Wordless(ish) Wednesday

Just wanted to share a few pictures from last weekend of the boys "playing soccer" in grandma & grandpa's big front yard. Shawn played soccer all through out childhood, so you never know- the boys might want to give it a whirl someday too.

Quinn Turns 3!

Q is officially 3 years old! This year we decided to just do fun stuff he'd like on his birthday, rather than a party. In the past few weeks whenever we'd ask Q what he wanted for his birthday he'd list the following: Balloons, Party hats, decorations, cake with candles, and presents. So I let him pick out a few decorations of his own while we were at Target one day. They were, of course, all Thomas the Train crap. As for cake, he picked out strawberry. I picked up a few things as well and we were all set.

The night before his birthday I hung up streamers, balloons and birthday signs. Shawn made a regular round cake. BUT. He made a bridge with train tracks using graham crackers, and I bought a new Thomas train that we set on top. I re-wrapped a couple presents we held back at Christmas and we were ready to go. (I don't need to disclaimer or apologize for all the crappy cell phone pictures anymore, do I? )

I spy: party hats, balloons, decorations & a present.

Birthday Sign, from his first birthday (made by Sam)

Throw a few balloons on the floor, and you're good.

He woke up on his birthday and Shawn intercepted him before he could go to the living room. Basically to give me a minute to drag my tired ass out of bed.  We walked with him down the hall and as soon as he saw the decorations, he stopped and did this thing he does when he's overly excited/overwhelmed. He smiled, hid his face in his hand and wouldn't go any further. SO cute.

Seeing his birthday sign

Seeing his Thomas Cake

He does this with his arms when he's really happy/excited

 \

Birthday donut!

So after breakfast we got the boys ready to go to WiggleWorks. Shawn had had the idea to take Q to one of those bounce house places. But I knew that Archer wasn't quite big enough to navigate around that kind of place, but would for sure want to play. Anyway, I found WiggleWorks through the Parent Map website and it looked perfect. Geared more towards younger guys with all soft play equipment ANNNND a balloon room.

In the vortex of the balloon room

I just love his face in this one

Chillin

After Wiggleworks we picked up a pizza and headed home for lunch and birthday cake.

After cake we had quite time (no nap for this boy) then played outside for awhile. Then, finally, it was present time.

Clearance Xmas themed Disney match game?!

 And I believe that was it for the day. I think it was good to just focus on him and not deal with a big party (although, I really do love having parties, so I don't know that this will be the deal every year.) He for sure had fun and it was nice to keep it low key and not spend a ton of money, ha! So, Happy Birthday Little guy! I love you so much. Even though I had to just stop writing this post to go change your disgusting diaper, only to discover you'd found a rouge crayon (for like, the 4th time in the last week) and drew all over the floor and wall. Again. And you're now sitting in time out sighing that big sigh that you do, while I try not to laugh. You're funny, silly, & sweet. You give the best hugs and smooches. I love the songs you sing, especially when you make up your own words to other tunes (Quinney the Pooh might be my favorite.) Here's to another fun year with you! (And please, go easy on us. I've heard about age three and I'm scared.)

"Camping"

Q has been pretty into the idea of camping, campfires, tents, etc. lately (thank you TV). Since we're still a ways off from being able to go camping around here (COME ON WARM WEATHER!!) we haven't been able to accommodate his desire to go. UNTIL Shawn had a bit of a genius/crazy idea. Sunday he decided we'd drive over to the Leavenworth area where we could hopefully find the sun and maybe find a little campsite and have lunch and a campfire. It stopped raining about 5-10 minutes before we hit Leavenworth, and what do you know- it was sunny! Miracle! I even took my jacket off! We decided to pull into a little park with a playground we've been to before, right as you get into town. We let the kids play and run around for awhile.

 Then we packed back in the car to head to a campground. Well, it was all closed. And there were trees down all over the place. Either there was a terrible storm, or they're taking down trees on purpose. It was a mess. And also, did I mention, closed? Well a little thing like that doesn't stop Shawn. We pulled the car over next to a spot by the road and drug our lunch supplies and such over. We spent about and hour & 1/2 having some pb&j sandwiches (Archer ate at least 1 & 1/2 by himself then just held on to one while he walked around) then roasted a couple marshmallows for a sorta smore (no choco). Q loved it, and it made me so excited to take him camping. Archer on the other hand just liked to get up on the picnic bench, then back down. Then up. Then down. Also, keeping him away from the fire (we even had the huge baby gate up around most of it) was a bit exhausting. And doing something like having a fire at a closed campground makes me all nervous and anxious. BUT, I'm glad Shawn made us do it. If it were up to me we'd never do anything fun.

I think I'm ready for camping this summer. It's going to be so much fun with the kids, if not a little stressful. But I really do love camping so I'm very excited. Anyone else love camping?

Wordless{ish} Wednesday: Children's Museum

So one of my main goals this year with our Tax Return was to get a family pass to our local Children's Museum. It's tough trying to think of things to do with the kids on the weekends when it's rainy and yucky out, which in the PNW is all the time. So I thought this would be a good solution. We went on Sunday and the kids had a ball. Archer just throws himself into any situation like a mad thing, ready to have fun. Also, it turns out he really like hats. Every display that had a helmet or hat of some kind he was just really into. Q spent this first half hour at the train tracks. Then it was just swarmed by other kids who kept taking his trains, and I decided it best to move on to try and avoid continual meltdowns (In all fairness the "taking" would happen when he'd push the train out of his own reach, and would be trying to crawl to the other side to retrieve it. Still. Don't take my baby's trains! Haha)

Anyway, they had a ton of fun, demonstrated by the big ass meltdown Q had when it was time to go. (PS 3 is just going to be SO much fun.)

Yap, Yap, Yap. Here are some pictures.

I'm still alive!

Keeping up with blogging is, like, hard. You know, because of reasons.

Here's something I never blogged about, from NOVEMBER! We had pictures taken with Kipper Photography when she was doing some mini sessions. I can't even tell you how excited I was. These marked the first time all four of us were in a picture together. It's just craziness it took almost a year after Archer was born for that to happen. And crazy it took me so long to get them up to share!

I mean. Come. On.

I'd like to explain what's happening with my hair, but I just don't know.

Oh, that's just Q being THE MOST ADORABLE BOY EVER!

A little distance helps not see the doofy face I'm making

I don't know what I'm doing with my tongue. I mean, really. What's my problem. Still, this is kinda the winner anyway.

It was a cold, rainy day. The little guys were all red faced and I was grumpy. But I am just so, so happy to have these pictures. Care is so great, and I really hope I can have her take some pictures of us again in the future. (And hopefully she won't have to spend the whole day in the rain!)

I leave you with one last picture:

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wanted to share this "Handburger" Q made me. I have no idea why he was calling it that, and it caused a lot of confusion in the car trying to figure out what he so desperately wanted to show me.



It was RIDICULOUSLY hard to get him to stand still. But look how proud!



This silly little guy, his baby brother & my awesome husband give me an awful lot to be thankful for. 

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Friday Five

1. The other day while I was making dinner (Okay, okay- I don't really cook, so basically I was probably making a Pb&J for Q and heating a jar of food for Archer. Mother of the year award to meeeee!)  I heard Q saying "I'm really proud of you Arch! I'm really proud of you! Good Job Arch!" When I peeked out he was giving him a hug. I have no idea. And I really have no idea how I'm typing this. You know, with the being dead from the cute and all.

2. Family pictures this weekend! I'm so excited. Well, and also worried. Besides not knowing yet what we're all wearing, I'm going to have to do my hair & makeup which are not my strong suits. Annnnd, I need to practice my non-fake smile and not slouching. I swear I look like a hunch back in every. single. wedding picture we have. Straighten it up Quasi!

3. This picture. I was just walking out of my room and looked across the hall to see Archer hugging Q. So.

 

4. On the other side of that total sweetness above, Archer has been a little pain about letting me feed him lately. He gets all angry and rocks back and forth in his chair, slamming his back as hard as he can against the seat. Yeah, crazytown. So the other night I handed him the spoon and let him dip it in the food himself. He was quite pleased and made a gigantic mess. Then last night it was pretty clear he was ready to do the same thing again. So we have a big boy on our hands I guess. Mr. fancy pants thinks he so big and special and can feed himself now because he's almost one. pshaw



I'm not even going to tell you how we got him cleaned up. But it may have involved sticking the entire chair with the seat & Archer still in it, into the shower.

 

Notice the whole hand going in the bowl along with the spoon. Awesome.


5. I started getting the invitations filled out this week for Archer's 1st birthday. I just can't believe he's almost one. It just went way too fast. We're doing a Dr.Seuss/Cat in the Hat theme, mostly because Shawn found invitations in the dollar bins at Target. So if you have any good ideas that fit that theme, let me know. Sadly we don't have a lot of friends with kids. So it's mostly be a bunch of adults standing around wondering how they got talked into going to a one year old's party, haha.

Okay, Happy Friday all! I'm off to let Pinterest make me feel inadequate about my party throwing skills.