Happy Birthday, Jaxson!

Jaxson turned three earlier this month, and we had such a fun time celebrating his birthday! Sometimes it seems crazy that he is already three, but then there are so many times when I feel like he has been part of our family for so much longer. I am sure a lot of parents feel that way...it is weird to imagine a time when he wasn't part of our family.

Jax has really been into superheroes lately and had been talking about having a Batman cake for several months. Thankfully he was still into Batman when his party arrived. He loved having a Batman cake and seeing all of his Batman decorations. Of course, when it was time to get ready, he insisted on wearing his Spiderman shirt instead of the Batman one. :)

I think that Jaxson must be going through a little bit of a shy phase, because he was super bashful about having so many people come over and getting all of the attention. At one time, he told me that he wanted everyone to stay home. He eventually warmed up to the idea of having everyone there and was able to enjoy himself, although he was super shy when we sang "happy birthday".

Jaxson really did end up having such a fun time. We love having such a great family that would come and celebrate with us. Growing up, we didn't have any extended family around, so I love being able to have all the family over for celebrations.

I always get really sentimental this time of year when thinking about how Jaxson came to be part of our family. I am SO thankful for adoption and for his wonderful birth mother who was able to make the decision to have him be part of our family. I know that he is supposed to be my son. His adoption was such an amazing experience, and I am so appreciative that I am one of the few people lucky enough to have that opportunity. I will never forget the feel of "getting the call" and telling our families that they were going to have a grandson...within just a few short weeks! Yes, giving birth is also very special, but as someone who has experienced both, there is just something so different and so special about adoption.

Happy Birthday, Aynsley!

Aynsley turned two a couple of weeks ago, so we had to celebrate! I can't necessarily say that the time has flown by and "I can't believe she is already two"...I don't say that in a mean way, but in some ways it seems like she should have been two a long time ago. I guess it helps having a brother who is just ten months older than you are. She really seems to have caught up to Jaxson developmentally in a lot of ways, so it seems like they are more like twins.

Anyway...Aynsley has liked "Finding Nemo" for the past several months, so we decided to have "Nemo" inspired party. I wanted to keep it somewhat low-key, but we did plan an underwater themed menu (submarine sandwiches, "seaweed" (aka salad), "seashells" (pasta salad), etc). We also borrowed a huge blow-up swimming pool from Mike's mom, thinking that the kids would have fun swimming and playing in the water, while the adults mingled outside. Unfortunately, it started to rain as soon as all of our guests started raining. Between the rain and thunder, nobody dared to venture outside, so we had to squeeze into our house.

Aynsley was excited to see her presents, but once she opened the first one or two, she was done. She was just happy to try and play with what she had already opened and didn't seem to care that she still had more. Jaxson was more than willing to help her out and proceeded to open up most of her presents. Unfortunately, he ended up being quite upset when he was told that the gifts were for Aynsley and that he couldn't keep the toys away from her. He was not happy to learn that his birthday is not for a few more months!

Next up was cake and icecream. I tried out a new recipe for Aynsley's cake, and it turned out good, which was a relief! We had cupcakes for the rest of the kids (didn't take any pictures) and let each of them blow out their own candle.

Right after we finished up with cake and icecream, the weather seemed to clear up a little bit and a few kids decided to go outside and swim. Aynsley insisted on wearing her sunglasses when she went out to play. Despite the weather, the party was still a success! We are so glad that we have such great family to come celebrate with us.

Jaxson's Second Birthday!

Jaxson turned two...almost two months ago. What can I say, the last few months have been BUSY!

We celebrated with a "Toy Story" themed party (his favorite). We had pizza and alien juice from "Pizza Planet" for lunch and played a game where the kids had to pin the badges on Woody and Buzz. Jaxson loved being able to wear his "Woody" shirt, have a cake with all of his favorite characters, and of course get lots of new Toy Story toys!

By far, I think that Jaxson's favorite new toy was his Buzz Lightyear action figure. He was so excited when he saw what it was; he didn't even want to let anyone take it away long enough to get it out of the package. He had to carry it around with him and is still very protective of it.

Happy birthday, Jaxson! We sure love you!!!

Birthday Girl!

Wow, how time flies! It seems like just yesterday that Aynsley was born, and now we are celebrating her first birthday! I decided to do her party in a "chevron stripe" theme, and we had our families over to celebrate.

Aynsley didn't quite get the concept of opening her gifts, but Jaxson was more than happy to help out. She now has some girl toys to play with (no more cars) and some super cute clothes for the fall.

Mike's cousin, made this super cute cake for Aynsley's party. I don't know what I would have done without her. I gave her a couple pictures of ideas that I had, and she just ran with it. It definitely turned out way better than I could have done. Jaxson loved it too... he got a finger of yellow frosting (see top right of cake) before I could stop him.

At this point, Aynsley was way overdue for her nap. She has started into that stage of going to just one nap a day, so she wouldn't take a morning nap before her party. She was already getting a little fussy to begin with, but when she started rubbing her eyes and got frosting in them, she was just ready to be done. Needless to say, she got a bath and was put to bed before any of her party guests left.

We are so grateful to have such an amazing family that would come celebrate Aynsley's big day with us! Thanks so much for the thoughtful gifts and help with lunch. We love having you in our lives!

Somebody Turned One...

Wow, I can't believe that my sweet boy is already a year old! He is getting so grown up...time just goes by so fast. He is running all over the house, super curious, and seems to be chatting up a storm. He is such a sweet and considerate little boy...always trying to help his little sister.

Before his birthday, I took Jaxson down to Fotofly for some pictures. They turned out so cute, even with Jax not wanting to leave my side. Here are a few of my favorites:

This picture totally describes Jaxson and Aynsley's relationship. He just LOVES  her and is always trying to give her loves and kisses. Sometimes she gets a bit overwhelmed.

I decided to give Jaxson a Mickey Mouse birthday party since he loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so much. We had a lot of fun celebrating with our family, and Jaxson definitely got spoiled.

As you can tell, Jaxson loves eating his cake. He was a little careful at first and kept dipping his fingers into the frosting, but eventually started digging in. It was fun to watch him get so excited over it...I think he was in a little disbelief that he actually had an entire chocolate cake all to himself.

Thanks so much to my sweet boy for such a wonderful year...I look forward to the next year!

Happy Birthdays!

September is always a festive time of year at my family's house. My birthday is September 10, Beth's is September 12, and Khemia's is on the 13th! Now that we are getting older, we have started celebrating all of our birthdays together. Last year, we ended up celebrating on Khemia's birthday...our cake said "Happy Birthday to Khemia and Girls". Beth and I were not a fan of that, so this year the cake said "Happy Birthday to Lisa, Beth, etc.".

Besides celebrating with the family, Mike and I went out to dinner with our friends and then we came back to our house for cake and ice cream. Mike gave me photoshop for my birthday, so I am super excited to start playing with it and learning all of its features. I also went out for lunch with my friend, Maren...it was so much fun to catch up and we really need to do it more often. Thanks everyone for such a nice birthday!

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday, Mike!!!

Earlier this month, Mike turned the big 3-0! We had some friends over to BBQ and celebrate the occasion. Unfortunately, the weather didn't really cooperate, but we still had a good time. We had some friends come that we hadn't seen for a while, so it was great to be able to catch up with everyone. Besides the food, we also enjoyed a few card games and a sweet game of Pictionary Man...I will never be able to play that game again without laughing.

Thank you so much to everyone who brought food and celebrated Mike's big day with us. I know it really meant a lot to him!