Ethan's "Big Red Clifford" party

To celebrate Ethan's third birthday (which is actually tomorrow), we threw him a "big red Clifford" party, per his request.  I had fun decorating and preparing fun red treats.  We had friends come over and had a great party.  Being that we love to entertain, I am loving that we now have a house that is big enough to host a large group of people, and does not feel cramped.  I have tons of pictures from our fun day....

My birthday boy ready for his party

Some of the decor.  I had fun making bunting banners.

I had a red candy bar full of treats

 

 

Is this not the cutest cake ever?  Jolene made it... so fun.

Ethan enjoyed it!

Ethan and Grammy

My brother and Danny

Ethan with his cousins Jenelle and Clayton

The one picture of the four of us

Opening gifts

Ethan was a whirlwind while opening gifts... he loved that part

All of the cousins at the party, and Aunt Heather too.

Halloween Costume Parade

This morning I took the kids for the annual Halloween costume parade at a cute little retirement home near our church.  Our mom's group meets up there during coffee time.  We get to trick or treat around the table and all of the Papas and Grandmas give the kiddos candy.  It's such a cute little event, and fun to have a way to celebrate during the day.

This year I had a cowboy and Tinkerbell. 
They were so cute.
Ethan didn't want to wear his costume at first (despite having picked it out himself).  Once I told him there was candy involved, he decided to cooperate.
He was very excited to go get some candy for his bucket.

I tried to get a picture of them together.... not much luck

Ethan was really trying to cooperate, however his sister was just trying to get away

My cowboy doing some rope tricks

Tinkerbell looked so cute in her sweet costume

I bought his hat for Ethan, but it was too big, so I wore it and we matched

My mom came over and met up with us so she could see the kids in their costumes

Ethan was IN HEAVEN with his bucket of candy.  My little sugar hound

After spending most of our remodeling budget on the tile and kitchen counters, we weren't left with much for decorating or fun "extras".  Thankfully I have tons of great ideas that I've come across on the internet and at friend's houses that don't cost much.  I copied these two projects after visiting this lovely ladie's home.  She has a gift for decorating on a shoestring budget, and I think I just want to copy everything she does :)  Mimicry is the highest form of flattery, right?

Remember all of the frames I've been collecting?
Well, I finally got to use one of them (and I will be using most all of the rest, as soon as I have time).
I was going to use the chalkboard paint I had purchased and paint some plywood to fit into the frame, however after visiting Leslie's home and seeing what she had done, I ordered this awesome product.  Peel and stick chalkboard is my new friend.
I love the stuff.

All I did was paint my frame white,
cut out some chalkboard vinyl to fit behind it,
slap it up on the wall,
then used mounting tape (my new best friend) to stick my frame over it.
Easy Peasy.

This next project was another copycat from Leslie.
Six clipboards from the Dollar Store.
Mounting tape I already had.
Fun decor for Ethan's room.

The great thing is I can change stuff out and hang artwork.
The pictures that are in there now are just a few I quickly grabbed out of my box.
I need to get a few recent ones in there as well.

While I was in Ethan's room taking pictures, I decided to snap a few of his bed and decor.
Matt painted the awesome stripe to match his bedding.
The bed belonged to my brother, and is awesome.
The Christmas lights are special for my light-obsessed little boy.

The carmat on the floor is from IKEA... it's super fun, it was super cheap, and he loves it.

He's showing me how he can lay in his window seat

Hallo-Wii 2010

This past Tuesday we had our annual Hallo-Wii party with our Tuesday night dinner group.
We all dress up and play Wii.
We're dorks like that :)
As always Matt and I threw together our costumes at the very last minute.
Can you guess what we are????

I'm a "treehugger" 

Thomas and Leighann are zookeepers

Their monkey decided to climb the tree!

Megan and Willy

The Mercers

And you gotta love The Oates.... they rocked Star Wars

Oak Glen with Friends

The other week we went up to Oak Glen three times in one week.  One of those outings was for a picnic with our mom's group at church.  We packed up some food, brought some blankets, and hung out on the lawn at Los Rios for a couple of hours.  The weather was gorgeous up there that day, and it was fun to be out enjoying the beauty.

Oreo mouth

Alayna and Livy.... they are only 2 months apart

We were saying Sarah is like the Pied Piper because the kids flock to her wherever she goes :)

Sarah and Aliyah

This is what I get for asking him to smile

Ethan was in heaven when Rachel Truer taught him how to take pictures with her phone.  He would have played with that for hours if she'd let him!

Who's that kid on the right that looks angry and isn't cooperating? Geesh, some people's kids ;)

 

Leighann with baby David in the sling.  She's borrowing the sling I used for Alayna. The funny thing is that David is just about exactly a year younger than Alayna, so everytime I see Leighann it reminds me of what I was up to exactly a year ago!

A visit from family

We were blessed to have my dad's parents (my grandparents ) and one of his sister's (my Aunt Kami) come out to visit us from Colorado last week.  We were excited to finally be able to host them, as we have enough space in our house.

Being that we have two little ones who nap at various times, we didn't go too many places.  We went up to Oak Glen one day and had a picnic at our favorite park up there.  We also got to tour the old historic schoolhouse, which was fun.  Mostly, we hung out at home.  We ate lots of good food and really just enjoyed one another.

Kami took Ethan and Cookie for a walk nearly every morning.
My Papa spent a lot of time during the week cutting up three dead trees in our jungle of a front yard (thank you Papa!).
We played some games, watches sports (well my Papa and Matt watched them.... I find it impossible to pay attention to sports).
It was a fun week.

My brother and Aunt Kami with Cookie snuggled up on their laps.

My papa (Alayna's great grandpa) playing with Alayna

My Papa enjoys his grandkids and great grandkids... so sweet

Ethan and my Aunt Kami... he was laughing because he tooted on her lap... not so polite!

Before church on Sunday, this is the face Ethan made when I asked him to smile

Ethan with both of his great grandparents.  Sadly Alayna didn't get a picture with them because she was napping.

Alayna playing peek-a-boo with my Grandma

 My Aunt Kami has a rat terrier named Jackson, so when she comes out here she loves to see Cookie.  Kami and Cookie were inseparable during their visit.  Cookie even got to sleep with Kami. Cookie followed her around non-stop, and was kind of mopey when she left.

The kids loved having so much extra attention (as did Cookie),
and I loved getting to see my family.
It had been a year since we'd seen each other.
The only bummer is I forgot to have someone take a picture of ME with them! 
Darn.