Beckett's Fourth Birthday

B and I were looking at chapbooks of birthdays past tonight and he started talking about his circus party.... I realized I hadn't posted anything from it anywhere... And really couldnt even remember what we did for his party!

So this is slightly overdue....


A Fourth Birthday CIRCUS Party!

Prep: B loved the circus with grandma and Hattie and knew exactly what to have at a circus party after going. He planned the menu (hot dogs, sno cones, popcorn) and decorated the cake (mostly by himself with a lot of direction...). :) The prints are engineer prints from Staples (one of my fave/cheapest ways to make a big pop).

The weather was awesome and the kids got to play outside (huge thanks to Little Tikes and Oakland Avenue for the awesome jump house!). I'm not sure we got a single family picture (I need to dig a little further) and we missed the cousin pic this year.

Afterwards we loaded up and headed to the Water Park of America (and the Mall of America)- per B's birthday wish. It was a jam packed, super fun weekend. Our little guy got to do some of his favorite things- party, snuggle grandma, stay at a hotel, and go to a water park. The perfect weekend!

I still can't believe he's FOUR! (Another reason this post may have taken me so long...)

But four looks good on you, buddy!

cousins

We've been running around like crazy for the last (I lost track of how many...) days. We just got home from a long weekend. The two year old is checking the dog's teeth, declaring them to be stinky. And I have a ton of stuff I should be doing. But I'd really like to just put my feet up. That said. If I don't post these pics now, I'm not sure when I'll get to it. Thus the 'awesome' post coming your way. A weekend full of cousins is always a good weekend. Happy (what day is it again?) Sunday?


It's all boy cousins on daddy's side. These cool dudes were all dressed up for papa's wedding. (Yep, we totally forgot to get B's haircut for the occasion. We're awesome like that.)

B has a new baby girl cousin on mommy's side. He was pretty smitten with Clara. His aunt tried to ask him what his sisters name was and I told him to say it's a secret. When we got home he wanted to know if her name was still (fill in the blank with her name) or if it was 'Secret.' Poor kid was so confused. :) He declared Baby Clara was a very nice baby and he really, really liked her. He also noted she just went like this (pretend sleeping). He thought that was pretty okay. ;) 

Cousins pic. The girls are outnumbering the boys.

An Outtake

Yesterday, as I was trying to get my 365 shot, I captured this outtake instead. Obviously B needs to work on his 'hug' technique a little lotta bit. Poor Hattie!

Jingle Bells isn't about Jesus!

Recently I listed some ideas the H family has to celebrate the Advent season.

A little update:

1. Visit Santa 
2. Pick out a new Christmas book
3. Find Elf
4. Make paper snowflakes and snowballs (B loves wadding up paper so we'll let him make some 'snowballs' and I'll make a couple snowflakes to put up with them so hopefully it wont look like we just hung garbage up in the window) ;)
5. Choose a friend from the local angel tree to shop for
6. Wrap presents (we might do this one after bedtime... or let him 'help' by wadding up paper again)
7. Christmas movie night (with popcorn and green & red M&Ms)
8. Christmas with the OK family (make gingerbread men!)
9. Make reindeer feet
10. Choose something from the 'serving friends' list to complete
11. Decorate cookies/make Christmas treats
12. Caroling (with cookies but maybe not so much singing)
13. Take a meal to someone
14. Sock snowball fight
15. Jolly Holiday Lights
16. Go out for breakfast with Santa & Rudolph
17. 'mistletoe' feet
18. Hot cocoa by the fire (straight from the 'north pole hot cocoa bar' of course)
19. Take Christmas pictures
20. Visit the library to read Christmas books
21. Take a treat to a neighbor we haven't met
22. Christmas at the cabins
23. Make Christmas ornaments
24. Read the Christmas story
25. 'camp out' under the Christmas tree (sleep in the living room)

So far we aren't doing too bad. With 8 days till Christmas night (because #25 we'll complete that night), we still have 13 to complete. With 5 on our 'to do' list for this weekend, we are in pretty good shape (and pretty good Christmas spirits too!). 

Last weekend, we completed #12 with two of my favorite Christmas cheer spreaders. Mo & Madd took B out for his first caroling trip. 

Mo & Madd decorated the goodie bags and filled them with a few little treats. (Isn't that artwork pretty great?!?) We visited a few people that live close to grandma's house- uncles, great grandma, and the sweetest lady that we grew up going to church with. It was her birthday that day (86th maybe?) so we made sure to sing extra loud for her.

One stop down and I was pretty impressed with how great the littles were doing. They sang 'Away in the Manger' and rocked it! (You know, as much as you can 'rock' Away in the Manger.)

Next stop: 'Jingle Bells'

The Jingle Bells were definitely not rocked. After one foot being stomped on (accidentally) and one crabby boy mad we sang Jingle Bells instead of Away in the Manger (because JINGLE BELLS ISN'T ABOUT JESUS!) we weren't sure how many more stops we had in us. We muddled through and finished strong and overall it was a good time! You may notice R is missing from the evening... he was still at basketball so we may have to have a repeat performance so he doesn't miss out on all the Christmas celebrating! :)

Gingerbread Superheroes

As I mentioned in my last post, we had Christmas with the Oklahoma crew this past weekend. It's always so fun to see them and I always leave them wishing we lived closer!

The kids always seem to have a good time as well. This year we had 'fancy' hot cocoa and decorated gingerbread men princesses, superheroes and pirates!







We attempted the annual cousins picture. I always try to get them matching or coordinating jammies and as they're growing into different size ranges, it's harder and harder to do. It's also getting more difficult to get a shot of everyone sitting and smiling at the same time but I'll keep trying every year! :)



And then SANTA came to visit!! It was a little like Buddy the elf in the fact that Mo and Madd were pretty sure they knew that Santa. :)




The Christmas celebrations continue this week and throughout the month. Hope you and your family are having a wonderful Christmas season!

Santa Babies

We're home from a jam packed weekend that I cant wait to share some photos from..... but with the jam packed week ahead I'm not sure when that will happen.... (maybe sometime in between getting caught up on laundry and caught up on sleep).

 In the meantime.... here's a quick one from our first of the family Christmas celebrations.

B and his cousin Hattie hanging out with Santa:

A Santa who Mo thought might be Uncle Doyle and Madd was SURE was a fake Santa. :)