Easton's 1st Birthday!

One year ago today Easton John Barrett graced us with his arrival at exactly one o'clock in the morning. From that moment on we have loved seeing you grow into such a great natured little boy. From your smiles and giggles all of the time, to your curiosity about anything your brother is doing, and all of the great hugs given. Happy Birthday little man, we can't wait to see what the next year brings.

 Our morning started off with a great balloon adventure. What fun and static to be had.

 Tynan even needed to join in on the balloon excitement.

 How can you not have a hockey themed 1st birthday when your favorite toy is a hockey stick.

 Are you sure this cake should be right here in front of me mom? I can really eat it!

 Okay mom if you say it is alright for me to eat it I will.

 Mmm cake. This was about as messy as he got. He was pretty much finished once he had this much on his hands.

 Our family fun adventure continued to the MN Zoo, but first lunch was in order I just love to eat and especially to feed myself. I even steal brothers food when he is not looking.

 Classic Zoo picture on the Turtle.

 Looking at the fish 

 Watch out for the caged animals, they are dangerous, wild and may bite. Oh wait that's just my kids.

 Easton's favorite part of the zoo is the aquariums.

 These two boys are so much alike sometimes.

 Penguin watching

 Trying to touch the star fish - ah who are we kidding we were just trying to be the one who made the biggest splash.

 In the bubble

Easton's other favorite spot in the zoo.

 Did you know that a Lynx escaped from the zoo today? Don't worry I got it and saved the day!

 Presents for me!!!!

 Easton loves his new camping chair, he loves anything that can be just his.

 Tynan helping Easton with his presents

Easton loved his new trampoline

What a great day for a 1st birthday! Easton had a great time with all of the attention and Tynan is having to learn a hard lesson about other peoples birthday's and that their new toys are not his. He is learning this but did buy Easton an Elmo train set that he really wanted too. Love you Easton and keep bringing the joy to our family!

Christmas in July 2013

Merry Christmas in July! As a teacher I tend to find myself always trying to plan the day and make sure it has some type of lesson in it. For this day I wanted to start a new tradition that would be a fun day filled with some fun, activities, friends, but most of all I wanted it to be a day that we took some time to think of others. I think this day was a success and the pictures and captions should explain our day.

I love my boys and they are starting to get better with me always trying to take pictures.

 What Snow in July?!?

 This photo shows how much my boys love each other and enjoy each others company.

We started the morning decorating our felt tree, because it just doesn't feel like Christmas without a tree. Snakey even helped put on the ornaments.

 Next up was making Rice Krispies, Tynan picked the color.

 I was busy helping Easton and didn't realize that the sprinkles came out so fast, notice the ones on the right - All Tynan! I think he also ate more of the decorations than ended up on the treats.

Snow Flake Chasing
 For this activity I added food coloring to bubbles and gave Tynan plates to try and pop them. When the bubbles popped it left the color on the plate in a swirly circle. (Warning - If you do this activity be prepared for a mess. Bubbles popped all over the place leaving behind red and green marks. You can see some of the evidence on the below pictures of Tynan, but did wipe off pretty easily.) After the plates dried we made a snow flake out of it.

 Snowball Fight!

Well maybe a bit melted snowball fight. We played with white filled water balloons. Not so fun to have a snowball fight with just mom, so we invited the neighbors over to help with the festivities. They enjoyed it as much as Tynan did, but thought it was weird to have a snowball fight in July.

Enjoying one of our treats from earlier while waiting for the water table to be ready.

 Science Fun

After filling the water table I added red and green snowman ice cubes, so we could see what happens to the ice and the colors. I added way too much green color and not enough red. Again the neighbors joined in.

 The Gift of Giving

The stocking above is filled with some of Tynan's toys. He was told that the stocking needed to be filled with some of the toys he didn't want anymore, so that another boy or girl could have some to play with. This was a very hard thing for a 2 year old who thinks everything is his. After some tears he did fill the stocking. Again I explained to him that he has lots of toys and some kids have none, and that Santa would be proud of him for thinking of others. After about 10 minutes he came up to me and said, "Mom, I'm ho ho." (which is what he calls santa) I asked him why he said that and his reply was that he was giving away his toys like santa. Melted my heart. I am so proud of him and just floored that a newly turned 2 year old figured that out.

 MMM Hot Chocolate!

This is Tynan's first taste of hot chocolate. He loved it, of course he is his mothers son.

I would call today a huge success, the main point was to teach about giving to others and Tynan responded great. We also had a blast of a day. Easton was involved too, I just couldn't get pictures since I was holding him, but he scooted to me while we were decorating cookies because he wanted to be involved. He also played with the water and supervised.

Merry July Christmas, may it find you all well, happy and healthy!