Blake's 2nd Birthday: An Elmo Party!

Finally, I'm getting around to posting about the big 2nd Birthday! Blake has been loving Elmo {or Melmo, as he says it} lately so I thought he would love an Elmo-ish themed party. To get some ideas I headed to {of course} pinterest. {where was pinterest when I was planning our wedding 6 years ago?!}

Invitations: I love invitations. But they can become pretty costly {and most people just throw them away} so this year I decided to try making something simple on our computer. It did help that I could look for ideas on etsy and pinterest. They were fun to create!

Goodie Bags: A while back I came across these square plain red gift bags at Target and thought they would make perfect Elmo party favor bags. To make them look like Elmo, I just cut out eyes, nose and a mouth from card stock and glued it on. {I'm not supper artistic so the one thing I loved about Elmo is he's really not that hard to create!} 

The decorations and food: The banner I made out of card stock and the frame I found at Goodwill and took the glass and print out and spray painted red and stapled ribbon to the back and and then used close pins to hold the pictures to the ribbon. The food I decided to keep simple this year. Since the party was at 3pm I didn't feel like I needed to provide a whole meal but I wanted something {because what's a party without food?!} so we just had veggies with ranch, fruit with {fruit dip}, crackers with a cheese spread and chips and salsa.

The Elmo: Isn't that the most awesome Elmo balloon you've ever seen?! It was huge! And Blake was terrified of it...

This is the closest he'd get to it and he was trying to claw his way out of my arms. It was probably a good thing he wasn't with me when I picked it up from the store or he might not have gotten in the car with it ha! Someone put Elmo in time out...

I'm glad Luke loved Elmo!

The cake: {just to warn you, this is a bit of a long story...} I ordered the cake from Market of Choice. Market of Choice is newer local grocery store in Corvallis that makes the most delicious cake ever. {I am serious, if you are ever near a Market of Choice stop and buy a slice of cake, you won't be disappointed.} 

When I called to talk to the cake decorator about what I wanted for an Elmo cake I was shocked when she told me that they couldn't draw Elmo's face on a cake because of copy right issues. All I was originally planning on was a square cake with Elmo's face on it. Pretty easy. So when I was told they couldn't do that I was at a loss. What was suppose to make my life easier {buying a cake, not making one} was now turning into a hassle! I called all over the place and searched every online website for something Elmo to put on a cake but nothing I found I really liked. The next idea was to have them just frost it and me add Elmo face myself to it but I am not talented when it comes to cake decorating and really didn't want to take on that job, ha! So we went for an Elmo inspired cake. The frosting on the cake is suppose to look like Elmo's fur and I made the little Elmo face topper out of card stock and also made the cupcake toppers. The says "Love, Melmo" because that is the way Blake says Elmo :)

After all that hassle, I think we ended up with a pretty fun unique cake! Which was supper delicious too!

Now on to the party pictures!!

 We were so lucky that it didn't rain! 

You never know what the weather is going to do in Oregon.

 The 

 Birthday 

Boy!

 Blowing out the candle

FaceTime with cousin T {who lives in Virginia}

 Opening presents... 

 He had a way better idea of what to do this year then he did last year!

The only minor problem was that he wanted to play with all of them as soon as he opened them :)

We had a great time celebrating with lots of family and friends! Thank you to everyone who came! It was a great day and I can believe our little boy is 2!

The Beach

Memorial Day Weekend {yes, it seems like forever ago} was a four day weekend for us. Russ took Friday off and we headed to the coast for a family day! We started at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. I hadn't been to the aquarium since Keiko the whale was there so it had been awhile for me and I wasn't sure what to expect. It didn't take us long to see everything but Blake loved seeing the fish and the birds. There is a new exhibit that we miss by a day so we are definitely going to have to go back to check that out.

Checking out the starfish.

 Checking out the birds. 

Checking out the passages of the deep.

Blake was very intrigued about the man in the water.

Checking out the jelly fish.

After the beach we headed north to Lincoln City and of course had to stop at the outlet stores. Blake {and Russ} napped in the car while I spent sometime shopping. Once the boys were rested and I got my shopping fix we headed to the beach! This was the first time Blake had been to the beach since he started walking. {considering how close we live to the beach I can't believe it took us so long to get him there!} At first he wasn't so sure what to think of the sand.

Towards the end he was having so much fun! 

The whole way home all we heard was "more bato, bato pees" {translation; more water, water please} We are heading back to the beach this weekend for some camping {and hoping we don't get rained out}!

A little catch up: May in June

It's time for a little blog catch up. 

The month of May was supper busy and flew by way too fast and the month of June is shaping up to be the same way. {I can't believe we are already half way through June! Summer is flying by way too fast. Here's to hoping July and August slow down a bit!} 

I've {finally} managed to get our picture fiasco under control and have managed to make enough space on our computer to get all our pictures off the camera. So here's a bit of what the month of May looked like for us...

The beginning of May my sister and her two boys came out for a visit. We went to Medford for the weekend with them to see family.

 Story time with Uncle Russ

 Some coloring and stickers

 Bubbles

 Who would have thought we would have so many boys! 

Good thing there's a girl on the way :)

 Sisters and cousins

 The boys with Great-Grandma Dee and Great-Grandpa Lowell

 Being crazy

Some snuggle time with Granma Lori

We had a fun and busy weekend in Medford. The boys have so much fun playing together and it was hard to say good-bye.

The next weekend was Mother's Day. 

We had a low-key weekend and enjoyed a Mothers Day/going away BBQ for our friends The Arnolds. It was surprisingly warm that day!

Then Memorial Day Weekend we went to the beach, did a bunch of yard work, including planting a garden. But I'm going to save that for it's own post, so don't go too far.

TWO!!!!

Blake turned 2 last Thursday! I know I say this every time I post a "monthly update" but I can hardly believe he is 2 already! The last 2 years went by so fast, so fast that I'm really trying not to blink anymore, or I know I'll blink and he'll be turning ten. He is turning into a little boy too quickly!

Blake Stats:

Weight: 24.6lbs {15th percentile}

Height: 32in {5th percentile} Poor kid is going to be short!

He seems to be learning new words everyday. He has started repeating what we say and loves to ask "why?" I don't really think he knows what it means yet to ask why, but I think he likes asking why because it gets us to talk to him more. He is always trying to talk!

His favorite foods are: Yoyo {yogurt}, ba-berries {strawberries or blueberries} and pizza- I think he would live on these foods alone if I let him. 

Bedtime has been pushed back a bit to 8ish. As the days got longer this spring, it seems harder to get him in bed anytime before 8pm. Unfortunately this later bedtime doesn't mean a later wake up time. He usually wakes up between 6:30-6:45am {but I'm not complaining!}

He LOVES being outside! He loves to help "bato the pants" {aka water the plants}.

He still sleeps in his crib. I'm not sure when we'll make the transition to the "big boy bed". I don't think he is, and I know I'm not ready to give up the crib. {His poor sister might be in a pack n play for awhile!}

We've semi-started potty training. The little potty is out and he sits on it and is successful about once a day. I'm hoping to work on it a lot this summer and hopefully {fingers crossed} have him mostly potty trained by the time little sister arrives. {But I'm not holding my breath over the matter}

He is one active little boy and there isn't anything I love more then being his mom!

Blake, I can't believe you are 2! I can't imagine life without you! You bring so much joy to our lives. You are constantly making me laugh and challenging me to grow to be a better mom. I love you so much and am so thankful God has allowed me to be your mom. You are going to make an awesome big brother! I love you!!

2 years ago

Right now 2 years ago my water broke. 15 hours later the most precious little boy was born and my life was changed forever.

I can hardly believe that tomorrow he turns 2. Seriously, where did the last two years go? If you ask me, they went by way too fast. I have loved every moment of being Blake's mom and I would relive the last 2 years over in heartbeat if I could. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Blakers!!

Where did May go?

Are you sure it's June 1st already?! Some how the month of May managed to slip by so quickly! The weather has been nicer and the days have gotten longer which I guess has meant more time spent outside. I've been working on organizing our pictures {finally}. We have absolutely no room on our computer for any more pictures so I've been trying to put them on our external hard drive to make space for all the ones on currently on the camera {this somehow seems to be a recurring problem}. This picture fiasco would also contribute to lack of blogging, but I'm hopping to have a handle on all the pictures and be able to share some of them with you soon! So stay tuned!

PS... Blake turns 2 in a week!!!