As you can tell he's already got a sprinkle on his lip, he had dipped into the frosting the moment I set it in front of him! 

He thoroughly enjoyed it!  

We love our Jensen boy so much! 

Madi is 6!

My little Madi girl is 6!  I am usually a bit sad for my kids' birthdays, it's so fun and exciting for them and I love that, but it always makes me a bit sad that they are yet another year older and growing way too fast!  This birthday however, was an exception.  I have been looking forward to Madi turning 6 for months!  She has been a hard 5 year old to say the least.  Of course you all know how sweet and adorable she is, and some of you have the choice experience of seeing how not sweet she can be.  And believe me it's just as not sweet as the sweet!  She has been a real challenge for me this past year and I have been fervently hoping that being 6 will help her grow out of her tantrums and fits.  

And due to her fits and losses of privileges we kept her birthday very simple.  I tried for the last couple months to use her birthday as leverage, telling her that she'd lose her friend party if she didn't shape up.  But did that work?  oh no!  She simply replied, "well I've never had just a family party before."  What a stinker.  So the friend party was not happening this year and I"ll admit I enjoyed keeping it so simple, it was so easy!  

We started the morning with our traditional birthday muffin, my kids love this and I love that what they want is so easy, thanks to Costco!  I love her excitement here...

She was so excited to wear her "birthday girl" shirt to school, (so glad I found this gem last year and bought it a size big) and to take treats to her class.  

After school I let her spend the day with her best friend, Annie.  They had fun playing all afternoon and I  they were thrilled to go get a Happy Meal for lunch.  Pierce had a baseball game that evening and Madi did not want to do her birthday dinner with out Brother so we headed to Pizza Factory for an very early dinner at 4:30.  It was actually so nice, we practically had the place to our selves!  It has been really fun tradition to add to our family, the kids love getting their special birthday pizza.  Here she is with her #6...

She was such a good sport to endure Brother's baseball game thinking of how excited she was to get home and open her presents.  Excited and eager birthday girl...

She loved the LaLa Loopsie dolls that we got her and was so excited!  Love this face...

Since we had the conflict of the baseball game we decided to do her "cousin party" the following night (I couldn't let her go totally party-less and she was thrilled to have a simple cake and ice cream party with her cousins).  So we saved her cake for the next night and sang to her and enjoyed some of my cinnamon rolls (thanks to my freezer stash!)

She loved it!  

The next night we had all our local cousins over along with our close friends the Woodburys and the Brooks.  The kids were so funny, since we kept referring to the party as "the cousin party", they were thoroughly confused as to why I had invited "Annie's family" and "Joey's family".  Pierce asked me at one point in our conversation about it, "so Mom, Joey is  our family?!"  He loved the though of that!  I had to explain to them that even though it was a "cousin party" I was inviting them because they are our very close and special friends.  We sang to Madi, served cake and ice cream, opened gifts and then sent everyone on their way with a simple goody bag!  Honestly, I loved it!  So easy, and she was just as thrilled and excited as if I'd spent hours on a pinata, planning games and cutsie goody bags.  

Here she is with her "Lala Loopsy" cake, this was the kind of cake she wanted this year, so it worked great to give her the new Loopsies and then just use them to decorate her cake.  She loved it and it was so cute! 

It took some serious effort to blow those candles out...

But one by one she got them! 

She got plenty spoiled with fun gifts! 

My wonderful and talented friend, Julianne, made her this darling apron!  Isn't it the cutest?  I love it!  she loves it too and is so excited to help me in the kitchen so she can wear it. 

This is not a great pic but I had to include it, to show off her other cute handmade gift.  My amazing friend, Kathryn, made her this darling little crayon/notebook carrier for church.  It holds a notebook on one side and crayons on the other and is personalized with her name on the front.  She loves taking it to church!  I am so lucky to have such talented friends to make my children such wonderful and special handmade gifts!  

What a great two day celebration we had!  Madi was such a happy birthday girl and it was so fun to celebrate her, we love our Madi girl!