Family Picture

Family Picture

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Colin's Birthday

He's three!

We love Colin so much and are so blessed to have him! He is such a little joy (and spitfire!) and we love watching him grow up!

He had an awesome birthday this year, if I do say so myself!

I was so excited to finally meet our little guy!



He's gotten so big!
We went a little crazy for his birthday this year and surprised him with this trampoline...or as Colin calls it, his "jumpoline!"
It took a few minutes for him to get it, but he hasn't stopped jumping!

Birthday cupcakes at school

We all went to "Old BackDonalds" for dinner for Colin's favorite:
chicken nuggets, french fries, and chocolate milk!

The Party

Planning a kids party in December is kind of hard! You just never know what the weather will bring! Keeping that in mind, we planned for bad weather and planned an inside party (for 14 kids!!) and while it was super chaotic, we had a great time!

Our construction theme was fun to play with! We had some of Colin's favorite treats (m&m's and popcorn) and let the kids go to town!


 

I decorated with orange, yellow, blue, and black and used Colin's construction books as centerpieces.

I taped roads on the ground for the kids to drive on.

Colin enjoyed showing off his tractor bed and decided to stay there for a bit!

What do you do with 14 kids inside with a construction theme?
I built a box city for the kids to assemble and destroy!

The kids had a fun time jumping!

 It's always fun to have family at our parties and Karen looks so beautiful, especially when she's pregnant! 

The mommies :)

Driving the obstacle course

Before our pizza lunch, Kevin performed magic tricks for the kids

The birthday boy got to help with the trick!
("It's an illusion!!")

Daddy even made animal balloons for the kids! 
(Although Colin was afraid of them pooping the whole time!)





About Colin at Three
-We are working on potty training the little guy...buy that's another post for another day
-He is extremely loving and sweet! He loves to give kisses to me and Reagan and is such a great older brother! As mentioned in Reagan's post, she is a mean baby and Colin rarely retaliates when she beats him up. She yanks on his hair, smacks him, and takes his toys and he is so kind to her!
-He is very complimentary! Almost everyday he tells me that I look wonderful and oftentimes will point to something specific (today he said my lips look cute)
-He also has a quick temper and will flip a switch and become a monster instantaneously! He is spending his fair share in time out these days!
-He still loves to sleep with a million things in his bed! His new favorite addition is his favorite toy, Buzz Lightyear (from Toy Story)!
-Buzz Lightyear...wow! You have finally joined our family! Our dear friends, the Hansens, have a Buzz and for almost a year Colin has coveted that toy! He loves going to their house for lots of reasons (they really have the greatest house!!) but one of them is because he can play with Buzz.  I wanted to get him one for the longest time but just couldn't justify buying one for no reason since they are kind of pricey.  So all his little buddies went in on one and he is the happiest boy ever! Every day, all day long we can hear Buzz Lightyear and all his little sayings! He even has his timing perfected and can open Buzz's wings at the perfect time during the song he plays!" I love how happy it has made him! So adorable!
-I sometimes feel like a bad mom because Colin apologizes all the time! If I stub my toe or drop a cup, or whatever, he is very quick to apologize to me in the sweetest voice. "I'm sorry, Mom!" (This probably comes from the fact that whenever he is in time out he has to apologize for his bad behavior when he comes out....so he spends a lot of time saying sorry!)
-He has started picking up our "expletives"...I have to admit that we don't swear around him at all but it still breaks my heart a little to hear him say "dang it!" (although I have to admit it is kind of cute too!). We are trying to teach him to say alternative phrases like "Ah, coconuts!" (a phrase from the TV show Jake and the Neverland Pirates" and "Fiddlesticks!" or "phooey patooie"
-He LOVES to put money in his piggy bank! He calls the dollars "Umi-dollars" like his favorite TV show "Umizoomi"
-He is starting to really enjoy helping us cook! He is a great mixer, smasher, and egg cracker!
-He loves to watch movies! Pretty much anything animated :)
-He is obsessed with his Mr. Potato Head collection. He will sit for hours and put them together and play with them!
-He hates to have his hair cut or styled with gel...this leads to fights almost every morning!
-He is a little fibber! One day on the way home from preschool he told me he was in time out for growling (one of his favorite things) and the story was confirmed by his buddy Isaac. They went on to tell me all about the growling episode and how sad Colin was in time out. Another day, he told me he was in time out for something else. This time I asked the teacher about it and she told me he has never been to time out at school! He was just making up stories! He does this all the time! 
-He loves to say his own prayers and especially to bless the food. I think he blesses the food in every prayer he says!! We are working on the "vain repetitions" :)
-He calls belts, seat belts 
-Colin is my resident baby gate closer and monitor! We make a game out of leaving the baby gate open, letting Reagan see it open, letting her speed towards it, and him racing to close it before she reaches it!
-His favorite foods are macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, pizza, scrambled eggs, cheerios, noodles, and chicken and rice.
-He loves books and for us to read to him


According to Colin

-"Stop singing!!!" (When Kevin is singing)
-"No, no Baby Girl!" (When Reagan is misbehaving)
-Sarcastically, "Really Reagan? Really?" (When Reagan drops her sippy cup on purpose during meal time - mimicking what I say)
-"Mama, I am so sorry!"
-"Mama, you look wonderful!"
-"Your face looks so cool!" (to Kevin)
-"I got a haircut" (when I put gel in his hair, he refers to it as a haircut, not a hair do)
-"I am so handsome!" (while wearing his church clothes on Sunday)
-"I make mommy happy!" (he says this after he says prayers or does something nice)
-"I am so happy!!" (he says this all the time...I just love it!)
-He loves to run around the house and have us chase him and always exclaims "I am so fast!"
-

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was always a pretty big deal in my house. 
Every three years, all of my mom's side of the family would drive/fly in from Utah and Arizona for a weekend of crazy, loud, crowded, late-night, game-filled fun! 
When I was younger, everyone would stay at my parents house and it was just insane! Aunts, uncles, and cousins everywhere and never enough bathrooms!
The garage would be turned into another bedroom (California weather makes that pretty easy - not too hot or cold!) and all the boys would eat, sleep, and fart (sorry to be crass, but these were boys after all!) into the wee hours of the morning playing video games and RISK and generally making trouble while us girls bunked in the living room.

We made so many fun memories from those Thanksgivings and now with families of our own, it is harder and harder to make the Thanksgivings happen! 
Well, last year was THE year, but I pretty much messed that up...or I should say Reagan did!
I got myself knocked up and like a spoiled daughter demanded that my mother be in attendance to her birth and therefore Thanksgiving was postponed to this year!

What a week!
I took the kids home early so Kevin could work a few more days and they did awesome!
We had a row to ourselves and both of them passed out!

 That night, we got together with my brother Kevin and his wife Jessica for dinner in Brea and the kids loved looking at the Christmas decorations!

The day before Thanksgiving, we had planned on doing Disneyland with a bunch of my cousins but finally realized that it would probably be a miserable day.
Colin hates loud sounds and crowds, and while he's been to Disneyland before, we hadn't tried it with Reagan too.
So we scratched that and thought we would go see Frozen...on opening day...
Well, we got there and all of the showings were sold out so we came up with Plan C - Chuck E Cheeses!
Colin and Cody loved it and we didn't spend $200 (plus food!)

Thanksgiving Day
That morning we took the kids over to the park to get out of the house for a bit and while I watched the kiddos, the cousins played football!

Just like old times, we set up the garage with video games and toys for the young kids - they all had such a fun time

We played and tried to stay out of Nana's way while she cooked up a storm for 50 people!


It was another fantastic meal with all of my favorites!  My brother Steven even smoked the turkeys, which was AMAZING!

I am so thankful for these people:

My wise, protective, and loving oldest brother Steve 

My funny and creative older brother Mark

My hard working and fun little brother Kevin

My sweet and loyal little sister Stacie

My wonderful, understanding, devoted, amazing, ambitious, loving, brilliant, funny husband Kevin

My amazingly-talented-in everything mother Jeanette

and my hard working and generous father Perry

You all mean everything to me and I love each of you! 
I am so grateful to have each of you!

Well, as always, the meal took its toll on some of us...but not all!

Now, growing up we would always go to the beach on Black Friday, but it rained on us and we stayed home...which means I got to see a lot of this:

Yep...rattlesnake!
Thursday = traditional thanksgiving
Friday = wild thanksgiving!

Since all of my uncles hunt, they bring some of the goodies they've "collected" throughout the year to share and we had quite the feast!


But the wildness didn't stop there...we went to the church to play a little Nerf Wars!
My brother and his friends get together and play fun games with Nerf guns and were happy to let us join in for some zombies vs humans and capture the flag!

We had such a blast running around in the dark, shooting nerf darts, acting like idiots, and looking super cool with our guns and gear!  Seriously, so much fun!

All good things must come to an end though, and so we took our traditional picture with everyone and said goodbye!

But we couldn't let the opportunity pass to take some updated family photos!!





Happy Thanksgiving!!