Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Wyatt the Riot turns 2!


I love Wyatt the Riot!
Wyatt turned 2 a couple of weeks ago, and it has been a tradition with our kids that on their 2nd birthday we take them to Domino's Farms to see the animals.
Yup, Domino's Pizza owns it.
The headquarters are in Ann Arbor, and the farm has a collection of regular petting farm animals as well as several species from all around the world that are too strange to pet.

When we took Claire and Josh there for their 2nd birthdays it was exciting and fun,

but Wyatt surprised us...he was afraid of the animals!
Everything was cool until the donkey started heehawing in the barn, which got all the other animals riled up, and they all started singing their appropriate animals sounds.
All of a sudden Old MacDonald's farm was too loud and overwhelming for Wyatt, and he cried and cried and wouldn't let me put him down.
He would say "I scared!" Sad!!


He was ok a little later when we saw the animals outside, but was still weary of the animals inside the barn.


Claire loved the goats, and the feeling was mutual I think!


And Josh really loved the bunnies and guinea pigs - very cute!
Although I am forever reminded of a certain brother of Jason's who lost the tip of his finger to a vicious bunny!

("Where? Behind the rabbit?" "It IS the rabbit!")




Ya. So it was kinda a muddy day.
My kids are no strangers to mud.
I can only imagine that Josh was probably thinking of swan diving into the mud at this precise moment!

We waited a really really long time for the hayride to begin because the farm had a surprise farm inspection to attend to, so we had lots of time to see every single animal!


Since Jason was in Switzerland during Wyatt's bday, my mom came to help me out. She was heaven sent!
We made sure to skype with Jason as Wyatt opened his presents.

Josh drew Wyatt this awesome Thomas picture for a gift!


That night Wyatt wanted to sleep with his "birthday ball".
He even said "Move over kitty!" to the stuffed cats he sleeps with every night!


We held a tiny party for Wyatt the day after his birthday.
This was really his first birthday party ever because he was in the hospital last year at this time and we missed out on giving him a party.
It was pretty little. Just my 3, and 3 other kiddos.

The only kid missing in this picture is his little friend Isabelle, his betrothed.
She's cute, and her mom is Canadian too, so it would make immigration papers a cinch!


I made orange julius for the party, and it was delicious!
Here are Wyatt's cute ice cream cone cupcakes .... right before I dropped half of them on the floor! Ha.

Wyatt loves to sing the happy birthday song to himself!
He was quite delighted that everyone was singing it to him.
When you ask him "How old are you?" He will always answer "Good."
Then, if you ask him again he will reply "6", because that's how old Josh is.
He's in denial over the whole terrible 2's.



Wyatt James is not terrible at all.
He is such a sweet boy, and he loved the cupcakes....


Even if they did fall on the floor! :)


Thursday, October 13, 2011

Claire bear turns 4!


Claire turned 4 in september, and we had a fun fairy party!

We were hoping and praying for an outdoor party and it had been raining for days!
I actually ended up setting up inside the morning of the party because it was pouring rain.
But about an hour before party time our prayers were answered!
The sky cleared up and we had beautiful weather!
We quickly put up a canopy and re-set the party outside.

Claire's friends came dressed in their best fairy gowns and wings, and we had a grand time!
I made these little fairies for each of the girls to take home.
The toadstool cake was supposed to be simple, just regular icing on top of a bundt cake,
but when I took it out of the pan the top fell apart!!
So.... I covered it in some fondant I had left over from the only other fancy cake I've made!
It was kind of serendipitous the way it turned out.

We set up the canopy just in case it should start to rain again, but we were lucky!

Josh was especially excited about the chocolate rocks we found.
We put them in these tiny nests on the table.
I also made fairy wands, which were pretzel rods dipped in pink chocolate and covered in sprinkles. I didn't really take a picture of those though.



One of our first games was to protect the floating wuzzles....
don't let them touch the ground!



After, the kids searched for fairy homes and collected "silver dewdrops" (hershey kisses).


We played lots of circle games.
I made felt toadstools for the kids to sit on, which helped to keep a little order among the chaos!

We played "fairy, fairy, troll" (duck, duck, goose) among other games.


The birthday fairy sat on a special toadstool!
She was the fairy queen for the day!



And here are all the fairies, and a couple of elves!


It's nice having a kid who can read all the birthday cards, while I take pictures!
Thanks Josh!


And of course, the fairies needed houses!!!
Josh, Claire and Wyatt had lots of fun helping to pick out jewels, little ladybugs, butterflies and birds, and other fun decorations to attach to the fairy houses.



And the cake.... pink, naturally!!!

Claire had a really nice birthday.
We went to Red Robin for dinner and they sang to her and brought her ice cream,
so she felt pretty special!
Claire was especially excited to get her own packages of gum, and to chew gum for the first time!

Happy birthday sweet Claire bear.... our big 4 year old girl!


Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Back to Schooooooool!

The first day of school was a few weeks ago, but here are the pictures anyways!
The kids were pretty excited, and it wasn't even raining!
(Wyatt wears his rainboots every day!)
Josh started first grade this year!
In Canada we would say "grade 1", and I don't know if I will ever get used to saying "first grade/second grade", etc!

Claire started her 2nd year of preschool, and she was super excited
and ready to make some new friends since her closest friends graduated preschool last year.
and Wyatt...
well, Wyatt just wanted to hold up a sign!


Josh did half-day kindergarten last year,
and so he was a little nervous about going to school for a full day.
He has a few kindergarten friends in his class and a really sweet teacher,
and quickly caught on that full day school is pretty awesome!

How do these kids keep growing up so fast??

It's just Wyatt and me at home in the mornings now!
He's pretty excited to start preschool, but I just want him to stay little.
Just for awhile.