Until Next Year

I am so glad this month is almost over. With both boys' birthdays and Christmas all within a week it can get to be a little much. Plus we have 3 other December birthdays in our family. Our house is filled with so many toys it's crazy, they got so much. We are very lucky to have such wonderful family and friends. We still have several boxes of toys in the garage but I am sure they all will be opened soon. Cameron keeps asking to open a new toy. I am trying to clean up and get things somewhat organized. Why is it so hard to keep things organized and cleaned up?!
Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas...I know we did:)

ONE!!!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little angel Easton! I cannot believe how fast the last year has gone by. I really cannot believe that you decided to come out into the world on Christmas Eve. Your grand entrance was super fast and super painful but it was so worth it and I would do over again any day. I cannot wait to see how you grow over the next year, hopefully you don't grow too much your already pretty big for your age. You are such a happy baby and nothing really makes you mad or upset, just when your big brother is mean to you. I love the way you laugh and giggle, it's the cutest sound. I wish you could stay this age forever, soon you will be all grown up. Time really does fly by. I cherish everyday I have with you and brother and I am so thankful I get to stay home everyday with you boys. Even though some days I think I might lose my mind, its so worth it!!!!!

I love you Easton so much and hope you have a great 1st birthday and we will always do our best to make sure you have the best birthday.

 

Cameron and Easton meeting for the first time.





HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mommy and daddy love you!



Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to my sweet little boy, Cameron. I can't believe he is already 3 years old, where does the time go?! I can remember the day he was born like it was yesterday, I can remember everything from when I started feeling contractions to what the weather was like and even what was on TV in the delivery room. Some things you just never forget.

I don't think people really understand the love a parent has for a child until they become parents themselves. It's such a deep love. No love is like it, not the love you feel for your spouse or even your parents. Its a different kind of love, one that is hard to explain.




Cameron Barry born on December 17, 2007 at 6:20am
9 lbs. 5 oz. and 22 inches long

Helping daddy with the leaves, such a big helper.



Such a big boy helping decorate the Christmas tree.



Happy Birthday Cameron!!!!!! Mom and dad love you so much and cannot wait to see what the next year of your life brings us:) xoxo















Magic Reindeer Dust

This is something I received from my friend Rosalie last year. She is super crafty and super sweet. We didn't do anything with it last year because Cameron had no idea what Christmas was all about and who Santa was...oh and also I had just given birth to our sweet baby boy and wasn't around Christmas Eve:) This year I still don't think he really understands the whole concept but we are slowly getting there.

All you need are oats, gold glitter, a cellophane bag, and paper. Mix the oats and glitter and put in a little cellophane bag. You can either handwrite the message or print it on the computer, then fold the bag closed and staple the message to bag. The message reads:

Come December 24th, as

Santa flies here from the

North, here's what you do.

It isn't hard...just sprinkle

this stuff in your yard. The

sparkles draw Santa near

and oats attract his eight

reindeer. Then just you wait...

they're on their way.

I think we will try and sprinkle some dust for Santa and his Reindeer this year. This is something fun for the kids to do on Christmas Eve to prepare for Santa:)

The Combo Party

My poor children. Cameron's birthday is December 17 and Easton's is December 24, exactly a week apart right before Christmas. So we have decided that we will have their birthday party as early as we can in the month of December as far away from Christmas as possible. I guess we will always have a combo party until they get to the age where they have their own friends and want their own party. But for now it just makes sense because all the same people will be attending anyway. And plus it's easier on us:)

This year the theme was Disney's Cars. I get so excited thinking of their birthday party. I love all the cutesy little themes and will keep doing it until they are old enough to say, "NO MOM!".  I was real happy the way the invites turned out. And they really didn't take that long to make. I cannot work on any single thing for a long period of time because I always get interrupted so I worked on them here and there a little at a time. I used my Cricut machine to cut out Lightning McQueen on the front and then just tore a circle out of the checkered flag paper so make it look like he was busting through. I got this idea from my scrapbook pal Cindy, who made invites for her Grandson's birthday but instead it was Buzz busting through paper, they were super cute.

 

Cynthia's BF, Joe, made the picture that is on top on the inside. I also got a 16x20 poster board print of the picture and had it set up on the cake table as a decoration. All the info is printed on vellum with a lightning bolt behind it. I got some personalized Cars stamps from Zazzle.com, that have Lightning and Mater on them and say Happy Birthday Cameron and Easton, then I made return address labels with a little picture of Mack to tie it all together.

My husband always says that I go overboard but I keep telling him that I held back a lot and had lots of other ideas. I made some birthday banners using the Cricut again. I also made a little ribbon thing with pictures of the boys through out the year. And of course we had lots of food. We are always so worried we will run out but that has yet to happen.

 

We got two cakes, one for Cameron and one for Easton and we sang "Happy Birthday" twice. They have separate birthdays, they are not twins and were not born on the same day. I think I will lose this battle soon. Ryan thinks that is a little overboard. We did have a lot of cake left over but I like big cakes, they look cute.

The main attraction was the BOUNCE HOUSE. And YAY it didn't rain. Well the rain held off until the party was almost over. I have never been so obsessed with the weather before. We were checking it like a millions times a day the entire week before the party. It went from sunny to a chance of showers back to sunny then to rain. I swear I would have cried if we couldn't have the bounce house. Cameron really enjoyed it.





WE only had a hand full of kids at the party so it was even more fun for all of them. I just wish the rain would have held off a little longer because I wanted to jump. We did go in after everyone left but it was kinda wet inside and Cameron didn't want to jump and Easton wasn't digging it either. Overall it was a great party and everyone was so generous to the boys. We have such great family and friends. Now we just have to find room for toys they got. Some will remain in the box for awhile.....I hope.

After the boys opened presents, with some help from little Miss Emily, we did cake. Cameron for some reason the last couple years gets really shy when we sing "Happy Birthday", this time around he covered his ears and started whining. I don't know what it is with him. And he wants nothing to do with cake and ice cream. Although all week now he has been singing the "Happy Birthday" song and saying his cake is all gone now. He won't eat it or even try a bite. Last year he just played with his piece of cake. Now Easton on the other hand was all smiles and giggles and loved his cake. He went to town and loved it.







My new shirt from Green Sheep Apparel:) love it!



 

There is one person I have to thank and that would be Cynthia. She always comes early and helps me set up and decorate, without her I would be a complete disaster. I just hope when she finally has a baby I can do as much for her as she has done for me. And she came home just for the party, nothing else, just for the party.

Thank you so much Cynthia, you really have no idea how much we appreciate all your help and you coming home for the party...we love you.

Now until next year.The one good thing about having a combo party is we only have to do once. I am already thinking of some ideas and party themes:)



Easton's First Haircut

Ok the last week has been so busy, so I am just now getting around to blogging about Easton's haircut. A lot of our peeps thought we should wait to get his hair cut but we got Cameron's hair cut about the same time and we think this is a good age plus Easton's hair was getting a little long, it was almost in his eyes. We take them to EJ's Little People in Fair Oaks. Cameron has been going there for almost 2 years. One of my scrapbook pals recommended them and I wish I would have know about EJ'S when Cameron got his first haircut.

Cameron was terrible when he got his first haircut. He screamed and cried. I had to sit down with him and hold him down, it was awful. It took him until he was about 2 years old to not throw a complete fit and now he is just a little hesitant but  he gets in the chair by himself and doesn't cry anymore. And I will have you know that we take him about every 4 weeks to get it cut, so it has taken him forever to get over it.

Easton was complete opposite. He just sat there and smiled the entire time. I had to hold him from behind for a minute but that was it. He was so good. We are so proud of him and we are hoping he is always this easy. This didn't surprise us. They are so completely different but this just proved to us that Easton is going to be the "good" child and more easy going. He got a little trim and looks like such a little man. He is just the cutest! .

Hopefully I will get around to the big birthday party soon.....maybe tonight or tomorrow:)



Pie Day Update



We had a busy weekend so I am just now getting around to posting some pictures and recipes from Pie Day. I won't post the Apple Pie recipe since most people have their recipes for that, it's pretty easy to make and almost always turns out good. The cake that I made is my Grandmother's recipe....Better Than Sex Cake, I have also seen it has Better Than Almost Anything Cake. Both the pie and cake turned out great.



Apple Pie....it may look a little funny but it tasted great!

My cook book 

This is the Apple Pie recipe, I just love this cook book.

Better Than Sex Cake

Ingredients:

1 box of german chocolate cake mix

14 oz. can Eagle sweetened condensed milk

14 oz. bag Kraft caramels (these are hard to find. This year I used an 11 oz. bag of melting caramels and they worked just fine. Anywhere between 10-14 oz of caramels should work fine)

3/4 cup butter
1 cup walnuts
12 oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350



Better Than Sex Cake



Directions:

Make cake mix according to directions on box.
Line 9x13 pan with parchment paper. It doesn't have to be perfect. Usually one long piece will work, just makes it easier to remove when all done cooking.
Pour half cake batter into pan and bake at 350.
Melt caramel w/milk and butter.
After cake cools pour caramel mixture on top of cake then add the nuts and chocolate chips then pour remaining cake batter on top, bake for about 20 minutes.

Cut into small or large squares to serve.



The best part of Pie Day this year was I got my very own apron. Everyone who participates on Pie Day always gets an apron made by Miss Vicky. They are the best aprons. She does an amazing job. I was so excited, it made my day, heck it made my week!  Thank you so much Vicky....I love my apron!!!!!

Pie Day was so much fun. It's always great to visit with good friends around the holidays and see some friends that you don't get to see often**wink, wink Misty**

Thanks to Cynthia's BF Joe I was able to bake my pie and cake. Joe was on baby patrol most of the time so without him I probably would have only ended up baking a pie, so Thank you Joe:)



All the girls with their aprons
Dawn, Misty, Me (Jessica), Vicky, Rebecca, and Cynthia



Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I know we did.

p.s.....it took me forever to write this post. I have a crazy toddler who does not share with his little brother.



Rebecca and Easton









Pie Day

Years ago my BFF's mom, Vicky, started a tradition......PIE DAY. What exactly is pie day? Pie day is the day before Thanksgiving and it's spent baking pies. Over the years its become more of a social event where a few of us get together and hang out. Vicky has been doing this as long as I can remember being friends with Cynthia.

I have been looking forward to pie day for awhile now. Since Cynthia doesn't live in town anymore we rarely get a chance to hang out and she is bringing her boyfriend, it will be good to see him since he doesn't make it up with her all the time. It will be a great day just hanging out and baking. This year will be my  first year actually baking something. In the years past I always had to work, then I was 9 months pregnant with Cameron and didn't feel like baking, the year after that I had to watch Cameron and make sure he didn't destroy anything, and last year I was  9 months pregnant with Easton. But this year I am going to do it. I figure there will be enough people there to watch my little devils to make sure they don't break anything plus after having the second baby you get really good at multi-tasking.  I will post recipes and pictures later tonight or tomorrow of my master pieces, lets hope they turn out:)

This week has been busy so far and it's not slowing down any. The kids and I had to do some grocery shopping on Monday, which is always an adventure. Then yesterday my mom took the kids and I to Jon's Incredible Pizza. Most people refer to that place as a Chuck-e-Cheese on crack. It was super busy because school is out plus it was wet and cold. Of course today is pie day and then we are going out to dinner with some friends later tonight, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we have to make the rounds, and then Friday is..... well black friday. Don't know if we are going out or not. I am sure we will. We have so much to buy we have to shop all the deals.

Well I have to get busy and dig up my recipes to make sure I have everything.

Happy Pie Day!

There's a Party in My City!

Well yesterday was the big show.....Yo Gabba Gabba LIVE!

We got the tickets months ago and finally the big day was here. I don't think Cameron really had clue what to expect. The line was crazy long to get in. I don't think they opened the doors until 2:30pm and the show started at 3pm. They had a bunch of old people scanning tickets and ushering people in, no wonder it took forever plus a bunch of kids that don't really move all that fast. Needless to say the show didn't start on time.

Waiting in line moving our way up........



Waiting for the show to start



Cool DJ Lance Dance glasses

Cameron sat in his seat for the first half with his hands over his ears but once they dropped some balloons and we got him this light up stick thingy he got over it. He kinda just sat there and didn't really move around much, not like he does at home when it's on TV. His favorite part is when they "go crazy". He wanted no part of that at the show . I think it was a lot for him to take in, after all this was his first live show. We could tell he enjoyed it and had fun. After the show he kept asking to go back in and watch it again.

There's a party in my tummy, so yummy so yummy

We had to bribe him to take a picture with Muno, the cardboard cut out.

For those of you who don't have kids and have no idea what Yo Gabba Gabba is click here to check them out.                                    

And can I just say they really need to make the floors in parking garages taller! When we first entered the parking garage they have the clearance thingy hanging down and we cleared it but it still looked like we were going to smash into the ceiling. As we made our way up each floor trying to find a parking space, all which were compact, Cameron kept saying "Out now". I think he was a little freaked out by the parking garage and how low the ceiling was. We had to go all the way to the very top, up 7 floors to find a damn parking spot. Then once we went down the elevator and started walking to the show he said, "My car is up there, I want my car down", it was really cute. It's funny how he always calls the truck "His car".

Cameron wanted to look over the top of parking garage

Then on the way home I started to feel kinda blah. My head started hurting and my body was aching. Once we picked up Easton from my Grandma's it got worst and I just thought I needed to eat since we hadn't had dinner yet. So we got something to eat and I just felt crappier and crappier, went to bed with a headache and freezing my butt off. I was so cold I fell asleep in sweatpants. I got up with Ryan at about 3:15am and felt a little better but still had a headache and then Cameron decides to wake up at 4 freaking 30 and all I want to do is go back to sleep. Once I got up and stated moving around the headache got a little better but I still feel icky, I just hope it doesn't turn into something more. I guess it's probably time to go get our flu shots, that should be fun.