Party!! (Oliver Post)

Finally I'm posting the last of the birthday party pictures! Here are the ones from Oliver's celebrations. We ended up celebrating his birthday along with mother's day so that everyone from our families could be there. I still made him a special cake though, because I can never resist a good excuse to make a cake!

The four of us - so happy together, though Kalia has a bit of a silly face :)

Man, did Oliver LOVE this cake! Two of the things he gets most excited about are diggers and trains, and so I had fun coming up with this cake that put both of his favorites together. He kept saying "Train on there?? AND Digger on there?!"

I think at this point he was just wondering why he wasn't stuffing his face full of cake yet. C'mon - what's with all of the pictures?

From Auntie Crissi Oliver got a talking Handy Manny! He was just pumped and we couldn't get that box open fast enough for him!

Opening one of his gifts from Nana and Papa with Kalia curiously peeking, too. They gave him some more floor mats for our basement, a carry case for all of his little cars, and a Semi from the movie Cars. That semi was his pride and joy for days!

Are all of these big presents for me?!

Playing with Auntie Jenna's gift - a lightning McQueen Lego set.

Getting ready to blow out candles at Grandma and Grandpa's later that day

He had fun opening his Playmobil Tractor from Grandma and Grandpa! Uncle Todd helped him set up, and they had lots of fun playing with it! Scott's parents also gave him a cute outfit and some shoes.

And now for the party with all of his little friends! I did a train theme and found a lot of really great stuff at the party store to decorate with, so I didn't need to spend a lot of time making decorations for this party, but boy did the cake take me a long time! I spent most of the day before the party on the cake. But it made Oliver SO happy that it was totally worth it.

Table all set up and ready to go! The train in the middle of the table was battery operated and supposed to chug around the track during the party, but it kept derailing, so much to my disappointment, I had to turn it off.

The cake!! I made 4 different colors of fondant which is what took so long, but I was pretty happy with the end result. It wasn't as perfect as I would have liked, but I kind of ran out of steam (no pun intended :)

From top left and around: Kalia, Hailey, Logan, Oliver, Griffin, Jayda, and Madelyn

Same group, but you can also see Nolan in the high chair

Present time! I can't believe what great gifts both Kalia and Oliver got at their parties - they have gotten SO much use out of all of them already! I have to say, the most special gift to me (never mind Ollie, haha) was an album of pictures that Amber put together of Oliver. She had taken a whole bunch of beautiful pictures of my little two year old (without me knowing it) one morning while he was over. It was cute, also, seeing how pleased Oliver was to have a book of pictures that had him on every page. Thanks for that thoughtful gift, Amber!
Oliver and his cousin/friend, Logan. They are born the same year and I hope that they will become great little buddies!Nolan, Logan and Oliver were so busy that I couldn't manage to get a picture of them actually facing the camera!

Posing with all of the gifts after the party. The kids both thought this was a must because Kalia had done it, so Oliver needed his turn too!

And last but not least is our own family celebration. Scott came home early from work so we could have a nice lunch all together, and then we gave Oliver his presents before nap.

Goofy smiles! Waiting excitedly for dad to set up his new basketball hoop! He kept calling it soccer at first, though! I guess we haven't really exposed him to basketball yet. Both Kaila and Oliver had so much fun with this all day! It's really fun watching them learn to play together and work as a team. Oliver made very sure that Kalia knew these were his presents though, lol!

Getting ready to bowl all of the pins down! This is the second part of his gift from us. So far, he just runs up to the pins and swipes the ball at them without actually putting the ball down, but it's super cute!

Party!! (Kalia Post)

Be warned this post is PACKED with pictures from all of Kalia's birthday celebrations. I don't think I'm very good at narrowing down which pictures so post, so I just post a ton of them! Unfortunately, they are in reverse chronological order, because I keep forgetting to post the older ones first and the most recent ones last. Oh well - maybe someday I'll learn! In the meantime, enjoy! If you want to read the post in the order that it was meant to be read, start at the bottom, lol! We had a lot of fun at her parties, so I hope that these pictures captured a fraction of that!

Sitting so pretty with all of her wonderful gifts from the ballerina party we had with her friends.

Hailey wanted to join her for one picture - notice the little tutu that she is wearing (and other girls in the photos that follow). We did a craft of no-sew tutus during the party and it was really fun! Plus then they got something exciting to take home.

I had to post this picture of her using her Easy Bake oven. She was so proud to get this as a gift. Ok, mommy was proud too, ha ha.

Such sweet smiles!

Here are all of the little ballerinas! Starting with Kalia and moving to the right: Kalia, Hailey, Kaitlyn, Ariana, Willow, Leah, Piper, Jayda, Isabelle, & Holly. (I think Abigail was off to the side in the high chair so I didn't get her in the picture) A lot of girls and boy were they cute!

Kalia blowing out her candles - they're behind the barbie somewhere!

Kalia helped pick what kind of cake she wanted. We looked up ideas for ballerina cakes on the internet, and her favorite one was similar to this. She had the perfect barbie for it too! The skirt is made out of icing, but the rest of her clothes are painted on. It was my first time working with marshmallow fondant, and it turned out really well I think - tasted good too!

The table all decorated. I saw those big tissue pom poms on the Martha Stewart website and they were really easy to make!

For the treat bags, I made a little "Candy Shop" for the girls. They each picked a little candy box, and could fill it up with whichever candies they wanted.

Now I'll move on to the party that we had on Kalia's actual birthday. I invited both of our families over for cake and presents after dinner. It ended up being Scott's parents, as well as my parents and sister Cristina who could make it. Kalia loved being the center of attention to both sets of grandparents!

From Auntie Crissi, Kalia got a piece for her Precious Moments Birthday Train, as well as a Sleeping Beauty dress up dress. She had been asking for one for months, and was SO excited to get it. She has hardly taken it off since.

Smiles with Nana. My parents gave her a barbie shopping boutique and a barbie (that she has grown VERY attached to) along with a barbie storage container for all of her dolls and teeny little accessories. They also gave her these 2'x2' colorful floor mats for the basement play area which are just fabulous!

The dress she is wearing here was part of her gift from Grandma and Grandpa. She also got a vehicle for her pet shop, some more clothes, little people, and sidewalk chalks. She, being the girlie girl that she is, just had to try on the dress right away!

'Are all of these for me??' (much to Oliver's dismay - he was sure that the big one should be for him!)

Getting ready to race with Auntie Crissi!

First test drive. Yes, in a dress. She didn't want to be caught without her party dress on when her party guests arrived for cake! It was such a gorgeous evening out, and she would have liked to drive it all evening long. We did end up spending quite a bit of time out and it was fun watching her zoom around and be so happy with the gift we got her.

Oliver wanted in on the action too, so he also gave Daddy a big hug for the bike. Maybe because he knew he'd get the trike now!

Huge hugs for mommy!

She was ECSTATIC to recieve her new "big girl" bike! Green is her absolute favorite color, and she kept saying "I just can't believe that I have my very own green bike!"

Squeezing her eyes shut tight as she waits for Daddy to bring her gift from us into the room.