special birthday presents...

I know I might be stretching this birthday thing out a little bit but I thought it would be fun to share these videos of Deacon playing with a couple of his bigger birthday presents.  The first is what he got from his Grandpa Duane & Grandma Sherry (Jeff's parents), and the second is what we gave him...

  

  

2nd birthday...

2nd birthday party...MUCH different than the first birthday party.

 

Instead of a small family gathering at our house, we partied it UP at a nearby park in Surf City with lots of friends and wind.

 

Yes, lots of wind.  Brrrr.  The party was from 10am-12pm on Nov 3.  Hello, fall!

 

Yeah, I took a risk.  You never know how it's going to be around here.  Had the party been a little later in the day, we would've been fine, but the cold didn't seem to bother the kiddos.  Just the adults.

 

Go figure.

 

 

 

Anyway, we still had lots of sunshine in attendance so that did wonders to ward off the chill.  The kiddos played on the playground for the beginning of the party and then when they started getting hungry, they wandered over to our shelter to grab some party snacks.  We had:

 

chocolate chip pumpkin bread

cheeseballs

goldfish

white cheddar popcorn

cupcakes

(cute little) mini water bottles

 

I did make most of the decorations again this year (it was a train theme), but couldn't do as much as last year since we had to set up outside.  Most of them were on the food table, but I did make a banner than no one could read cuz it was so flippin' windy. 

 

Nice. 

 

It said, "Choo-Choo, Deacon's 2!"  I hung it in our house for a couple weeks after his party, just to get some more mileage out of it.  :)

 

After everyone ate their fill, we spread out a big mat on the ground and let Deacon open his presents.  He did pretty good.  He never wanted to stop opening presents, though he did like to look at each present after it was out of the wrap.  You know, instead of just tearing into the next one. 

 

He gets that from his mama.  ;)

 

 

 

Once again, we had our awesome photographer Larry there to take photos for us.  Best idea I ever had.  He gets all the credit for these fantastic shots of such an important day in the life of our family...

 

 

 

Happy birthday, doodle bug!  We can't believe you're already a happy little toddler!  You bring such joy and laughter to our lives -- we're so blessed that God gave you to us.  We can't wait to see what the next year holds for you.  Love you with as much love as our hearts can hold!

halloween 2012...

We're not big celebraters of halloween, really.  I'm personally not into all that halloween represents; I'd much rather celebrate my husband's birthday, which happens to fall on the same day.  :)  That said, it is kinda fun to dress kids up while they're young, and to see what their reaction is when you tell them it's okay to go to your neighbors' houses and ask for candy.

 

I mean, really.

 

How awesome is this?!  :)

 

Deacon is very much into trains right now so we had already decided to do a train theme for his birthday party.  Considering that we already had some train paraphernalia, it was pretty easy to come up with his costume. 

 

And what an adorable little train conductor!

 

 

We had several trick-or-treaters come to our house, and then we took Deacon to a few of the houses in our neighborhood before it got dark.  He did great and the way he says "trick or treat!" is so cute!  It sounds more like "tricky treat". 

 

Yeah, sometimes.

 

Anyway, he was very polite, saying thank you when getting his piece of candy, and he even tried to trade out a few things, putting some of his candy into their basket.  :)

 

 

 

 

 

Once we were done with that, we headed into town to celebrate Jeff's birthday at his fave restaurant: Outback Steakhouse.  That's pretty much an annual meal.  We ALWAYS go there.  And that's okay, cuz we don't go there very often during the rest of the year.  Everyone thought Deacon was so cute (duh. :).

 

I would say we were much more successful this year than last with the whole halloween thing -- anyone remember how those photos turned out??  We had fun watching Deacon experience something new.  Even if we do have to explain to him (A LOT) that we can't have chocolate all the time.

 

 

carving our pumpkins...

 

Better late than never, right??

 

I mentioned in my last post that I'm very behind with some things I need to post here, but I'm slowly getting to them in this busy time of year.

 

We decided to carve some pumpkins this year, thinking this would be the first year Deacon would really be able to participate and get into it watch.  I've never actually carved a pumpkin so it was my first time to do that, too.  I picked up a couple of good sized pumpkins and then found some patterns to use.

 

That's how I roll.  This chic doesn't do "free-hand" anything, really.

 

Deacon did okay.  He watched Daddy take the top off of his pumpkin and then we let him stick his hand in to try to help get the guts out.

 

 

NOT interested in that AT.ALL.

 

:: scrunchy nose face ::

 

"Yahky."

 

But he did watch the rest of the process for the most part.  I think he just liked sitting on the table.

Considering this was my first crack at it, I'm pretty pleased with my jolly-faced pumpkin.  :)  Stay tuned for some precious trick-or-treating fun!

another visit from Grandma Sherry...

Okay, so I'm late with this post (and about 2 or 3 others) but we've been a bit busy around here, celebrating a certain little someone's 2nd birthday (and a certain larger someone's 37th birthday :).  Fall has always been my favorite season because of the sights and scents, and just the feel of everything winding down at the end of another year, but back in 1994 I added another reason to enjoy fall when I found out my (soon-to-be) husband's birthday was on Halloween.  And then again in 2010, I added yet another reason to enjoy fall -- my first child's birthday!

 

But I'll get to all that.

 

Today I want to post about Deacon's time with his Grandma Sherry about a month ago.  Sherry began asking me early on if I was going to my annual scrapbook retreat in October this year, and if so, she wanted to come down to visit Deacon like she had done last year.  I told her I was (most definitely) planning on it and when I found out the dates, we made plans for her to come.

 

She arrived the Wednesday before I left on Friday for the retreat in OIB and then headed back to IL the following Wednesday.  They, of course, had a great time together.  And it was nice for us to have her here, too.  She lives so far; I know she cherishes these times with Deacon.

 

One thing they both enjoyed a lot while she was here was walks around the neighborhood.  Our neighbors loaned us a little tricycle that also has a handle that enables an adult to push it around, which is great since our little guy can't reach pedals yet.  :)

 

Jeff got some pretty good shots of one of their outings...

 

Deacon became interested in these water grates that sometimes had "stinky water" -- it's so CUTE how he says "tinky wateh".