Kayden's 3 Year Pictures & Family Pics

Last night Kyle and I took Kayden for his yearly pictures and our family pictures.  It didn't go that well.  Kayden didn't cooperate AT ALL, but we still ended up with a few good pictures.  And here they are!

Kayden's Three!

As many, if not all, of you know, Kayden just recently celebrated his third birthday on Thursday and celebrated yesterday with a big monster themed party!  It was a big hit and I think everyone had a great time.  The weather started off a little cold and gloomy, but ended up clearing up and getting warm, so we were able to do a majority of the party outside!  YAHOO for that.  All the kids have so much more fun out there and the parents enjoy it too.

Here are a few of the things I made for the party! 

These monster candy jars are adapted from this on Pinterest!  You know how much I love Pinterest and most of my ideas for the party came from there.

Monster Munch in little Monster goody bags that I found at Target this Summer.  How cute are they???  Monster Munch recipe came again, from Here on Pinterest. 

 Little water bottles also from Target this summer.  Gotta love their dollar spot!

I made this Happy Birthday Banner, but after I hung it up I wish I would have made it bigger.  It looked a little small on there.

The table cloth looks a little white/grey, but it was actually green.  Christy came over early and put those little monsters all over.  Thanks, Christy!

I love these.  They are white chocolate covered marshmallows with hair made out of frosting and edible eyes!  Need I say they were from here on Pinterest?

These were probably one of the easier things to make.  I got self adhesive googly eyes and just put them on hershey kisses.  From here.

Monster Magic Cookie Dough Dip.  This was an awesome recipe and when you used a Nilla Wafer as a dipping spoon, it was even more delish!  Recipe here.

Love this little monster guy on the door.  He was the scariest monster at the party.  Well, unless you count a few of the melt downs from the kids.  Just kidding.  Here was the inspiration.

Christy made these awesome monster cupcakes.  Of course they were oh so yummy!  

I made these pictures holders from two clothes pins.  I love this picture of Kayden too. This idea I came up with on my own, no help from pinterest.  LOL

These balloons were hung with fishing line and it amazed some people.  I love fishing line because you can barely see it and it is strong.  It took me an hour or two each night for about four days to blow up all the balloons, but it turned out cute.  I loved it so much more when I added the streamers.  Thank you, Christy and Cindy for the help!  here is where I got the idea.

 Picture of the overall Goody Bag Table.

 My mom made these pillows, got the idea, of course from pinterest here.

Another Pinterest idea.  Kayden didn't like this little guy, he kept telling me, "no, mommy, I no like it" and tried to take it off.  I think he turned out cute.  Here is where I got the idea.  I think I might try and leave it on there until after Halloween, that is unless Kayden tears it down!

Here are some pictures of the party itself.  I wasn't able to take as many pictures as I would have liked, but it is hard work being a hostess!  :)  Here are a few pictures.

 The sandbox was a big hit!  All the kids loved it.

The older girl with brown hair is Marin, Kayden's girlfriend and my niece, Katie's, best friend.  Kayden just loves her and follows her around every where she goes.  At one point Kayden had come inside the house with Marin to get something to eat and wouldn't go back outside until Marin was holding his hand.  It's all too cute.  Kayden will even tell you, "Marin my girlfriend".  We'll be sitting at the table eating lunch and he'll look at me and say that.  It's too cute.

This is my best friends daughter, she just turned five and started kindergarten this year.  She is way too cute.

And here is the last picture I have to share.  Austin and Kayden playing in the sandbox together.  Austin was in charge of the wheelbarrow and started rolling away with it and Kayden looked at him and said, "Austin, share with me!".  Very cute.

Overall it was a great party.  I was scrabbling around to get everything done in time, but like most things, it all worked out and I even had about a half hour to spare.  We had 17 kids and even more adults, so a houseful!  I'm already started to think of next years party!

First Day of Mommy & Me Preschool

Today was Kayden's first day of Preschool.  It is a mommy and me class which I think is really what will work well for him since he's never been in a daycare or school setting before. 

For the last week or two I have been preparing him for school.  Telling him that we will soon be going and that we are going to have so much fun.  Last night before bed I reminded him that we were going to be going to school tomorrow.  He looked at me with a little bit of concern in his eyes and said, "Mama, you come school with me'?  He let out a little sigh of relief when I said yes, like, ok, I can do this if mama is there. 

So, we got up this morning and ready to go, ahead of schedule.  YAHOO, I am happy we aren't running late.  Seems like no matter what class it is, we are always late to the first session, which is very unlike me.  I like to be on time and by on time I mean....early.  So, we are about three minutes away from preschool and Kayden asked where his backpack is!  Dang it, we forgot it at home.  I tried convincing him that we don't need it, but he insisted we go home and get it.  I knew Kayden was dying to carry a backpack to school, just like Charlie, Katie and Ashlie do, so I turned around and sped most of the way home.  And what do you know, I of course, hit every light yellow.  Not red, yellow.  So, we are sitting there in the car and I just keep glancing at the clock seeing it quickly move closer and closer to the time we need to be at school.  Finally get home, run inside, grab the backpack and hurry back to school.  Thankfully we made it within five minutes of class starting.  They were just getting ready to sit down to sing a song!  YAHOO, we made it.

Kayden did all kinds of things in school today.  He colored, sang songs, listened to stories, had recess outside.  Stamped and used scissors for the very first time.  We did a class activity which was color a snake then cut it out.  The cutting part was suppose to be reserved for parents, but Kayden thought he had the task down solid, so he wanted to cut it out. 

The teacher asked each parent what their goal was for their child while in class, what was the reason we were in preschool and then she prepared a homework assignment for each parent to work on with their child to achieve that goal.  Ours is to read to Kayden each day as if he was in school.  So, him sitting on the floor, looking at me and me reading to him, like a teacher would to a class.  For each book we read he gets a sticker.  Once the chart is full of stickers he can pick out a prize at school.  I am excited to start this.  I am ashamed to say that we have gotten into the bad habbit the last month or two of watching too much tv, so to get back into reading will only help us eliminate watching tv!



After preschool we went out to lunch.  He wanted macaroni and there is one place around here that has pretty good macaroni so we went there!  AND they have some pretty good chocolate milk, which I also got for him!  We had a great morning and look forward to going to school next week! 

Katie's First Day of 2nd Grade

My niece, Katie's first day of second grade was today.  I went out to take some pictures of her and to wish her a great first day back!  She was really excited to be back in school.  She is a girl who likes to stay busy so she can get a bit bored sometimes during the summer months.  It was fun to see her getting excited to go and happy to be back in the classroom atmosphere! 

Kayden has been really interested in school lately, well, for the last several months actually.  So, when we took Katie to school this morning we had to find a backpack for Kayden.  Luckily my mom had an extra one that was actually a bit on the boyish side, so Kayden was happy to wear it.  On our way out to the car after dropping Katie off at school he wanted to go in the school bus, luckily he was happy to just get his picture taken next to it instead. 

One day it will be Kayden's turn to start second grade and I CAN really wait for that day.  I'm very nervous at the thought of Kayden entering elementary school!  I know it will happen, I just don't want the day to come too quickly!

Circus!!!

Kyle and I took Kayden to see the Barnum and Bailey Circus today. I didn't take my camera because I knew they searched bags before going into the venue, and I didn't think cameras were allowed, so I just used the camera on my phone.



My mom, sister and two nieces, Katie and Ashlie, came also.  Here are the three of them sitting on a bench watching the preshow.

  

During the preshow, the clown invited all the kids onto the stage to dance.  Kayden did awesome and had fun.  Here is a picture of him getting his dance on.

It was a really fun show and Kayden was glued to it the whole time.  When we got home he told Papa Jim that he saw BIG elephants at the circus.  We had the opportunity to go see the animals before the show started.  Kayden was excited to see the elephants until we got too close, then he freaked out a bit.  Had a death grip on Kyle's neck.  It was cute.  He kept telling Kyle, "hold me, daddy".  Such a cute little guy Kayden is!

Olympia Maritime Festival

Every Labor Day Olympia puts on a Maritime festival where you can go aboard tug boats and enjoy the street fair.  We just learned about it a month or so ago, a co-worker of Kyle's told him about it and so we thought it would be fun for us to go see what it was all about. 

Kayden really enjoyed it and it was fun for Kyle and me as well.  The weather was awesome, it wasn't until I got home that I realized I got a little sun burned!  Ooops. 

When we got there we started off with lunch.  I got a yummy pulled pork sandwich and Kyle got a corn dog.  Along with that we enjoyed a spiraled potato on a stick.  Kayden just munched on the spiraled potato on a stick!  He isn't much of an eater.  After lunch we let Kayden play on the playground for a minute before heading off to the boats.

There were a few fun boats and a few that I wouldn't want to go out into the water with, too scary!  Not sure why people think going out to sea in a boat that is decades upon decades old is a good idea!  Not for me.



This is a mini boat that I will explain below.



There some really cool boats there.  The above red, yellow and black one was one of my favorites.  Loved the cleanliness of it and the colors.  There also was a mini tug boat there.  It had an actual motor that was 13 horse power.  Kayden really liked that boat.  He kept saying, "I ride little boat" and would bring his thumb and pointer finder together so there was very little space between them.  It was cute. 

We had a really good time and Kayden did awesome.  He was so tired by the end of it that it didn't take long for him to fall asleep once we got in the car!