January Vacation

Vic had to use or lose his vacation by the end of the month so we took off to see my brothers! Here is a little recap of our getaway.
Day 1: Driving-yuck! Although I can't complain too much because Tommy was an unexpected angel the entire way there & back!

Day 2: Portland & Vancouver
My oldest brother, Jason, lives in Portland so we spent the day visiting him and seeing a little bit of Portland. I haven't spent time with him in about 2 years. It is so nice that, with family, it doesn't matter how much time you've spent apart, you start off where you left off as if you hadn't been apart :) Here is Vic, Tommy, & I by the downtown waterfront.

I couldn't believe how green the grass was in the middle of winter! Jason & I below:
Jason got married 3 months ago so we went down to meet his sweet new wife, Lisa, at her work. This cute little playground for kids about 3 & under only was outside her work. It looks like painted cement, but all the stuff is soft. Tommy had a grand time running around.

In the evening we drove up to Vancouver to see my Aunt Jill & her daughter Sara. I haven't been to her house for at least 10 years! It was fun to run down memory lane in her yard. She is a game lover like us so we ate pizza and played games with her. It was a lot of fun & made me have one more reason I wish I lived closer to the area! After her house we drove to my other brother Ben's house.

Day 3: Seattle/Tacoma

AfterWe went to visit my other older brother, Ben, after Jason. His daughter is turning 5 in a week so they did her party while we were there. It was a Hawaiian luau at the pool. Becky made this amazing cake with Kara buried in the sand! It was so stinkin' cute. Plus we had LOTS of yummy finger food goodies. The funny thing is the kids were having too much fun playing with the dress up stuff to sit down and actually eat at the super cute decorated table!

Here is Vic, Tommy, & I in our luau outfits :) Not so flattering when I'm 6 months prego, but still fun to dress up Hawaiian!

I was trying to get a picture of Tommy in his Hawaiian hat & he decided he needed to kiss Dad at that moment which wa so cute cuz I've never caught his kisses on camera!

This was Tommy's first time swimming in a pool. I thought for sure he'd be so excited since he loves bathtime, but he was a little overwhelmed at first. I think part of it was that the pool was so cold. I don't know why pools always keep it so cold!

He had a blast after he got used to it. He loves splashing in water & especially seeing my reaction when he gets me wet :)

All of this party time landed on Vic's birthday!... so we had to do a little celebrating for him on his actual birthday. He wanted to see a comedy show so we went to COMEDY UNDERGROUND in Seattle and saw a traveling comedian, Mike Winfield. He was clean & hilarious so if you get the chance then you have to go see him! I love when laughter brings tears to my eyes :)

Day 4 Relax/ Vic Birthday Party!

We had more time on Sunday to celebrate Vic's birthday so the girls helped me set up the decorations, make his banana cream pie, and make a few games. They had a blast & in Kiersten's words made the room "oh so beautiful". I don't know whose idea it was, but one of Vic's gifts was wrapped in toilet paper & Kara thought it was hilarious to give him a "poopy gift". :) My sweetie is now 31!

Day 5: Zoo & Aquarium

Tommy was okay at the zoo, but when it came to the aquarium he had a hay day. He ran around gibbering & pointing his finger at everything. It was really cute.

I liked the seahorse area best. It was all so bright and colorful that it almost looked fake!

Here is a close up of some of the bigger seahorses. It doesn't look real-- right?!

Just a cute picture of cousins checking out the fish together.

Tommy by the shark tank. He liked them, but he didn't like the walruses. I guess they were a little too big & close for him. I, myself couldn't believe how huge the walruses were.
Happy boy at the end of the aquarium part.
Here is Tommy's first slide ride all by himself. His coat made him go really fast & it's a little big of a slide for him so he wasn't real happy about it! He did love going down with his dad though.

Day 6: Princess Party!

We went shopping and out to eat during the day & for some reason it exhausted me so I took a two hour nap when we got home. ....which made me sad cuz I wanted to do a full princess party with a picture shoot, fancy hair, and make a princess cupcake kit that I bought for Kara, but I was so tired and I didn't want to let Kara cuz she'd been talking about it for a few days so I did a quick version of my other party. We dressed up like princesses, had a tea party, stamped cards, and made a pixel craft. Kids are so easy to please so the girls still had a great time.

Day 7: Drive Home

I think that late night game playing and early wake ups with Tommy wore me out every day. I really wanted to do a full photo shoot with all of the kids and individually, but every day I was too tired! I was still determined to get a picture so right before I left I threw up a background and took a few pictures. Kara was gone to school so I couldn't get her in the picture, but I attempted to get this picture:

This isn't even an actual picture, but a collage I put together! See the chaos below to see why I couldn't get a real picture, haha! (and some super cute pictures of my sweet little nieces)

A Very Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
This year was especially fun with Tommy being old enough to participate and being able to move without the pain of postpartum strains. Here is our cute little Christmas family (and 5 month prego belly)

We saw LOTS of Vic's family for Christmas. We did Christmas Eve at Vic's brother's house. We had the elf deliver our Christmas pajamas there this year. Here is Tommy cute as ever in his new jammies :)

Here is a little glimpse of how crammed & crazy it is with the Sutherlands. I always feel like I'm stepping on someone the entire time I'm there! This is 1/2 the kids dressed up to act out the nativity scene while his brother read it from the scriptures.

Here is Christmas Morning. Tommy checking out his stocking. He instantly grabbed the big toy sticking out, but it took some more coaching for him to check out the rest! I thought he'd be pretty excited I gave him a sucker cuz he loves them & I never let him have them, but Vic's stalking had oranges & peanuts in it & he went crazy over them instead! He grabbed an orange & ate right through the peel then did the same with a peanut!

My cute boys dressed up for PRESENT TIME!

Tommy has a unique way to open his gifts. I'll walk you through the

STEPS TO OPEN A PRESENT:

1. Jump & Climb all over it

2. Tear off the smallest pieces, peek inside, & try to play with it before all the wrapping is off! ...and then continue pulling off pieces little by little.

3- CRY because you are so impatient that Dad can't get the toy unattached from the box fast enough. (make sure to cry with EVERY gift for the same reason!)

4- DIVE into boxes no matter what there size is (even if your face is the only thing that fits!)5-EAT the packaging

6- Make a MESS of yourself

7- Find the garbage & try to make a mess.

and finally... PLAY with new toys!!! :)

And here is our happy little camper with most of his presents. He is CONSTANTLY moving these days so its hard to get a picture that he isn't in action!

Later we went to Vic's parents house for lunch and played games that made us laugh the ENTIRE day & evening!

...and games that made 3 grown brothers hold hands, so cute :)

Tommy's Birthday Part 2!

Tommy's party was on Saturday, but his actual birthday was on Monday. I felt like I needed to still do something for him on his actual big day & we had lots of leftovers so we threw an impromptu party with a few of our friends.

We didn't get a picture of him crying at the party, but when we sang "Happy Birthday" to him... he cried again so this time I got a picture!

Waiting for their ice cream to be served:

TOMMY'S FAVORITE PART!

The few days before the party I started putting up decorations & Tommy was dying to tear them down so I thought it would be fun to let him help me clean up. He was in heaven when he realized I was trying to tell him that now it is okay!

After he pulled down the balloon chandelier he was so tickled pink that he went running back & forth with them bouncing around.

Look for that hidden GIANT smile behind the streamers!

My happy ONE year old :)

Tommy's 1st year has been a blast. Tommy has the funnest-happy little charming personality that has just made my life SO much more blessed :)

Cookie Monster Birthday Party

Tommy Turned 1!!! ... so of course I had to make a big deal of his FIRST birthday! :)

(See Whitney's 1st birthday party HERE)

The theme was "Cookie Monster" so here is the invite I sent out:

Here is the background/treat table that I made. It was fun to create, but everything I did took a lot longer than I thought it would, haha! Those tissue poms were a beast at first, but fun & easy once I got it down. I thought they made it feel really festive.

The decorations going counterclockwise:

**The balloons chandelier in the middle of streamers was so super simple, but had a big effect... I'll definitely be doing that again!

**The cookie monster hat was very time consuming so I only made one for Tommy & then put the fuzzies on the other hats. I'm so glad I didn't take the time as the little babies didn't want to wear them anyway!

**The silverwear wraps were fun to create. The tiny cookie on them is cookie crisp cereal

**The cups were made by googly eyes+ 1/2 a cookie glued on. They were so stinkin' cute & I thought it was funny cuz everyone at the party threw away their plates, napkins, etc., but no one threw away their cups... maybe they just thought they were too cute to throw away?!

** You'll really have to zoom to see the lollipops, but I made a really cute label for each of them.

** Then there is the birthday boy's chair

** Bubbles on the treat table were just to give to all the kids as they left since that is one of Tommy's favorite*The Food: We had a bunch of subs from subway, fruit & cheese platter, & chips for dinner to make that part easy, but then I had to make these adorable treats (left to right):

**Cookie Monster Ice cream cake. It had ice cream sandwiches around the outside, oreo crust, & layers of white & blue ice cream that were cookie dough & mint.

**I got my inspiration for the party from the cupcake with the cookie coming out of the mouth. I thought it would be so fun, but I think he looked kind of gross, haha! I much preferred the simpler ones, plus they were way easier to make!

I wanted to give something to all of the adults as a favor so each family got a baby jar full of candy. The twist of course is that it had facts about Tommy on the label :)You'll probably have to click on the picture to read all the fun info :)

CAKE TIME!

Okay, well maybe not. Tommy hated everyone singing to him & started crying! I really thought it would be fun to do a cookie monster party because they whole point of a 1st birthday is to have the ceremonial 1st cake eating & I thought it would be so much fun to have blue & brown all over his cute little face. WELL, he licked the frosting & was done with it! We finally game him some blue jello and that mixed with the frosting made a little bit of a mess. Here he is after about 5-10 minutes.

GAME TIME: I had everyone watch a 5 minute slide show of Tommy's 1st year in order and then had them play this game. They had to put all of Tommy's cute little smiles in order from month 0-12. Most did pretty awful, including Vic, but Jimmy, a friend's husband only mixed 2 up! Then Katie, my sister did 2nd best, followed by his babysitter.

PRESENT TIME! I thought I was so clever making a simple blue bag/wrapping paper into a cookie monster face!

He really just wanted to jump all over the boxes, but I didn't want to bore his crowd so I felt bad forcing him to open them & rush from one present to the next! It will be fun on Christmas to take our time a little more :)

It distressed him that all the little kids wanted to take away all of his new toys so I thought it was time to roll out our main gift to him... a bounce house! He LOVED it! Here Jayda is falling on him, but he just thought everything about this was hilarious & fun :)

Here he is with all of his presents (trying to run out of the picture!) We're missing his big cookie monster & bounce house, plus it's hard to see some books, but for the most part here they all are. He came out pretty good & really balanced between useful & fun stuff.
Here is all of the CUTE PARTY KIDS! It was pretty much impossible to get them all in the picture & looking so this is the closest I got!

A picture of most everyone before it was all a giant mess later!! It was hard to decide who to invite cuz I didn't want it to be so big I didn't have time to play with Tommy at his own party nor did I want big kids running him over, but I thought it turned out perfect :) :) :)