Teddy Bear Birthday Party for Grant

We had a Teddy Bear Picnic Birthday Party for Grant with my family - and it was possibly the most fun I have had at a birthday party! My cheeks and jaw muscles are still sore almost a week later from smiling so much. I woke up the follow morning hardly able to open my jaw it hurt so much - who knew? We decorated with LOTS of teddy bears, a picnic blanket in the middle of the room, a picnic basket, and balloons. In addition to celebrating Grants birthday we also celebrated my moms birthday. She chose enchiladas, corn salsa, Spanish rice, and a salad for dinner - it was yummy!! I don't think we can have a family dinner without moms corn salsa. :) The Guests of Honor!

We played a teddy bear trivia game with questions like what is the largest species of living bear? How many species of bear can you name? How many fictional bears can you name? What sports teams have a bear for a mascot? And who in our family is nick named Bear and why?

We also played teddy bear dress up with lots of Build a Bear dress up clothes from Dana (Thanks Dana!). Natalie's Everything Teddy Bear - which included - hockey skates, a skate board, underwear, a super hero cape, and a helmet - and possibly more - I can't remember. :)Lindsey's Bat Man Bear - I thought for sure she would go for the soccer bear. :)Hannah's Cinderella Bear

Scott's Jazz Bear and Taylor's Buzz Light year bear. - They were mostly good sports about dressing up the bears. :)

We colored pictures of teddy bears, looked through Grants baby scrapbook and enjoyed each others company. But the best part of the party was probably the opening of the presents and the birthday cake!!! Mom is a master DI treasure finder (she inherited the gift from her mom and I hope to some day develop the gift as well) and she found this wonderful baby grand piano for Grant. Grant LOVES music, dancing, and singing, he would happily spend hours sitting at my piano if I let him, so this gift was delightful. The smile on his face when he opened it and began playing it was one of sheer joy! I wish I could have caught it better. He has not stopped playing it! I am hoping to get a video of him dancing away while he plays and sings along to the piano. :)I saw the directions for this teddy bear cake on line and it was love at first sight! I was so pleased that it turned out. Couldn't have done it without Dana's cake supplies (thanks again Dana). Each time I make a cake and it turns out I am happily surprised and I feel like doing a little celebratory dance - I did it. Okay so that's me tooting my own horn. Please forgive me. Oh and not only did it look cute it tasted wonderful (hooray for store brand bargain cake mix and frosting! :)

Grant liked the cake as well - even after I decapitated it. And he was not at all disturbed about having only the head to smash and make a mess of. (until Hannah told him that I chopped the head off. Thanks a lot Hannah :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANT AND MOM!!!!!

Grant's Smash Cake

I think it is safe to say that when it comes to birthday's I have little control - I saw a photo collage of a baby with free range of the birthday cake and loved the pictures so I attempted to create the same thing. The result was me creating three birthday cakes in addition to his birthday pancake - no child should have that much cake - but don't worry I helped - I know also terrible, but I am happy with how these pictures turned out, so I guess it was worth it.
Love this darling face!!!

Happy Birthday Grant

There will of course be many more post to come of this darling little boy! but for now I hope you enjoy this video. :)

Brandon

Brandon cracks me up on a daily basis. I wanted to be sure I recorded some of his latest antics.

#1 During Christmas we had all of our Christmas book out - Brandon loved reading all of them and Jared and I were happy to oblige him. Well he let his curiosity get the better of him and he ripped apart the foam cover of one of our children's books - I was so upset and I wanted him to understand the damage he had done so I told him to fix it - the conversation continued

B - I can't

M - I can't either

B - take it to Dr Berg

M - he can't fix it either

B - HE CAN!!

If only the doctor could fix everything :)

#2 I love watching Brandon play with his toys - he is starting to show his imagination and give the toys personalities. The other day he was playing with his Lightening McQueen car and Mac trailer, Mac was apparently the dad and McQueen was the son
Mac - I love you son
McQueen - I love you dad
Mac - Always and forever
McQueen -Always and forever
and it continued from there, I thought it was darling seeing through the toys and Brandon's eyes the way he view his relationship with his dad - I am so grateful for their cute relationship!

#3 There is a disagreement between Jared and me about what Brandon and Grants first words are. Jared is convince that they both said Dad first. Yes they both make the da da da da sound first but I don't think it counts as a word. Well a few days ago Grant was on the changing table and Brandon was "helping", Grant began saying da da da da and Brandon looked at him and said 'Dad's not here - then he went to the door, opened it up and said "see he's not here". I guess I am outnumbered on that one.

#4 He is in the process of potty training - I know - we should be done by now, but he and I are taking our time - anyways while potty training he spends a good portion of the day partially or completely undressed. Which in and of itself is funny to watch, but for Christmas this year he got a pair of spider man boots that he loves - he wears them all the time regardless of whether we are outside or not. So the other day he was running around in his underwear and boots - so cute! Then he draped a blanket over his shoulders and told me he was prince charming - boy is he ever!! ;)

#5 We were watching Homeward Bound the other day - Love that movie - if you do not remember it is the one with the two dogs and the cat that run away and find their way home through the mountains. Well at the very end of the movie - Shadow falls into a hole and brakes his leg and the audience is left thinking he is gone for good. Then one by one the animals come over the hill to return to their people and just when you think Shadow will not be returning he hobbles over the hill as well. I cry every time - I'm a whip! Well while Brandon and I were watching it I could tell that Brandon was also touched - and the conversation went as follows
M - he came back
B - he came back to life
M - he did?
B - he was resurrected
M - he was?
B - Jesus was resurrected and he came back to life just like Shadow
What could I say? I love that he is understanding the basic concepts of the gospel, and I am so impressed with his memory for vocabulary! Cute boy!

#6 Brandon has had a terrible cough this week so I got him some medicine yesterday - it is helping. Well I got pink eye - ugh! I was laying on the bed this morning putting the drops in my eye, Brandon wanted to know what I was doing so I told him I was taking medicine. He promptly went to the bathroom and got the little medicine cup and filled it up with water and administered it to me - then in his grown up way said there is that better - I said yes thank you - he said your welcome and told me I needed one more - well of course I did ( I wish I could convey the manner in which he talks and acts when he is being big and helpful - it is just too sweet!) Five cups later he went to the living room to get a blanket and then tucked me in with the blanket. Then he asked me if I needed a story before my nap - well sure that would be great. So he got my scriptures of the nightstand and asked if I would like a "Scripture Power" story - of course I did, he told me to read the whole thing - yeah right :) so I opened up to the marker where Jared and I have been reading and read the highlighted verse -And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God- 2 Timothy 3:15-16 I was so touched. I read it two ways the first; that since my childhood I have been taught the scriptures and now here was Brandon a child also being taught from the scriptures. The second way I read it was that from a child (Brandon) I have known the scriptures - or been given the scriptures and then encouraged to read. Such a tender moment!

I sure do love being a parent and a mom especially - and a stay at home mom to boot. Don't get me wrong - it is HARD!!!! But these moments make it worth it.
Brandon just peed in my snow boot - not kidding - gotta go! :)

Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas

Things I hope to remember about this years Christmas

• KFC for Christmas Eve dinner on our fancy Christmas dishes with just our little family (maybe it's tacky but it was so tasty, easy, and truly a fun meal
• It was Grants first Christmas - he enjoyed the excitement and loved the decorations on the Christmas tree (I must have decorated that tree nearly every day this month) he likes gingerbread cookies and chocolate covered pretzels almost as much as I do, and he was more than happy to let Brandon "help" him open all his presents. Oh he is so darling! His favorite gifts were probably the gear toy that lights up and plays music, and the push and ride Winnie the Pooh car from Grandma Julie.
• Brandon agreeing with me that we had too many presents under the tree so Santa should probably not bother coming to our house, of course I was kidding but I think Brandon was actually (if only for a moment) disappointed Christmas morning that Santa still came.
• Spending Christmas Eve in our home with our little family opening pj's and scrapbooks from the past year
• Doing the 12 days of Christmas Advent calendar with the stories and ornaments each night - Brandon loved it - and I was very happy to be able to read so many great Christmas stories.
• Watching Brandon open up his Giant T-Rex and Shark and the whale book from Grandma Julie.
• All of the other fun activities that made this holiday and this season so much fun Things I hope to have learned this year:
• Stop spending so much money on toys - and start buying the toys from thrift stores and KSL - the kids can not tell the difference and they do not care about quantity
• Do not fight over clam chowder and do not burn the clam chowder - and do not try a new recipe on Christmas Day!
• Use a better camera (all of our Christmas morning pictures are blurry) like the one I got this year for Christmas
• Take more pictures - Grants first Christmas and I do not have any great ones of him opening presents or playing with his presents

Here's to a new year and the anticipation of Christmas in 2011! :)

Cute Grant

I love it when children fall asleep in their high chair - but that rarely happens at our house. This is the first time Grant has done it - he did it while I was (very loudly) singing and playing from the Wicked songbook that my sister let me borrow. I had a great time belting out the songs while both of my children slept on - kinda funny :)

Surprise Resident

On one of the really cold and snowy days this little bird took up residency on our bird feeder. It stayed the day and night, but was gone the next day. It was so cute to see this little bird all puffed up to keep warm - part of me really wanted to bring it in for the night but I knew that was not practical, so instead we enjoyed its company during all of our meals, as it was right next to our dining table. The following day my back door neighbor called me to ask what I was feeding the birds because it looked like our house was being attacked - I looked out side and sure enough our trees had turned black with all the birds that were perched on them - it was a little freaky - but they only stuck around for an hour. So what was I feeding them - nothing - see the empty bird feeder in the picture, since then I have filled all of our bird feeders and I hope we have many more visitors this season. :)