The birthday cupcake

Instead of a birthday cake for Grant I decided to just do cupcakes.  If he was like Grant and Claire I knew that he wouldn't eat the cake. I frosted the cupcakes with blue icing and then a blue gel to imitate water.

As I thought, Grant was not interested in eating the cupcake.  He couldn't quite get past the icing.  I think that he might have tried the cake without the icing.  Here is a series of pictures about what happened when I gave him the cupcake.

At this point, you can tell that he is not into the icing.

Then the icing became paint on his tray.

And then he was done.  He did not like all of the sticky icing on his hands.  This is a typical upset Grant face.  He does this all the time when he is upset.  It makes me laugh now, but not so much when it is happening.

Maybe he will try the cake next year!



Grant's birthday party

Grant's birthday happened to fall on a Saturday, so we planned a party and BBQ for him.  First on the agenda was trying on his birthday crown.  Generally, he does not like hats, but I saw this one at Target on sale and thought that it would be really cute if we could get a picture of him in it. I love this picture of him!!

Then he decided to show off his standing skills.  He doesn't take steps yet, but he stands straight up from a sitting position.



For the party I did a rubber ducky (blue and yellow) theme because Grant loves water - baths, swimming, anything.  I made flags to decorate the yard and inside.  We invited six families over and it was a bit chaotic, but really fun.

I got a bunch of rubber ducks to decorate with which seemed like a good idea.  Later on in the party, the kids thought it would be fun to throw them on top of the bounce house and at each other.

I made a picture timeline from birth to one year.  I am going to try to put it up in his room somewhere.

We got a bouce house for the kids.  Grant wasn't too sure what to think about it. 

We had hot dogs, tri-tip, potatoes, pineapple and blueberry skewers, lemonade, blue jello cups, ducky cupcakes, lemon cheese cake and chocolate covered oreos.  I didn't get any pictures of the oreos, but I found a chocolate mold that you put chocolate in and push an oreo into and it made a duck impression on the top.  They were the surprise hit.

The next morning before church the kids got in some more bounce time.  I tried to get them to pose for a picture, without any luck.

I like this picture of Claire "floating".

Grant kept trying to stand up in the bounce house which was challenging.

At lunch, Claire and Grant had the left over jello cups.  Andrew didn't quite finish his and literally as I sat down for a moment Grant grabbed the cup off of the table, spilled it all over the floor and continued to eat it. 

Needless to say it was a huge mess.  His hands, face and pants were dyed blue.  He loved it though.  He was not happy when I pulled him out of the mess.  Overall, I think that Grant had a great birthday.  Andrew and Claire certainly had fun with all of their friends.  I told Danny that we should make it an annual end of summer/Grant birthday party.

Our baby turned one!

Grant turned one on September 17th.  I know that everyone says it, but the year went by really fast. Although it may have slowed down a few times in the middle of the night!  Here was our baby last year...



And here he is now!  At his one year checkup he weighed 24.4 lbs (75th percentile) and was 31" tall (95th percentile).  Getting him to sit still to take a picture is close to impossible.  He loves to show off his incredibly fast crawling to everyone.  Nope, not walking yet.  We have all we can handle with the crawling for now.  

Here is a picture where you can finally see some teeth.  He is currently getting two more for a total of 8.

Once he saw the ball it was all over.  He was throwing it all around and and was done with the pictures.

He made the transition from formula to milk just fine and has decided that he wants to eat everything.  In fact last night, he had salmon with us.  Andrew and Claire won't even eat salmon.  Hopefully he will be our best eater.  He is definitely active and is going to be a climber.  I'll share some evidence in another post.  I guess this means he isn't our little infant anymore. Happy Birthday Grant!!! 

The first day of preschool

Claire finally had her first day of preschool on Wednesday.  I say finally because she has been quite upset that Andrew started school two weeks before she did.  The night before she picked out a dress and her item for sharing.  I even got her to smile for some pictures before we left.

This year Elaina will be in class with her.  Claire was really excited about that and wanted to show Elaina around.

Here they are picking out their name tags on the table.  They can already pick out their own names.  There will be 14 kids in their class this year which is big change for Claire as there were only 6 last year.

She was excited to get a purple name tag.

They get play time while the other kids are arriving.  This year she will be going on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 9:30 - 12:30.  They get to bring a lunch, not just a snack, this year.  Claire insisted that she wanted chicken nuggets in her lunch.  I told her that they would be cold and she said that was okay.  Well, as it turns out she didn't eat them.  In her 4 years, Claire has yet to eat a piece of bread.  None!  So a sandwich is out of the question.  We will have to get creative about what to put in her lunch, as most of the other kids take peanut butter and jelly.  It was so great to see Claire just walk right in and be excited about school.  There was no crying or apprehension.  It should be a great year!

A visit to the dentist

Andrew and Claire had a dentist appointment this past week, normally that probably wouldn't be news worthy, but this time it was.  Andrew really likes to go to the dentist, but Claire is another story.  This was going to be her third or fourth visit and we prepared for the worst - lots of crying, hiding, and trying to escape.  Danny and I have both had to go to all of the appointments because one person has to spend the whole time convincing Claire that it will be okay.  As usual, Andrew got right in the chair and got his headphones on.  There are television screens in the ceiling so that the kids can watch a movie while getting their teeth cleaned. 

And then it was Claire's turn.  This time she agreed to actually lay in the chair, but Danny got the pleasure of holding her.  I thought that for a moment we were in trouble, but she agreed to get her teeth cleaned.  She picked the flavor - chocolate chip cookie!  Really?  That sounds awful.

Then she said that the light was too bright, so they gave her sunglasses to wear during the cleaning.  Look how happy Danny looks!

As an added bonus, she also agreed to x-rays.  Danny also got to participate and wear the safety vest.

And the best news of all - no cavities for either one!   They got their names on the wall.  You can see them at the bottom of the picture.

They got balloons, certificates, new toothbrushes and prizes.  It was a very successful visit for everyone.