the BIG one!!

We had Tate and Ashley's BIG birthday party last Saturday.  It's taken me a little bit of time to recover (A LOT of work goes into a party like this!), but without further ado...here are the pics and video from the BIG day.

Since it was a boy/girl party we had bright primary colors for Tate and pink/purple for Ashley.  Mimi and I made the balloon decoration above Tate's chair.  Took a long time to wrap all those balloons!  We had ice cream sundaes to go with the cakes, 150+ balloons, gift tables decorated with banners we made, a photo booth, and table decorations that were pictures of the kids over the first year - Ashley's surrounded by flowers and Tate's by blocks. 

The cakes.  Lots of work went into these cakes.  And lots of icing.  I believe we made 8 batches of icing plus one batch of marshmallow fondant, dyed 5 different colors.  We made 12 cakes total, then stacked them together and iced the cakes.  We worked on the cakes several days leading up to the party, but they turned out great. Pink and girly for Ashley and bright and bold for Tate.  This was my first time to ever make fondant.  It was a lot of work making it, dyeing it, then rolling out all the balls and cutting the lines and circles, but I think it turned out cute.

We had tables set up for entertainment for the kids.  Blocks for the boys, playdough (pink and purple kool-aid playdough) for the girls, with rolling pins and cookie cutters.  Then a table with paper and crayons as well.  On the other side of the room we set up a blanket with baby toys for the smaller ones. 

Opening presents.  We had a lot of presents to open and a lot of little helpers "helping". 

SMASH cakes!  Ashley was a little more into her cake than Tate was.  Tate was getting pretty tired by this point, as you can tell from some of the pictures.  But he did better eating this than Hudson did at his first birthday.  Ashley's hands and face were stained pink after she got washed up!

The aftermath:

Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated the BIG birthday with us!

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12 months

Well, the 12 months of ties pictures are finally finished.  And I think it's about the right time.  Tate seems to be telling me he doesn't like taking his tie pictures anymore.  What do you think?

I did finally get one I could work with, but the boy would not sit still!

It's been an emotional week for me, remembering where I was/what I was doing a year ago at this time.  The memories are crazy - I still can't believe we went through all that.  Especially now when we have this perfect, healthy little boy to show for it. 

One year {10 months adjusted}

My little man is 1! 

We celebrated Tate's birthday Wednesday with his first pancakes.  He liked the candle.

And he loved the pancakes.

Tate has changed a lot the past month.  He is crawling everywhere, pulling himself up on things, making messes, jabbering quite a bit more lately, and even starting to climb the stairs!  He recognizes the signs for "milk" and "more" but has yet to do them himself.  When he wants more food, he knows if he hollers loud enough we eventually give it to him, so I'm not sure he'll ever learn that one!  And this boy loves his food.  He eats everything, but defnitely loves meat the most.  He started drinking from a sippy cup recently too. 

I swear he must have at least 6 teeth coming in at once.  I can see them in there and he likes to chomp on anything he can get in his mouth, but so far, only one top tooth has actually started to peak through (He does already have his bottom two).  And it's been sticking through for several weeks now and not going any farther.   Thankfully though, his sleep has gotten better and he's sleeping through the night again {most of the time!}.   

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This boy knows what the camera is - notice how he starts "cheesing" at the beginning when he sees the camera!

F is for Firefighter!

October is Fire Safety month and since Hudson wants to be a firefighter when he grows up, I knew we had to do F is for firefighter!

Our Bible story for the week was the story of the Fiery Furnace.

We also tested our batteries in our smoke detector.

We learned all about fire safety.  We learned to call 911, "stop, droll and roll", our address and practiced crawling out of the house and going to our meeting place if there was ever a fire in our house.

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And our next door neighbor - Fireman Steve - just happened to be taking his test to become a Captain.  So we made him some firefighter cookies for good luck  (and he did pass it!).

We tried painting a fire truck on the driveway with sidewalk chalk paint.  I used the last couple drops of red food coloring that I had, but it turned out pink instead.  But he still loved painting the driveway.

And then, of course, we made a visit to Station 37 with Firefighter Garret and checked out the firetrucks.

Tate really liked the shiny, red trucks.

The Dynamic Duo Rides Again!

Hudson {aka Batman} has been very in to superheroes lately.  When he grows up he wants to be a superhero firefighter.  We have been playing a lot of superheroes when we drive around town in the Batmobile hunting for evil villains, shooting our rockets at them before we hurry back to the Batcave.  Everytime we get in the car he says "We're not Mommy and Hudson anymore.  I'm Batman and you are Wonder Woman."  He loves it. 

So, of course, we had to be Batman and Robin for Halloween.  Hudson already had the Batman cape and t-shirt and we borrowed the mask from Garret, so I just had to make Tate's costume.  The week before Halloween we did "B is for Batman" to really get him geared up. 

One of those projects was making our Batmobile.

The sidekick.

Batman!

Tate's cape is reversible.  Robin on one side, Super Tate on the other! 

All dressed up.  Yes, Robin is even in tights!

Helping himself

Hudson has started doing so much more on his own lately.  Getting dressed, wiping his bottom (yeah!), "reading" books and helping himself to whatever snack he wants (or at least he can get his hands on) in the kitchen.   He gets his butter obsession from Papa Bear.  The two of them could sit down and eat a stick {or two} of butter - and maybe a few crackers with it - for snack every night!

"Okay, Mom. I'm ready to go!"

And yes, this is what he wore.  Thankfully we were just going over to my Mom's.

P is for PUMPKIN PATCH!!

A few weeks ago we took the boys to Walters Pumpkin Patch.  I took Hudson here 2 years ago, and although it's a bit of a drive, it's well worth it.  This is the BEST pumpkin patch.  There is tons of fun stuff for him to play - slides, swings, bikes, paddleboats, jumping pillows, corn maize, etc.  We spent the first couple hours just playing on everything.  Then, finally, we hitched a ride on the trailer out to the pumpkin patch and picked out a few pumpkins.  Tate did great all day, but fell asleep right about the time to go pick pumpkins. 

Hudson really wanted to bring the rotten pumpkin home.  It took some convinving to get him to pick out a different one.

Tate is not real sure about the big orange thing!

It {finally} looks like fall!

And now we're supposedly getting 1 inch of snow tonight!

On an unrelated not - I did finish all my work!  I finished September's books on Saturday night, so 2 days ahead of my schedule.  But, unfortunately, with the first of November came another month of bookkeeping to do, plus monthly statements, so my work is not done.  It never is!