Dustin's First Birthday

Wednesday was Dustin's first birthday! We had so much fun celebrating with him. Well, the celebration began on Tuesday. Dave has Scouts on Wednesdays, so even though Dave planned to skip scouts, we thought we'd make sure we got to celebrate, so we had cupcakes after dinner.

Dustin got "Mike Wizowski" cupcakes (from Monster's Inc.). Logan helped me mix the batter during nap time and I quickly frosted them after dinner.  At first Dustin just dipped his finger in the frosting and licked it off.

Given a spoon, he quickly destroyed enjoyed the cake, frosting, and toppings!

He thought he was getting away with murder feeding himself! And the floor was a MESS after we were done (and neon green crumbs show up a lot more than regular crumbs).

 Logan enjoyed his cupcake too! He thought the eye was a pretty funny thing to put on top of a cupcake, but he liked them.

Then Dave and Logan pleaded with me to just open gifts too. I gave in and we did! Logan picked out a toy to give Dustin. He picked two dinosaurs (because just one would be lonely Mom). So Dustin opened them and we played with Logan and Dustin's dinosaurs. Dustin makes a pretty convincing RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!

"email this picture to Papa! 3 boys, no girls aloud!"

Dustin opened and enjoyed all his gifts. We played and played until long past bedtime. For his actual birthday Dustin wanted cupcakes for breakfast, but I had to say no... It was so hard, but he settled on cereal, yogurt and grapes. He kept pointing to the cupcakes and making noise (good thing he doesn't know the word yet, or I would have caved).

Oh man it's been a busy few weeks! Well, self inflicted busy, but still crazy! I've been trying to get everything done for Christmas before December so I can just relax and enjoy the season. I have been sewing and creating like crazy! But it's never ending, every time I finish a project, I come up with two more I just "have to make" for someone. We'll see if I actually get done by Christmas. If not, it's been fun sewing.

The other day Logan asked me "so Mom, what did you sew today?" um, nothing. We had run errands and baked all day. He asked "are you sure? You didn't sew anything?" Funny kid! He knows what's up.

Other than that, I've been toying with the idea of starting a new Christmas tradition it's called the Kindness Elf. It's similar to the elf on a shelf (hide an elf toy different places in the house every day in Dec), but it focuses on doing kind things for others.

So you might find your elf in the mixing bowl in the kitchen with a note that says "help me make a treat for a neighbor today!" But I don't know if I want to commit to 25 days of planning things, so I might try out the 12 days before Christmas and see how that goes. If we like it, we can plan more activities for next year (and I can recycle this years too). If we hate it, at least we got an elf toy out of it (another item to add to my sewing list...).

Halloween & Christmas Sewing

Two crazy but fun weeks! Two weeks ago Friday we did a family movie night. For us, this involves picking a kids movie to watch, and going to the Dollar Tree. Everyone gets a dollar to spend on whatever they want. Logan got Curious George fruit snacks, Dustin got a bouncy ball, I got peach rings, and Dave got liquorish. Peach rings have become my substitute for liquorish since going gluten free. It was a fun night!

Saturday we had a casual morning, and went to the park in the afternoon. It was so windy we ended up going back to the Dollar Tree and bought two kites to fly! Logan had so much fun watching his kite flying around. I think it's the first time we've done this with him.

That night the boys headed out to the church for our ward's Father Son activity. They had a fire at the church with S'mores and 7 different cobblers. They ate chips and pizza and played in the gym with the other kids! They had a fun time. I had my friend Tenille over. We went to Zupas and worked on sewing projects until the boys got home.

That Monday for FHE we had a lesson on the Word of Wisdom. This has had a huge effect on the way Logan eats. Now when we start eating he will ask "Are carrots/sandwiches/candy healthy?" and if it isn't he will respond "then we should only eat a little". Glad he got the point of that lesson! Sometimes I wonder, and he surprises me with what he picks up. Man, since we had a lesson on dental hygiene and cavities (a few weeks ago) we have had less problems with not wanting to brush teeth.

Last week was crazy Halloween prep! I was finishing sewing a tie for Dave's costume and a belt and "mask" for my costume. They all turned out well, although Logan didn't want pictures! He's been against them since our family photo shoot.

So this is the best I could do. I probably tried to get pictures 8 times of these two. Since Logan's room is a super hero room, I thought it would be adorable to blow up a picture of these two and hang it on the wall. We'll see if I can get Dave to do some editing and make these blowup-able.

Dustin cooperated! He makes the cutest little side kick!

The lighting of this one is awful, but I love how Dustin looks like he has Logan's back!

The boys and their candy haul. We only went out for an hour, and a lot of that was spent chatting with people from the ward. So we didn't end up with too much. All three boys were feeling under the weather, although Logan was begging to go trick or treating again an hour after we got home.

I also started my Christmas sewing! I think we're done buying the boys gifts. We aren't doing a big gift year this year (we're saving up for a trip to the Outer Banks next summer), so I decided to supplement our purchased gifts with some home made ones. Everything from these gifts were out of my material stash, so "free"! Dustin will get Buzz Lightyear and Woody.

Logan will get these three Totoros. Every time he watches the movie he asks me to make him a Totoro toy. So I've been saving this idea for Christmas. And he will LOVE how they turned out! When he gets them. I was cutting out the pieces and he was in the room. He asked "Oh Mom, are you finally making me a Totoro?!?" Sigh... so much for surprise.

Other than that, we're hanging in there! The boys are pretty much over their sickness, and Dave is on the upturn. Fortunately I didn't get it, so we're good there!