Birthday Boy

A year ago we welcomed this little guy, who really wasn't that little, into the world.

So here he is a year later.

I love this picture, mainly because he never does his tongue trick when other people are around.  Such a cutie.

 And so blonde.  Every time we cut his hair it gets lighter.  I'm so glad Brandon has some recessive genes, cause I don't have any dominant genes.

 We got him a cute hat at Disneyland, but he doesn't like to keep hats on.

Crystal made some car cakes for her little boy so I asked her where she found them.  The kids were convinced that I was making Cars cakes, I didn't know I was supposed to make them look like the characters.  But they do look a little like Mater.

 All stripped down and ready to eat.  He was upset when we were having him blow out the candle.  He was made that Brandon  brought the cakes close to him and then took them away.

 Look at that satisfied face.  So excited that we let him just go to town with the cake.

 Presents!  Love his face.

 I had to document that people were there.  Brandon's grandparents don't live very far away and were good enough to come help us eat cake.

 Karole and Gerald slipped away from the station to visit for a bit.  I know, you are all jealous that we hang out with celebrities.  Don't hate us.

Tearing open a present from Grandma and Grandpa Isle.  I can't believe that my baby is a year old.  He isn't walking yet, he is just barely wanting to stay on his feet while holding someone's hands.  He is mostly happy, very giggly at times, but he knows what he wants.  He is a baby bird at meals, because what I'm eating must be better than what he has.  Even if it is the same thing.  Happy Birthday Bradley.

More Vacation

 As I promised, more about our vacation.  There was a pretty important occasion, the whole reason Brandon took time off, that caused us to head south.  Brandon's sister Haley graduated from high school.  Yay!  So we spent a week with family and got to go to graduation.

 Doesn't she look so pretty?  I mean, as pretty as anyone can look in a graduation gown.  They just aren't very flattering, to anyone.

William and Caitlyn got to give her the flowers.  Because it was so hot and it took so long for the graduates to make it outside, this is the closest we have to the whole family with Haley.  Brandon had the two little ones in the van with the air on because it was incredibly hot.
After graduation Haley had a pool party, the kids were really excited.

 The coolest presents ever, from us of course.  Now she is definitely ready for college.

 Britton loved just floating around with her life vest, and then grabbing on to someone like Don.

 Brandon, Bradley, and Aunt Cara.  We were so excited that we got to spend some time with Uncle Terry and Aunt Cara and fam.  We should probably plan a trip to visit them.

 Britt had a lot of fun on the step.  She would just lay on her back and thought it was so funny.

 My boys.

 Caitlyn was having so much fun swimming around in her life vest.

 Loving the water.

I unfortunately totally spaced pictures for the majority of the trip.  The worst was that we stopped to see Scott and Susan, one of Brandon's old coworkers.  We had a blast, the kids were so excited to see them, but I forgot to take pictures.  Susan even got the kids to take their life vests off in the pool and attempt swimming.  So we saw friends, got donuts, went to a movie, the usual vacation stuff.

Okay, the next picture isn't from our trip.  But it is right when we got home.  I was so excited this year because my irises had buds.  I didn't get any flowers or buds on them last year.  But I figured they would all be dead by the times we got back, because they looked like they were going to bloom as we were leaving.

But look.  Pretty flowers.  The weather was cool enough while we were gone that they were still blooming for about a week after we got back.  So there you have it.

Vacation

Because of a grand occasion, Brandon decided we should take a vacation.  I was actually looking forward to the week or so of vacation, mainly because the weather at home was utter crap.  When we mapped out the days we were going to be gone, we realized that Brandon's family was still going to be on their vacation so we decided to surprise the kids with a vacation within a vacation.

So we spent a jam packed day at Disneyland.  Yes I said a day, Brandon scored some free tickets and we tried to cram everything in that we could.  The kids were really excited, and the walk to the park didn't dampen the enthusiasm.

This picture makes you think they all slept together, doesn't it?  Well, this lasted about three seconds after the photo and then Britton slept with us.

These were my "if the kids get lost we can show the authorities what they look like" photos.  And an excuse to show off their cute shirts.  I made them.  I know, you are all wowed, but if you know me well you know that it has to be one of the simplest things or I wouldn't attempt it.  Okay I probably would attempt it, we don't need to go into the projects I come up with after looking at craft blogs.

We saw Mickey almost as soon as we got into the park.  We also saw Cruella Devil but she was gone by the time we got over to where she was taking pictures.

Brandon and I took a picture of this statue when we went on our honeymoon so we wanted a picture of the kids there.  None of them were willing to be by the statue until they realized we were going to take the picture without them.

 Our first ride was the carousel and William was so excited to get the horse with the gold tooth.  If you enlarge the picture I think you can see the gold tooth.  We watched a video about the secrets of Disneyland and found out that the one horse on the carousel with a gold tooth was Walt Disney's wife's favorite horse.

 So excited.  She wanted to ride again and again.

 Bradley grabbed hold of the handles and screamed.  He absolutely loved it.  He was very upset when the ride finished and Brandon had to pry his fingers off the handles.

Hey Daddy.

We met Goofy and Caitlyn wasn't very excited.

 Goofy's backyard.

Caitlyn was eaten by a jack-o-lantern.

 The one roller coaster we rode on.  I say we loosely because I didn't ride it.

Caitlyn said she loved it, William said he didn't like it.  Can you guess which one likes thrills?

We met Mickey again.  I love this picture because Bradley is growling at Mickey.  Lately when he sees an animal, a picture of an animal, or an animated animal he growls.  It was really funny.

 They let us all sit together in a Tea Cup.

And my kids loved it.  Bradley was having a ball.

 Bradley did succumb to sleep for a short time.  He wouldn't sleep while we held him and woke up as soon as he was picked up.  What makes me laugh is Britton fell asleep while I was holding her in a line.  She laughingly told me she was going to sleep and then she did.  At least until Brandon let her fall face forward into the side of a ride.

I had to include a picture from the elephants because Britton really wanted to ride on them and Brandon took ten pictures but only two with us in them.

 We shrank down to fairy size and met Silvermist.

 Bradley looked cute sitting on the flowers.

 Caitlyn pretenting to be a fairy.

 We did get to meet Tinker Bell.

The kids got to choose some ears, I suggested hats they could wear later but they really wanted ears.  I didn't get a picture of Britton riding a fish, apparently that was the highlight for her because that is what she tells people about, but here is a video Brandon took.  I have to warn you, there isn't any sound for the first little bit and it is in slow motion,  on purpose.

This was at the end of our day, we managed to do most of the things the kids wanted to do.  The next morning we drove to Newport Beach.  It was an adventure for the kids, they didn't really like the waves.

 On the pier.

 Caitlyn found some shells and spent most of her time playing in the sand.

 William did venture out into the water but he was wary of the waves.  If you look closely he is holding his breath even though the water is only up to his knees.

 He got knocked off his feet a couple of times and then he was done.

Britton was not excited about Brandon taking her into the water.

As this post is now incredibly long, part two will come later.  Then we will actually get to the occasion that warranted a vacation.

Freezer Paper

I have a new favorite craft object, I guess that is what you would call it.  It is freezer paper.  You may have heard about it, I know I had but I wasn't sure about trying.  We decided to surprise the kids with a day at Disneyland and I thought it would be the perfect time to try it out.  So I made some freezer paper stencils.  I really wish that I had taken pictures of the process, but I wasn't very confident in how it would turn out.  I found some pictures I liked, a Mickey Mouse face and  Minnie Mouse face, and I used an exacto knife to cut out the stencil.  The hardest part for me was looking at the picture and figuring out which parts I had to keep for the inside bits.  Basically I cut out the areas I wanted to show up black and kept the bits that I wanted to not be painted.  The coolest part is putting the stencil on the shirt.  Freezer paper has a plasticy side (I'm sure that is a real word somewhere) and that is the side you put on the shirt.  Then you iron it on, iron on low, and it sticks.  If you aren't happy with where it is, you can pull it up and iron it down again.  When it is ironed on it creates a seal and you can paint inside without the paint bleeding.  When it dries you peel it off and it creates a crisp clean edge.  Like so.

 The kids were very excited about their shirts, and we got many compliments on them.  I did learn a few things during this process.  I probably could have used the big pieces of the stencils twice, if I put a cloth over the painted bits, but the little pieces ripped as I was trying to peel them off so I had to make more stencils.  The second set I printed directly on the freezer paper.  This was so much easier than printing and then tracing or cutting through two pieces of paper and hoping that they didn't shift.  I didn't have any pieces of cardboard to slid inside the shirts, so I ironed some freezer paper on the inside of the shirt and that prevented the paint from bleeding through to the back.  When I cut out the stencil the second time I was able to save the parts I cut out and use them for shirts for me and Brandon.  They look like this.

Okay, clearly this is Brandon's, mine has Minnie Mouse.  I cut a square of freezer paper and then put the face outline and stuff inside the square.  These took a lot of paint and took forever to dry but they were cute.  So now I just want to get a bunch of plain t-shirts and print out coloring pages.