Ty's brother, Paul, and sister-in-law, Amanda, flew in from Florida for Christmas. Their son, Wyatt, was born in October and we were so anxious to meet him. Thanks to modern technology we have gotten to watch him grow over his first two months, but were definitely looking forward to holding him for the first time. Ty took a half-day on Tuesday and then took Wednesday through Friday off work so we could go visit his family for Christmas. I picked Carter up from school on Tuesday and we met Ty at home to head for Topeka. Tuesday was a relaxed evening with just the nine of us at Ty's parents' house. Wyatt was asleep when we arrived. Carter was so excited to see him and say hello, but we had to ask him to wait. That was very hard for a 4 year old who had been talking nonstop about meeting his Cousin Wyatt, but he did really well. By the end of our visit he was hushing us when Wyatt was sleeping! Leina made taco salads for dinner which were delicious. I ate dinner and then held Wyatt while Amanda ate. Oh man, did I love those baby snuggles. Ty was worried that holding a baby would give me baby fever and renew my past desires for a third child, but I am happy to report they did not. I absolutely loved holding Wyatt and adore babies, but the chaos of Carter and Elise running around while I attempted to get baby snuggles was not desirable to me. While I was holding Wyatt both Carter and Elise attempted to climb on my lap and, of course, neither of them were quiet. Elise actually got really jealous which surprised me. I did not expect that from her because she typically loves babies and has no trouble with me holding the babies of my friends in our playgroup, but she even slapped Wyatt once when I was giving him attention while Amanda held him. I love babies and still dream of holding them, I'm just finally content with them not being mine!
Wyatt sleeping on Amanda when we arrived.
Me trying to keep Wyatt asleep while Elise climbed all over me!
Wednesday morning I took off for a run first thing in the morning. Ty got up with Elise at 6am and let me sleep until Carter woke up. Once Carter was up a little before 7 I got dressed and ready for my run. My plan was to run speed work at the track. It's about 2.5 miles to the track so Ty dropped me off there and I ran my mile warm up on the street by the high school. When I headed onto the track I was disappointed to find mounds of snow about 2 inches deep in some areas and other spots that were frozen. After my first two repeats I decided to abandon the track and ended up doing my repeats in the high school parking lot which worked out great. From one end of the parking lot, looping around to the other end was a half-mile. When I got back I showered and got ready for Christmas with the Shupes, Ty's mom's family. They arrived around 11 and we did lunch along with small presents. Ty's grandma gave us a toilet paper roll decorated to look like a snowman. It was so cute, I sent a picture to my mom and she ended up using the idea for a few last minute presents she was sending off. We had a nice visit with everyone, just relaxing and chatting. Everyone enjoyed the kids and oohed and ahhhed over Wyatt. After naps Carter asked to hold Wyatt so he sat in Uncle Paul's lap with Wyatt in his lap. He just loves holding babies and it made me think back to right after Elise was born and Carter would hold her and talk to her. That night I offered to sleep with Wyatt on my chest in a chair in the living room because Wyatt is used to sleeping in a Rock N Play which they didn't have room to pack so they weren't getting much sleep at night. I loved getting to sleep with him on my chest. The feel of a tiny baby on your chest is one of the best things in the world. He had an awesome stretch of sleep from around 7pm until 1am. When he started to wiggle around and seemed like he might wake up I decided to change his diaper to wake him up a bit so he could eat the bottle Amanda had pumped for him. I was hoping I could get him fed before he started crying so he wouldn't wake Amanda up. He slept through his diaper change and when I went to feed him his bottle, he just cooed at me and never once cried. I couldn't believe it! He was such a good baby. He ate all 4 ounces of his bottle without ever fully waking up and then slept until 4am. There were a few times he'd start to stir so I'd rock him and he'd go right back to sleep. It was such a wonderful night spent with my sweet nephew and I was so thankful Amanda and Paul let me do it!
I couldn't help myself and snapped a couple pictures of Wyatt while he slept.
Thursday was our Christmas celebration just Ty's immediate family. I slept in until Elise woke up. When I went upstairs Carter was helping his Gma make french toast for breakfast. We had a delicious breakfast together and then headed into the living room. Ty's mom read the story of Jesus' birth from a book and had Carter and Elise help put the pieces of the nativity set into the stable as she read their part. Elise immediately grabbed the cow and yelled, "Moo!" Carter tried to follow along and put the right pieces in but Elise was more interested in just holding them and pulling the straw out of the stable. When she was finished reading it was time to open presents. They did things a little differently, passing out one present at a time so I would be helping Carter pass out presents as Elise started ripping into her present. I missed her open most of her presents because of that. I think it works out better with kids to pass out all the presents at once and then have the kids open them one at a time. I never miss them opening presents that way. I just want to remember that for the future. The kids really raked in some awesome stuff and cute clothes! When we were done with presents I headed out to run. This time I tried out a new paved running path less than a mile down the road at the community center. I really enjoyed it and kept thinking how awesome it would be to run mile repeats on the mile loop. When I got back we ate lunch and then put the kids down for a nap. Paul got sick a little after lunch with what sounded like the same thing we had all had the week before. Everyone was super bummed Paul was sick and none of us felt much like celebrating after that, but we went ahead with our traditional chocolate making. It was fun but not as much fun as it is when everyone is able to participate. Elise did pretty well considering her age. She grabbed a paint brush in each hand and tried to paint up the sides of two liners at the same time. It was pretty funny!
Carter helping his Gma make french toast.
Elise adding pieces to the nativity scene.
Carter posing with his new sunglasses.
Elise fell asleep on me at naptime and it was wonderful!
Preparing to make chocolates.
Gpa had taken Carter out to play earlier in the day and I thought their boots next to each other were so cute!
Friday morning we had our Christmas celebration with Rocky's parents and sister. I had one last Topeka run first thing in the morning so I'd have time to get ready when I returned. We ate breakfast at Gigi and Papa's house and then opened presents afterward. Carter loves their dog, Muffin and was really excited to see her. Elise surprised us by being afraid of Muffin, who is a small dog, but loving Aunt Tina's dog, Dexter, who is quite big. I have since found she prefers big dogs to small dogs. We think it's because my parents have little poodles who growl at Elise while their big dog and Thomas' big dog are very sweet to her. This week I've been dog sitting for some friends of Thomas' and Elise loves their dog that is so big Carter is even a little leery and he loves all dogs. My dad even calls their dog a horse instead of a dog because he is so big! We left from Gigi and Papa's house to come home. Paul was still sick so he stayed at Rocky and Leina's house to rest and not spread germs. I was really disappointed we didn't get to say good bye but Ty felt it was best not to stop back by and possibly pick up more germs. The kids were really worn out and slept all the way until we stopped to eat dinner on the road! We had a wonderful visit with family and are already looking forward to the next time we will be able to get together again!
Elise getting her nails painted.
Elise loves her Papa!
Wyatt looks so much like his mommy!
Wyatt giving me smiles!
Sweetest nephew ever!
Elise was so cute cheesing for pictures, but Carter and Wyatt weren't looking!
By the time they were looking, Elise was done cheesing!
Elise helping Gpa open a present.
Amanda and Wyatt with Wyatt's new fish blanket made by Aunt Tina.
Carter was so excited about his first Happy Meal on the way home!
Last year I let Carter pick out his birthday party theme. It took him a while to decide and this year was no exception. Read about last year's party here, his 2nd birthday party here, and his first birthday party here. When he finally landed on a theme and stuck with it, I didn't have much time to plan everything out. I asked him if he wanted penguins like at the zoo or penguins like in the movie he has seen, he picked penguins like at the zoo. So I used as many realistic penguins as I could instead of going with all cartoon penguins. The first thing I did was search penguin toys on Amazon and found adorable penguin rubber ducks to use as decorations and in the treat bags for Carter's friends. My mom checked with the baker we love to use and she was already booked up for the weekend of Carter's party so we couldn't do a cake or honeydough cookies, which our parties have become known for! Instead I headed to Sam's Club with Elise while Carter was at school and was delighted to find they had penguin-themed birthday cakes that included penguins wearing party hats and balloons. They were perfect and even better, a nice price. I ordered a 10" round cake along with 30 cupcakes, half white with buttercream icing and the other half chocolate with chocolate icing.
The weekend before Carter's party I went shopping with my parents during nap time and we searched for penguin decorations and treats for goody bags. We got really excited and realized a penguin-themed party in December was a gold mine! We found so many adorable penguin decorations in the Christmas section and even scored penguin shaped chocolates at the Dollar Tree. National Geographic had some Christmas cards with photographs of penguins on them which I used for all of our signage at the party. Rather than trying to make my own signs, I just cut the Christmas cards up and used them. It worked out wonderfully. I had my heart set on making adorable penguin treat bags I had seen on Pinterest but we couldn't find any black bags anywhere. Eventually we came up with the idea of gluing black tissue paper to brown lunch sacks and it worked out great! I also just had to make these adorable penguin balloons but didn't want to spend the money on helium and knew they'd look silly if I made them upside-down so Ty rigged them up with some string like a boss! Thomas came through big with an awesome penguin and snowman cut-out as a photo prop that was a big hit. I also made some penguin cups with label paper and added penguin faces to some black balls we got in a race bag to make a penguin bowling game. Along with that I set out the penguin puzzle we got Carter for his birthday along with Don't Break the Ice, which I topped with a toy penguin instead of the man, and a sensory bin with fake snow, penguins toys, and foam snowflakes. The kids had a blast with all the toys and the only thing that didn't get any action was the puzzle. I think it would have if I'd taken it out of the box, but we had enough stuff out and about. I also set up a craft table with a craft we'd seen at Aqua Tots at the aquarium. I made copies of a baby penguin coloring page and then had cotton balls out so the kids could glue fluff to the baby penguins. Carter has one friend who always does crafts at his parties and I figured she'd be the only one to do it, but each kid worked on one for at least a little bit. His friend I knew would enjoy it sat forever and glued cotton balls to every inch of the penguins, it was adorable!
Treat bags for Carter's friends.
The little thank you note I stapled on the bags.
Penguin bowling.
The craft table.
For food Ty made sandwiches using day old bread we got at Jimmy John's for 50 cents a loaf which was my mom's genius idea. I had planned to buy penguin cheddar crackers that are just like goldfish but are shaped like penguins instead, but I guess they don't make them any more because I couldn't even get them online and they were listed as discontinued. We had just gotten some at Wal-Mart a few months before, darn it! Instead Carter picked original chips with ranch to dip them in along with Cheetos and I threw in some BBQ chips because there was a deal on chips. Ty made blue raspberry Jell-O and sliced it to look like ice cubes. We also had carrots, sugar snap peas, grapes, and apple slices. For dessert we had cake, cupcakes, and Swedish Fish.
Carter checking out the special bottles for the kid drinks.
The dessert table and decorations.
One of our cute balloons.
Once I got all the decorations up I started to get nervous none of Carter's friends would be able to come because the roads were getting slick and my parents saw numerous wrecks on their drive down. But thankfully once 4:00 hit we started getting knocks on the door and his only friends who were planning on coming and weren't able to were my best friend and her 2 kids who would have driven 2 hours to the party and then driven home on possibly icy streets in the dark. I was so glad they decided not to come as I would have been so worried about them making it home! Carter woke up a little after 3:30 and was so excited as I had told him when he woke up from his nap it would be about time for his party. He came running out to see his grandparents and play with his games. It took some convincing to get him to get dressed before his friends showed up and we finished getting his clothes on right as his first guests arrived. The first part of the party all the kids played and had a blast. Penguin bowling and Don't Break the Ice were the most popular games. I borrowed my parents' Don't Break the Ice game because the only version I could find was a Frozen-themed one for over $20, no thanks! Then we all ate. The Jell-O was a huge hit and Elise ate so much of it, her poop was blue the next day! Carter and his friends took off to play and my mom ended up letting them play with her camera taking pictures. She had almost 300 pictures all taken by children by the end of the evening.
Carter playing Don't Break the Ice with his Oma.
When it was time for cake I got Carter and told him to come into the kitchen and tell everyone cake time. He was so proud walking in and announcing it to everyone. When we were ready to sing to Carter, the mom of one of his friends told her daughter it was time to sing and she immediately turned and ran into the room from the hallway where she had been playing. I let her start us off and she sang at full volume so proudly (she's 2 and it was adorable). Carter smiled ear to ear as we sang him Happy Birthday. Of course, he was super excited to open presents. When he opened the bath tablets his Uncie J got him his face lit up and he hugged them to his chest as he said, "Just what I wanted! Now I have some of my own!" The ones we use now Elise got in her Easter basket so I always tell him how sweet Elise is to share with him. Carter wanted to open his batmobile from one of his friends and the kids all took turns playing with it. His friend's little sister picked up a book and took it to the dad of a kid she didn't know saying, "Read this to me, please." It was just precious. Another big hit of the night was the Gekko jacket Carter's Uncie Taco got him. It looked just like Gekko from PJ Masks and when he pulled the hood up it looked like Gekko's eyes. Once all his friends left he put it on and started running around picking stuff up with his Gekko muscles. Then his Gpa became his Gekkomobile and crawled around on all fours for quite a while playing PJ Masks with Carter. The night was topped off with watching PJ Masks before bed and Carter couldn't have been happier. He said, "This was the best birthday ever!" It was a really fun day and I definitely enjoyed the party a lot. It is so nice that he has friends whose parents I enjoy talking with so much. Elise had a blast as well, talking multiple people into feeding her extra Jell-O and chocolate. I was surprised she wasn't sick by the end of the night. Another successful birthday down and another wonderful year with our sweet, perfect, and wonderful Carter Ty!
