~Ethan's Family Birthday Party~

We celebrated Ethan's birthday party with my best friend Melissa who had come up for a visit at his favorite restaurant: Boston Pizza.  We had a great time and Ethan enjoyed the Happy Birthday song sang by the servers!  Pictures of course!

~Ethan's 5th Birthday Party!~

Wow. 5!?!  Already?!?!  I.have.a.5.year.old.  Okay mini-meltdown over..that's how I felt almost three months ago when I woke up on Ethan's big birthday.  We had his party on the Sunday after his actual birthday and had our usual cast of friends for it.  This year however he got to invite 2 friends to the party...he chose two of his buddies from daycare. 

I, as usual, was the freak-a-zoid running around trying to make sure it was perfect.  Such a ridiculous habit!  But I just want it to be memorable for him...anyhow I digress.  This year Ethan wanted a Thomas the Tank Engine party.  Since we were in the middle of crazy (will link to post in a few days) I decided to just spend a bit of money to buy everything for the party.  I bought it online (I LOVE online shopping, less crowds, better selection)  I went to Etsy again for the party invite...I loved it!  On a side note I really need to take a photoshop class...it all arrived in time and looked awesome!  I made the cake myself and had Randy make the railway sign for the front step.  The cake took a painstaking 3 hours to do...but it looked wicked awesome and Ethan still talks about it!

We had a blast at the party and all his little guests did as well!  The proof is in the pictures!  I did train stops to coordinate the day.  Stop#1 was Pin the Funnel on Thomas, Stop#2 was Pinata Fun Stop #3 was Fueling Station and Stop #4 was Train Playtime in the basement.  Here is the railroad crossing sign Randy
made...I forgot to get a picture of it on the front step!

My little conductor put on his hat and got ready to welcome his guests!

The first thing they had to do was bring their 'ticket' and get their picture with Thomas and Percy!  Ignore the ghetto grey on the card, it of course, was not there when it was given out.  It is there however to prevent you from stalking me...teehee.

Each little guest got their picture taken with Percy and Thomas...

 Time for Pin the Funnel on Thomas fun!  The

boys had a blast with this!

Next Stop:  Pinata Fun!  Check out the expressions on those little boys standing in the line...love it!!!

 Playtime stop!  The little boys had a blast playing with Ethan's trains!  They probably got more play that day than they have in months!

The Thomas Cake!  It was a labor of love I tell you...it actually wasn't as hard to do as it looks...thank goodness for the template!

 The little boys had a great time discussing which part of Thomas they were going to eat...I was shocked at how adept they all were in all the Thomas terminology!

Ethan got some great gifts from his friends.  All were very thoughtful and reflective of Ethan's interests...he even got a $35 Visa gift card and a $15 Itunes card...which sent him over the moon!  You CAN buy your way into my kids heart with an Itunes Gift Card!  It was all fantastic and I know Ethan loved the entire day...that made all the running worth it! 

~Ethan’s 4th Birthday Party!~

What a fun day!  Curious Ethan had a blast at his Curious George party! I had lots of fun with this one…I bought the invites and thank you cards off or a great designer on Etsy…The Paper Giraffe Shop.  Loved them! 

I wanted to knock it out of the park and have some awesome decorations for his party so I bought a kit off another designer on Etsy…it was such a great deal and made the party decorations look awesome!

Birthday Decorations VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We had Monkey Tails for lunch (Hot Dogs) with Monkey chips, Monkey Chow, Monkey Cake, Tutti Fruiti Tray, Veggies and Monkey Dip, and Monkey Juice.

We had the usual crowd invited this year…unfortunately Aimie and kids from Ethan’s daycare couldn’t make it.  We had Leanne and her boys, Wyatt and Morgan; Erin and Corbin, and new additions Trudy, Wes and Sydney.  It was a blast! 

Birthday Guests VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We had some fun games we played…Pin the butterfly on the log, Curious George coloring sheets, and of course a Monkey Piñata!  The kids had a blast and we enjoyed watching them play!

Pin the Butterfly! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Piñata VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Birthday Presents VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Ethan got some great presents from his friends…he got an awesome slip and slide from Morgan and Wyatt, some beach toys from Corbin and a Thomas the train Mega Block set from his little buddy Sydney.  Grandma Grounds gave him a remote control helicopter.  We gave him a Curious George board game, a Curious George stuffy, a bike Helmet and kneepads, and a 3D Glow in the dark color thingy.  I can’t wait to play the board game…it won a Gold Award for best toy by 2 different groups!  We are going to have our first game tomorrow night!

It was such a great day, the best part was sharing it with friends!  We are so grateful to have such a great group to call our friends…Thanks to everyone. 

Well this was a super fun birthday…what to do next year???  Hmmm I already have my mind ticking!

~Happy Birthday Christine!~

It's your Birthday!  As you stated on your facebook page today you are 21 yrs old with 21 yrs of experience....sounds like a plan to me!  Hope you had a fantastic day with your sweetie and Brittany & Les. 

~Happy Birthday MOM!~

Today is a special day. It's my Moms' birthday! I hope that she gets spoiled rotten and enjoys her day! Miss you lots Mom, wish we were closer to spend it with you!

~Happy Birthday~

To my honey today!  I love you!  Thank you for being so supportive of me and being my rock!  30 looks good on you, looking forward to many more Birthdays by your side!

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~

We had a fun time on Saturday with some friends for Ethan’s Birthday party.  It went off without too many hitches and I think everyone had lots of fun.

As usual I went a little overboard on the planning end of things…but it looked fun and tasted even better!

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We had ‘Porkchop’ cake pops and green alien cupcakes with of course Pizza for the day.  The pizza wasn’t that great, we tried out Papa Murphy’s for the first time and I doubt we will again.  The green aliens were being ‘guarded’ by green army men and Porkchop had all his friends hanging out with him.

The first thing we did was to eat!  Much easier to have fun on a full stomach…

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

From there we played “Pin the tail on Bullseye”  The kids got to decorate their Bullseye tail and then we blindfolded them and had them try to get it on Bullseye…it was fun!  Shontel won the prize for the closest!

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We then did a fun alien craft with the kids.  They made 3 eyed alien stuffies!  No pictures of that of course because I was the one with the hot glue gun…They were cute but a little to advanced for the little guys.

Then came the real fun!  We had Buzz strung up in the garage waiting…

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

After all that excitement and the Piñata bounty was collected we went inside to open presents and have some cake pops!  Ethan had to give lots of hugs and kisses to everyone!!!

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

At the end of the day, it was a fun time by all and a happy little boy for having spent time with friends.  Thank you of course to our friends that came and for the lovely presents for Ethan.  I’m already looking forward to next years’ party!

~I have a 3 Year Old!!!~

Wow. Ethan’s 3. Already. Wow.

How wonderful it has been to spend this special week with Ethan and Mom.  My vacation was perfectly timed and I’m so enjoying the time at home.  I’m getting to know Ethan better this week.  Amazing how much I didn’t know about him…and sad too.  This week is making me very aware that I need to slow down and take more time for us.  I’ve been too busy with work and have given home only a distracted amount of attention.  I’m re-aligning my priorities and making it right again.

Back to Ethan.  We had a family party for him on Easter Sunday because Auntie Mary and Cole were in town and could come for dinner.  So we did the Easter bunny and had an Easter Egg Hunt (pics in a separate post) and found the basket at the end of the hunt.  Then we had a huge turkey and ham dinner with everyone and had a bunny birthday cake and gave Ethan some presents.

Ethan is LOVING his gifts.  All his favourites.  Here are the pics of the party:

		Family Birthday Party VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

For presents he got a LeapFrog Leap Pad and a couple of catridges, two sets of Thomas tracks from Daddy and a Dinosaur tail from Auntie Mary.  Mommy will give him his presents on his Saturday party.  We are having a friends party this coming Saturday…a Toy Story Pizza party theme…can’t wait!

~Counting down the Days!~

While I love my job to bits…I need a freaking break!  It has been a horrid month of upsets and lots of hard work.  I have 10 days off coming up starting on the 22nd and I can’t wait!!!

Before that I have a long weekend off this weekend as well.  I’m glad for that because I’m going to be able to get some Spring cleaning and some painting done so that my basement is close to completion before all my company comes during my holidays.  I doubt at this point that the main area will be done before the holidays and I’m not sure if Randy will start it while we have Mom here.  I don’t want him sanding while Mom is here at all so he will probably just wait till after to get going on it.  We’re going to move the TV, Satellite and Wii upstairs for Mom’s visit so she doesn’t have to go up and down the stairs to watch TV.  She’ll sleep in Ethan’s new bed while she’s here and he can sleep either with us or in a playpen, we’ll see.  She’s coming down on the Saturday and staying through till the following Saturday.  It will be nice to have the company!!

During my holidays my little man turns 3…THREE!!!!  Holey crap!  Time flies I tell you!  So we are having two birthday parties for him this year.  It’s so close to Easter and Mom is going home on the 30th so we’ll have a family party on the 23rd and have an Easter dinner etc.  Then the Toy Story Pizza Planet Party will be on the following Saturday the 30th.  I’m so excited for his party this year!  He’s going to love it!  Wait till you see what the cake is this year…once again Randy and I are dusting off our decorating (or lack of) skills and making the little mans’ Birthday cake.  This year it is cupcakes for the friends party and a cake for the family party.  Both promise to be yummy!  I will share pics!

This weekend is our 11th Anniversary.  I can’t believe it’s been 11 years already!  I’m not sure if we have any plans, neither of us has talked about it, whoops!  Maybe Randy will surprise me…

Anyhow, looking forward to doing some blogging over the next few weeks while I have some down time as well.  As for now, must bolt, need to be to work in an hour and am still in my PJs!

~Happy Birthday Randy!~

Today is Randy’s Birthday!  Not much celebrating going on, just spending the day together…I did however make him a special breakfast in the morning.  I’ve had the recipe for awhile and decided to give it a whirl for his special breakfast!  It was really good and we will be doing that again soon!  

View Full Album

It’s basically a breakfast braid, made with your choice of  breakfast style ingredients wrapped in a Pillsbury Pizza Dough.  We had Ham, Egg, Onion, Herb & Garlic Havarti and Cheddar cheese…I think that it would be phenomenal with sausage, peppers and cheese too!  And i can see this being carried through to a savory supper meal too!  Everybody loved it!  Best of all?  It took less then 20 minutes to throw together and have on the table!

~Happy Birthday to Ethan!~

Wow it is so hard to believe that you are already 2.  Time is going by so fast and i can’t believe that you are getting so big.  You are the light of our life and bring us continuous joy as well as frustration!  LOL!  The terribly busy twos are here and keep us running, running, running.

You are having issues with speech so we attend a speech playgroup every Thursday.  We’ve attended two sessions and you’ve already learned a few new words…I am happy that you are picking it up so fast. 

We had a family dinner on your actual birthday on Monday night with Auntie Mary and Cousin Cole.  We had Birthday cake number one and all your favourite foods. 

View Full Album

Mommy and Daddy gave you Mega Blocks and Mary and Cole gave you Tonka cars.  You were right into playing with them both right after supper!

Today we had your 2nd party with friends and more family over to celebrate.  Grandma Grounds drove up from her home in Vegreville  to spend the weekend with us.  The day started off with Daddy and Mommy making your birthday cake.  True to our tradition we made your cake ourselves and this year decided that a little train would be a good challenge for us.  We had a Backyardigans themed party this year since we just love them around these parts!

So here are the pictures of the making of the cake this year:

View Full Album

Randy did the construction, and I did the decorating with a little help from Grandma.  It was fun seeing it turn out and come to be what we imagined it to be.  Now by no means are we experts when it comes to cake decorating but I’m really proud of how it turned out.

We had some fun guests attend the party today.  Leanne and her boys, Morgan and Wyatt; Aimie & Jeremy and their kids Shontel & Braiden as well as Grandma Grounds.  We were supposed to have homemade pizza but the dough didn’t turn out so instead we had Pizza Hut.  Not our favorite but it did in the pinch we were in.  Ethan got some great outdoor toys from our guests and Grandma gave him some outfits and a leapfrog toy.  We gave him a Little People Airport.  He had a hoot with all his gifts!

Unfortunately we had to put Ethan down for a nap just as the party was getting started, he was melting down from lack of sleep and it was sooo needed!  So we let him sleep while we all ate pizza and visited and woke him up an hour later for cake and presents.  It worked out okay. 

So here are pictures from the rest of the day, a fun one for sure!

View Full Album

More pics!

View Full Album

So a big thanks goes out to our friends for the great gifts for Ethan and for coming and celebrating our little mans’ big day with us.  We are glad to have such great people in our lives to make great memories for Ethan to remember forever.