Dalton's 1st Birthday: Beach Party!

Dalton turned one! We had his birthday party last Saturday at the beach. We had cousins and friends come celebrate with us. Since we were partying at the beach I decided to make a crab birthday cake.





The crab cake was not as intense as the WALL-E cake but still took a fair amount of time to make. Most of the time was spent frosting the legs. For those who may be curious, here's how I made it...The body was made out of two round cakes and I carved the two sides to come to a slight point. The claws were made out of a second round cake that I cut two circles out of and cut to look like claws. The legs were made out of Twinkies that I cut in half. I used a buttercream frosting to frost and decorate the cake. Then I sprinkled graham cracker crumbs around the cake for the finishing touch. It was a lot of work but also a lot fun to make. I was happy with the outcome, thank goodness! I am always so worried about whether it will come out like I've pictured it or not. This one did. Yay!

I put little goodies together for the kids. I got sand pails and put each kid's name on them. I tied a rake on each pail and filled the pails up with a bag of goldfish crackers, fruit snacks, and a water gun. The kids loved the water guns.

This is Dalton's cute birthday outfit that his Grandma and Grandpa Speirs got him. The shorts have little crabs on them. So cute!

How cute is this little girl?! This is our friend Emily. (Connley calls her Emmy.)

Dalton is a climber. This is him climbing the pizza boxes to see what dad is doing. I sure love this kid!

Mmmm. Everybody loved the pizza!

My cousin Katie took some really cute pictures for me. I love this one of Dalton with his dad.

Katie

Connley managed to get a hold of two guns...

Birthday cake time! Katie took these pictures for me too. She got such cute shots! Thanks Katie!!

Katie

Katie

Katie

Katie

Katie

Once everyone got their pieces of cake we let Dalton have the rest. He liked that!

He like it so much in fact he decided to get into the left over pizza too!

Presents!!

Happy 1st Birthday Dalton! We love you sweet little boy!!

Katie

We had a blast! Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us!!

some of the reasons i LOVE being a mom...

"Look mom, I Spiderman!"
Yes, that is underwear on Connley's head. Spiderman underwear to be exact. He put it on his head and was running around the house and climbing everything pretending to be Spiderman. Pretty creative, I have to give him that!






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Connley-Size Burger

Tonight we had hamburgers for dinner. I always make Connley a minature pattie and he usually doesn't end up eating much of it. I was talking to Jason and thinking that they should sell minature buns in the store when I came up with this great idea...make my own! I got a small glass out of the cupboard and used it as a cookie cutter and made a small bun out of the big bun. Genius I tell you! So I made a cute little hamburger for Connley. And he LOVED it! In fact, he ended up eating the whole thing. And apparently he thought it was from McDonald's because he kept saying "McDonald's. McDonald's burger." Sure, if that's what you want to think and if that is what will get you to eat it! I thought it was such a cute little burger.

Memorial Weekend: Camping Trip!

Jason got off work early the Thursday before the Memorial Day weekend and he had Friday through Monday off of work, so we decided at the last minute to go camping! We packed up the car, threw the kids in, and headed up to San Bernidino. Our first attempt was to get a camping spot next to a stream so that Jason could do some fishing. By the time we got up there Thursday evening there weren't any good spots by the stream. Surprisingly enough there was a good group of people that had an extra long weekend like us. We ended up finding a nice camping spot, but it wasn't by the stream. Oh well, maybe next time! The kids had a blast running, and crawling, around in the dirt. They were a mess! I guess we really all were! We stayed two nights and came home Saturday afternoon. The weather during the day was perfect, but at night it was freezing! Luckily we had warm clothes and lots of blankets.

This first picture of Dalton is what he wore to bed. Poor kid could hardly move. Notice that he has only one glove on? We left one hand free because he is a thumb sucker.














The boys playing in the dirt. Connley was very attached
to the shovel.















I LOVE how he's digging in the dirt in his underpants.



Messy faces!



Dirt eater...



Yay! A picture of mom with her boys!












Jason relaxing under the shade of a tree.











Who wants s'more's?!



These are my nature pictures...

We had a blast! I think we're going to start camping more often now that we have the gear and know that the kids love it.