Birthday Cake

Eat Cake!

Zoey's First Birthday!!

Zoey's first birthday was yesterday! I can't believe a year has gone by! Wow. We did a combined family party celebrating Zoey, Addelynn, and Whitney. They each had a balloon, cake with candles, and gifts to open (although Whitney received her gifts earlier from the fam). Zoey received some fun girl toys (finally! She's been forced to play with trains, cars, and dinosaurs until now). Brian and I gave her a stroller walker, grandma gave her a pink garden set (a watering can, flowers, and a pail that she can put little bug balls in and out of...this has been her favorite), a few fun books (which I am happy she got!), cute clothes, and some other fun stuff.

Albertson's will make a free birthday cake for any first birthday, so we got Zoey's cake for free, but I still wanted to make a cake so I made this one:
A princess crown cake! The edge of the cake is lined with decorated sugar cookies. We also played "pin the crown on the princess" and gave away princess jewelry and wands as party favors (cousins Katie and Molly liked that!).

Zoey was absolutely funny when she ate her cake. She dove right in and mushed it all up and before we knew it...it was gone! She was definitely not as shy as Jackson was with his! Claire was surprised at how fast it disappeared and I think we all laughed at her eagerness to eat....the little chunk, she'd got to keep her figure somehow! I'll try to post the video too...

Anyway, it was a fun day for all of us. Jackson couldn't get enough of telling everyone happy birthday, even if it wasn't their birthday, or singing the birthday song. In fact, he was singing the birthday song to Zoey's balloon this morning too. I think he is starting to like this 'birthday thing' and it will be fun to see him enjoy Christmas morning!

November Birthdays

In my family, there are 7 birthdays in November! It is by far the most cluttered month of Birthdays throughout the whole year! Mine happens to be today and Zoey's is on the 21st. My sister Whitney's birthday is on the 14th, but she already received this little puppy as a gift. My kids have LOVED it! It won't stay a puppy for long...it's a Siberian Husky/German Shepherd mix! But while its still small enough to handle, Jackson and Zoey can't seem to get enough.

We met my sister at the park on Saturday morning and Jackson loved getting chased by the puppy wherever he went. He thought it was the greatest thing on earth! After the puppy wore out, he cuddled right around Zoey and fell asleep. In both ways, he made each of the children's day!

So here is my Happy Birthday salutation for all of you November Birthdays out there!

Liliane, Whitney, Judy, Addy, Zoey, and Scott.....hope you all have a wonderful Birthday month!

Hapy Halloween!

This week, we continued our 13 days of Halloween celebration. Part of our activities included: raking a pile of leaves and jumping in them (Jackson was our trash compacter when we dumped the leaves in trash can), making a pumpkin roll, carving pumpkins, going to a Halloween story time, going on a Halloween train ride, and of course trick-or-treating!

Jackson was a dinosaur and Zoey was a turtle. It was difficult to get a nice shot of everyone looking at the camera, cute and dressed up for the occasion. I was lucky to get one or the other even looking at the camera (eventhough Jackson would say "cheese" he was saying it while looking everywhere BUT the camera)! It was a very fun week. May parents, Jordan, Taraleigh and Liliane joined us for trick-or-treating. It was a cold night so we only stayed out about an hour, then came home and had some yummy baked butternut squash drizzled with butter and brown sugar for dessert.

Happy Halloween!