Birthday Fun

On July 30th both of our boys had their birthdays. Hunter turned 3 and Chance turned 1! It was our first year of celebrating two birthdays, some people worried that it might be tricky but it turned out just fine. It ends up that we celebrated Hunter's birthday actually on the 30th, and then Chance's on August 3rd, due to my Grandma West's passing and funeral. Mind you we were also in the middle of packing up our house, so it was a busy couple of weeks for us.
I will start with Hunter's birthday celebration. When Hunter woke up on the 30th, he was in for a few big surprises. First off, Spiderman came to our house and spun a web of blue and red streamers right in our kitchen/living room ceiling. Second, Mom made his Spiderman cake that he couldn't possibly wait to see. It was an exciting morning for him...full of ooooh's and aaah's!
A family tradition of ours is that the birthday person gets to decide what he/she wants for a meal. Hunter decided that he wanted to decide the birthday breakfast menu, so we had donuts and sausage to start the day off. He thought he was in HEAVEN!!
Before we knew it friends started to arrive at the house. We had Mia, Tyler, Amy, Jordan, Gabby, and Zane over for some birthday fun.
To start the party off we played
"Good, Good, Bad" a spin off of Duck Duck Goose, that was pretty fun once everyone started to participate. Then we had turns trying to wrap everyone in a web (toilet paper), I thought it was fun, but maybe the kids were too little to get it. That's okay though, they had the fun streaming the toilet paper all over the living room.
Since the party was around lunchtime I had everyone make their own english muffin pizzas. We laid out pepperoni, sausage, pineapple, canadian bacon, olives, and mozzerella cheese. The kids all had fun doing that and it was fun for them to have "their own" homemade pizza. While the pizzas were baking we played one last game. Spiderman had spun a red web all through the house that would lead the kids to a treasure for each of them. They all grabbed onto the "web" and followed it all over and before they knew it, they found a box with a treat for each of them in it. Everyone was happy about that!Pictured left to right: Jordan, Zane, Natalie, Hunter, Karin, Amy, Mia, Gabby, and Tyler

We then ate our pizza's, opened presents and played, and then did birthday cake and ice cream. Hunter had fun handing out party favor bags for all of the kids with bubbles, frisbies, lollipops, fruit rolls, and some fun crazy straws. It was a fun day for Hunter and his friends! He still talks about it, and then soon after says that he wants a Batman party next year!
Hunter is a good boy who like to play with trains, superheroes, and dinosaurs. He is a big helper and we are so glad we have him in our family.


Chance got to celebrate his first birthday with the traditional "Elephant Cake". For three generations now, my Mom's side of the family uses an Elephant cake for the first birthday. My Grandma and my Mom always made the elephant pink, but Chance's elephant was orange.

Our friends Nyle and Kristie Harrison, Delon and Dendra Chavez, and Hunter's nursery leader Shannon Mackguire came over and did dinner to celebrate with us. Since I had just come back from Grandma's funeral, my good friends were kind enough to bring dinner for everyone, and then all I had to worry about was the cake. So we ate meat and cheese ravioli in marinara sauce, salad, garlic bread, and green beans. It was so yummy and we were all SO full!
After dinner we opened presents. Chance thought it was fun to rip the paper off, but then he liked to play with each piece for awhile before he took another one. As you can imagine, it was a slow process so Hunter and I helped him get the paper off. He got some fun little toys to play with, that he has really enjoyed. Kelly and I gave him a fisher price garage with little people and a fisher price bath toy. Since we were moving in four days I didn't think we should open up the box until we got to Fairbanks, but I felt guilty, so Chance was able to play with it a little bit before September. After presents we decided to

have cake and ice cream. I set the cake in front
of Chance and waited for him to dive into it, but he really wasn't too sure about that idea. However, the more he looked at it he decided a little touch and then some tastes might not be a bad idea.

We always say that Chance is a handful, and he REALLY is, but slowly we are figuring each other out. He is a sweet guy who likes to give hugs, kisses, and high fives. You are the best Chance!

Happy Birthday to "My Guys", Love Mom