Whitney's 3rd Birthday... Minnie Mouse Party!

Whitney turned 3!

 She was so excited the week prior so I let her open a few presents early as potty treats.

 I did a "Minnie Mouse Bow-tique" party.

Here is her party invite:

Our welcome on the front door:

 The party table (my favorite thing to decorate for parties)

 I had bows everywhere!

Here is my cuties anxiously awaiting the 1st party guest to arrive. 

 We had bow-tie pasta to go with the "bow" theme.

 After lunch I had all of the kids color a picture of Minnie Mouse.

 Then "bedazzle" a bow for pin the bow on Minnie Mouse.

(There's episodes on Minnie's Bow-tique show where they bedazzle all of the bows.)

 After that they got to bedazzle a bow for themselves as one of their party favors.

The boys had blue bow ties to decorate.

Here's another cute bow I made for all of the girls.

 For our last game we played bingo w/ jelly beans.  

The kids loved being able to sneak jelly beans while they played.

CAKE TIME!

 There was a lot of cute ideas out there for Minnie Mouse, but I wanted to keep it super simple this year.  I did chocolate & strawberry cupcakes & then the main cake was a layered angel food cake w/ one of my favorite recipes.  It was super yummy!  I altered the recipe a bit by putting cool whip as the frosting as the original recipe has only toasted almonds on the outside.  I'll probably do that again!

 I made decorated one of Whitney's chairs to be the birthday girl chair & she was pretty cute insisting she sit in it all day & every time she opened a present.

 After presents I gave all of the kids a Minnie or Mickey Mouse wand that I made & taught let them help me do some magic tricks.  They were pretty impressed & wanted to do it over & over!

 Birthday girl & all of her loot!

Spring Update! (March, April, May)

It was a very long tiring spring for us & not very many pictures so I'm combining 3 months into one post!

In March Tommy decided he wanted to read so I got these books at the library & he loves them!  He is very proud of himself & so am I :)

4 months later & Tommy finally got to paint one of his birthday presents.  I left him to do it by himself & I was impressed when I came back to see that he was copying that little picture on the box.

I was all excited that Tucker finally decided to not eat the crayons on first site, but wanted to color his first picture.  He did great, but by the time I ran and got the camera & came back he'd already eaten off the tops of 3 markers!!!  That boy loves to eat anything & everything all day long!!

My mom, Tommy, & I did the Color Vibe run.  It was a 5K where you got hit with paint throughout the race.  Tommy LOVED to throw the color at me & mom, but hated when anyone threw it on him.  I wore a hat because I read the dye might stay in your hair for a week & I didn't want blue hair!

We're extra blue as that was the last color of paint stations we went through.

There was a dance at the end & Vic rolled the stroller in there with the kids at the end so us & everything we had was pretty covered by the end!

Mom had us over to her yard for a s'more roast.  The kids really love going over to both their grandparents' houses here & it really helps me know that we made the right decision moving back to Idaho, pay cut & all :)

Whitney finally decided to be potty trained. That sure makes me happy & life that much easier!

Mom braved taking all her local grand kids fishing, a sleepover at her house, and the zoo.

   Tucker was cute with his pole...

 ...but he preferred to walk it on the rocks instead of fish with it! 

 Vic 2nd time fishing. No luck for any of us!

 

 We continued to work away on our basement. We finished Whitney's room, our workout room, and now just need to finish this wall that Tucker is helping with! 

 We had amazingly nice weather in May so we pulled out the pool toys.  Here's Tucker in his new pool.  I bought it so he wouldn't get clobbered by the big kids in their pool.

 As you can see, that idea didn't work too well.  

These 3 always have to be doing what any of the others are doing!

 This one is blurry, but I love the hats they made at story time.  

They've had a lot of fun wearing them around the house. 

Easter Sunday

We celebrated Easter Sunday at my mom's house.

Since I found the boys matching blue outfits, I decided to have us all be blue this year & I really liked it!

Group Picture w/ Mom & Amber's family

Here are all of the cousins at the start line of their hunt.

 I thought it was funny that all of them sprinted off in different directions passing up lots of eggs on the way.  It made it hard to get any pictures of the hunt!

Mark got this picture of Whitney, pretty princess in the wind! I like it!

 I think there was too much going on & Tucker needed a bit more coaching this time.

I helped Tommy find the last of the eggs.

As soon as we found the 2 motorized cars, Tucker deemed this one his & took off.  I didn't think he was big enough, but he LOVES it!  He will zoom all the way down the street & not even care if we are by him.  It is so funny to see such a small baby driving it.

 Tommy has decided he can climb anything now days... hope that doesn't mean broken legs & arms are right around the corner!

 Tucker always trying to be like big brother!

Our loot! It's weird to see our family grow and all of the extra baskets!

My favorite part of Easter: the madness in the front room as everyone eagerly digs through their finds.

 This light up, chirping chick was the prized toy this Easter. 

 Mr. Smiley was quite pleased to find yogurt bites in his eggs.

 

We all had a great time & thanks to Mom I didn't have to do much.... thanks Mom!