a big 6-0

Jeremy’s dad turned 60 last week and we celebrated with a surprise party put together by Jeremy’s mom. She reserved the tasting room at Boulevard Brewery and it included a tour of the facility. Jeremy and I told Larry about a fake event that we were going to attend down there. He totally believed it and didn’t suspect anything. When we pulled into the parking lot everyone was outside to greet the guest of honor. He was in shock! The night was full of fun and good drinks.

One very happy guy!

Me and Jeremy

Jeremy and his mom

Diane and Larry

the group

Our TWO year old

Our TWO year old! Wow, I can’t believe how fast the past two years have gone by!! For Hunter’s actual birthday day we spent a few hours at the pool with Cole, Malinda, Wes, Andy and my mom. The little boys were so cute swimming around with their Puddle Jumpers on and Cole would be right by them, helping them if they needed help. Since the day was really overcast with potential storms coming (they never did) we had the pool all to ourselves which was so nice!! Jeremy was able to get off work early so we decided to go out to eat. Hunter picked Margarita’s:-) After dinner Hunter played outside with a lot of his new toys including a water table…he was soaked but had a good time. We did cake and ice-cream before heading up for a bath. Though he blew the candle out like a champ he didn’t want anything to do with eating the cake but did take a few bites of ice-cream.

The TWO year old!

Hunter and Cole

Cousins at the pool

Water table time

love how H is putting his finger in the funnel  

The Party

Hunter had a blast at his party. Jeremy and I had to wake him from his nap but he seemed to be fine with it;-) We mostly had just family for the celebration. Bummer for Hunter was that 2 of his cousins couldn’t make the party b/c they were sick. After greeting everyone and allowing time for people to munch on food we did cake and ice-cream. Hunter wasn’t big on the cake and I should have gone with my gut instinct to just get cookies, oh well…lesson learned and we will serve cookies next year. We also should have practiced blowing out candles. (by time it was his actual b.day he was a pro at blowing out candles and knowing the happy birthday song) Hunter (Jeremy and I) opened his gifts. The boy wasn’t into opening gifts so Jeremy and I opened pretty fast b/c Hunter just wanted to play. He got some AWESOME gifts that he seems to really enjoy.

present opening

Loves his new books!

checking out some of his gifts

Hunter with his new ride from Jeremy's parents

Hunter, Cally and Nora

Hunter and Shannon

Hunter and Grandma Slack

Hunter with Grandpa and Grandma Martin

cousin hugs

Melissa, Hunter, Shaun and Cole

Donnie, Hunter and Aly

Hunter taking a water break at his new picnic table from Grandma Slack

The grandpas putting the soccer goal together from Gran and Gramps

Hunter getting directions from dad to set the ball down and kick

Gran, Hunter and Gramps

us with our little 2 year old

Papa, Hunter and G-ma

The Nuts and Bolts of Hunter's Party

Two of Hunter’s favorite things are Trucks and Balls. Narrowing down the two for his birthday party was a little difficult but in the end I went with Trucks (mostly b/c of all the fun things I found on Pinterest!). A few months ago I placed a few bids on a Transportation (Beep Beep) Cricut Cartridge on ebay and after a few attempts (waking up at 5:00 to place a bid) I won. A few Christmas’ ago Jeremy gave me a Cricut and I absolutely love it but I don’t use it as much as I would like. I had a lot of fun and help from Aly and Malinda putting the decorations together. Cutting all the pieces out from the Cricut took most of the time but was well worth it.

I love using Etsy for many things including invitations.  This year I used the seller Party Pop Invites. She did a great job and had my proof to me within 12 hours.

One thing I learned last year on Pinterest is to “pre-scoop” ice-cream into cups. It saves so much time and makes “cake time” go smoother. Last year I only served cake and ice-cream but this year after finding some really cute ideas on Pinterst on how to lay out food for a transportation party, I thought I would give it a try. Though it looked great, I won’t be serving food at anymore birthday parties because people hardly ate it.

For the past two years, I’ve taken Hunter’s monthly picture. Though very difficult most months, I’m glad I took the time to photograph him.

I love taking pictures and over the year I end up with hundreds… probably more like a couple thousand. Hunter loves to look at “slideshows” on the computer so I knew I had to put one together for his party. Last year I did a slideshow and ended up finishing it very late the night before his party. I learned from that and started on this year’s slideshow in January! Since I have so many pictures and I know the slideshow will easily last 25 minutes, I don’t make a presentation of it but just have it showing throughout the party. Question for those of you with two or more children…people keep telling me that whenever we have another child, that child will not be photographed as much…from most of the blogs I follow that doesn’t seem to be the case. So do you feel like you take just as many pics of child #2?

Cole's Birthday

This year Cole had the same huge water slide for his birthday party as he did last year and invited his little cousins over before the big boys got there so they could play in the water.  It took Hunter a while to warm up to the idea of getting into the "pool" but once I put a soccer ball in the water for him to play with he was totally fine and had a blast.  Hunter and Wes had fun playing with Cole.  Wes even had a few thoughts of going down the slide but never did.  Maybe next year the boys will be able to go down the slide:-)

Having a blast!

The boys loved playing with the hose too!

the cousins

Wes getting Cole

loved throwing the ball out and having us throw it back in

another pic of the boys

Wes taking a few steps to go up the slide

Hunter practicing his kicking

4th of July 2013

We started the day by going to Le Peep for breakfast and then headed out to a few firework stands.  We bought a sampling of a few fireworks for Hunter and for JeremyJ  Snaps, snakes, smoke bombs, blackcats, Roman candles, parachutes and a few others that went boom filled up our bag.  Our next stop was to Jeremy’s parents house.  Hunter did some snaps and ran thru a few smoke-bombs.  He mostly just played with his car and with a few basketballs.

smoke bombs!

having fun while driving 

G-ma helping out

trying to get a picture with the flag:-)

After lunch and a nap we headed out to my friend Melissa’s parents house for a party.  Hunter enjoyed running around the yard kicking and throwing a ball.  It didn’t take him long to notice that the neighbors had a basketball hoop in their driveway.  Keeping Hunter away from it was impossible.  Good thing they were nice people and didn’t mind Hunter trying to make some baskets;-)  While we were out there we attended the Stillwell parade.  Hunter enjoyed watching all the different cars, trucks, horses, tractors and people as they passed by.  After we ate dinner Hunter loved watching the older kids race.  He would say “go!  go!” while they would run from tree to tree.  I had video of it but Hunter deleted it from my phone.  I need to make sure I upload pics and videos before he plays with my phone to avoid losing fun memories;-)  As it was getting darker Jeremy set off a few fireworks and then we settled into our chairs to watch the fireworks display that the city put on.  We had a great view from the driveway.  All Hunter kept saying was “uh-oh…uh-oh…uh-oh” and as the display went on and it got later he would slowly say uh-oh.  It was too cute.  

making some baskets

Hunter and Jeremy at the parade 

Ethan and Hunter

watching some fireworks