Monster Gavin's 1st Birthday!

We celebrated Gavin's 1st birthday on August 31st and had a wonderful day with family!  Here is the amazing birthday invitation made by Patrick

We went with a monster theme since our little Gavin is quite the monster.  He does a great monster growl too, so we thought it was appropriate.  We made an awesome birthday banner by blowing paint and adding eyeballs.

Patrick made some amazing monsters for decorations

and the cool monster door, which we left up for Halloween too!

I made these monsters
The cups even had stick on eyeballs on them!

Here is all of our very scary food.

Ellie made the really fun play doh monsters on the table!

Everyone enjoying lunch

I am loving making birthday cakes for my kids.  Here is Gavin's monster cake.  It turned out amazing and I love it so much!

 I had to make a personal cake for his 1st birthday too!

Gavin got quite the amount of presents and loved opening everything.  He really liked the balloons and carried them everywhere.  I love how he is looking up at them in this picture.

A cool car that makes noise and drives forward from Uncle Eric Brown and cousin Katie.  He also got an awesome tractor that has mega legos inside from Katie and Aunt Laurie

 A blow up cars chair from Great Grandma Miller

 A cool car from Great Grandma Miller

 Jammies from Grandma Judy and Grandpa Cassity

 and a monster shirt and Frankenstein outfit

 I think this picture is awesome!  He really liked to rip open the presents and just stuck his hand right in this one!

 He got an awesome firetruck that you can ride on from Grandma Judy and Grandpa Cassity

A really cool John Deere tractor from Grandma and Grandpa Brown.  It has a button that makes noise and shakes the tractor all around.  He also got a couple of outfits and an awesome wagon from them.

 Books from mom and dad.  Jake and the Neverland Pirates lift flap book, an animal book you can put your own face in to be the animal

  and a look and feel animal book

 We also got him a drum set.  It is really cool and even has a trumpet in it!

 Aunt Krista got him an elephant magic writer since Gavin does a really good elephant noise!

 Aunt Kati, Uncle Mike and Griffin got him a ball, stuffed dinosaur and some books

We also found this cool ball that comes apart and you can stack in a tower

After presents we had yummy cake!  He was a bit apprehensive at first...

 Deciding it was good

 Squished

 MMM  MMM  YUM!

 Licking it clean

 He LOVED every bite

and needed a quick bath in the sink to get all the goodness off of him!

We also enjoyed the cake and ice cream!

Ellie loves to hang out with Katie and was so glad to be able to have her there to play

We had a wonderful day with all our family and are so glad they could all come and celebrate Gavin's 1st birthday!

August Activities

Ellie was invited to Jade Wilson's princess party!  She was so excited and wanted to be Ariel right when she heard she could dress up.  She LOVES Ariel.  She had me do her hair in a little princess hairstyle.  We even found an Ariel crown!  She had lots of fun doing lots of fun activities from Rapunzel!  Getting "Tangled" up with TP.  Painting on a fence covered in paper, and making Pascal are just a few.  It was lots of fun and I'm so glad she was able to go!  August 16, 2013

  I made sure to put the kids to 'work' sweeping!  They love brooms and really cleaning anything!  Ellie always says she is being a mommy-is that really all that mommy's do?;)  August 28, 2013

Gavin loves Ellie and follows whatever she does.  She taught him how to make music with the pot lids.  August 28, 2013

Cousin Katie brought Ellie some birthday presents on Gavin's birthday since she wasn't able to make it up for Ellie's party.  Ellie was so excited that they remembered her.  August 31, 2013

 They got her a Rapunzel barbie

 A small barbie that comes with a horse and the barbie movie Mariposa-that is now one of Ellie's favorite movies!

 Silly time with Ellie before bed.  We have been putting Gavin to bed before Ellie and then having just Ellie time before she goes too bed.  Tonight she snuggled between us and put her arms around us and said I love you guys!  She is the best and I am so glad she is mine!  We had to get some pictures.  August 31, 2013

And some silly pictures too:)

Bumps and Bruises!

We've had a couple of rough days around our house.  First Ellie was outside and fell.  She hit the corner of a planter box on her eye.  It's pretty amazing that she didn't hit her actual eye, but she definitely is going to have a little shiner.  August 26, 2013

Then a couple of days later(August 30, 2013), she was running outside and tripped.  It was crazy slow motion and she hit and slid on her nose and upper lip.  She was so brave, and looked at me and said, "Since I fell on my nose, I'm going to get a black nose!"  Bwahahah.  She is such a funny little girl.  I feel so bad that she got hurt again and so soon!  August 31, 2013

Happy 1st Gavin!

Wow, an entire year already!  Gavin is 1 today and it has gone way too fast!  We are having his party on Saturday, but we had to celebrate a bit today!  Here is what we did for his special day!  Patrick wanted to wake him up with lots of balloons in his crib.  It was a huge hit and Gavin LOVED every minute of it!  It was nice to have Patrick there for it too since he still had to go to work for our other adventures!

 So happy!

 The flash was a little bright:)

 Krista was off today and we decided to head up to the zoo for the day!  It was so fun to just go and play for the day!

We watched a cool elephant show and learned about elephants too

 Waiting for the bird show.  This was really cool, but Gavin had a hard time sitting through the whole thing

 Watching the otters and seals

 We always get an ice cream before we walk over to the giraffes.  Hogle Zoo has amazing ice cream!

 How do we measure up?

 We had so much fun playing at the zoo for Gavin's birthday.  We headed to PF Changs for dinner that night and had a great time and a yummy dessert for his birthday!  He loves chow mien noodles too!  Happy 1st handsome little man!

To Grandmother's House We Go

We decided to go and spend a couple of days in Layton.  We had a fun family game of tee ball and a yummy BBQ.  August 19, 2013

I think it's funny that Patrick and Mike are both doing the same pose!

Ellie up to bat

Griffin was content to just hang out in the walker with a ball

Gavin has taken a special liking to Grandpa Cassity and loved having him help play ball

Mike going for the homer

Lounging after an exhausting game!

The next day Judy, Kati, the kids and I headed to a splash pad.  We met up with some friends from our ward in Logan, The Allens and the Booths.  It was great to play and catch up.  August 20, 2013

 Gavin LOVES the water and went right in

 I love that Ellie is fine with Gavin climbing on her all the time.  She is such a great sister!

 Kati and Griffin

 I'm so glad we live close enough to be able to get together and see family so often.  I am glad that Ellie and Gavin will be able to know Griffin and other cousins so well!  Fun memories!

A Terrible Fall!

Today while we were at Target, I let Gavin stand in the big part of the cart.  I don't do this because I like him buckled in, but he really hates to go shopping and was just crying so I let him and Ellie switch.  Bad choice by me!  Target has really tall carts and I thought it would be okay since I really doubted he would be able to get out of it.  I was wrong!  We were on the toy isle and he reached for something and just fell right out.  I couldn't even get there fast enough to stop it and it was TERRIBLE!  He fell right on his head and the soft spot was purple.  I was freaking out and nobody was around.  He started screaming and so I of course called my mom, who happened to be right across the street and came right over!  That was a huge blessing to have her calm me down.  Gavin was walking around fine by now and wasn't crying anymore, but since it was his head I was still really scared.  I called the Dr. and they had me come right then.  Dr. Cox checked his head for fractures and checked eyes for bleeding or bulging.  Everything looked fine and they said to watch him for signs.  For the next few hours I watched for throwing up-concussion or any blacking out.  They said since you hadn't blacked out and there were no fractures or bleeding that he would be fine and just to watch.  It is amazing how strong our heads are and I seriously couldn't believe there was no lasting damage!  I am so grateful that Gavin is okay!

Corn Maze for Kids

We have a great family in our ward, the Jennings, that have a big garden in there backyard.  Brother Jennings decided this year to make a corn maze that was perfect for kids!  Jenny Wilson and I decided to walk over one morning and let the kids play.  It was the perfect size and they LOVED it!

 Come and find me!

 Brother Jennings let them each pick a piece of corn

 Jade and Ellie had so much fun hiding in the maze

 Ellie, Jade, Kiera, Gavin

Brother Jennings also gave us loads of corn to take home.  I was able to make a bunch of freezer corn and we had yummy fresh corn for dinner!