Happy Birthday Easton!

We have a birthday boy here at our house this week. On December 28th we celebrated Easton's first birthday. We had a Curious George themed birthday party. This picture at the top might be my favorite from the party. I just thought it was so cute watching Dallon and Dawson present the cake to him and seeing them sing happy birthday to their baby brother!

Here's the cake! We are all pretty proud of this one... because it was totally a family effort. Never before have we all had a hand in making a birthday cake. First of all, I really wanted to make a Curious George cake. But there aren't any shaped pans you can buy and I searched the web and found nothing. So, I told Dallon of my problem. That I needed to find a picture of Curious George that I could use as my outline for the cake or we'd just have to have some other kind of party. Within minutes, my little artist brought me this picture below. I loved it... it was perfect. I started to believe that with his awesome drawing and my cake decorating we could actually pull it off. Dawson baked the cakes with me the night before. Aaron is the one who used Dallon's drawing to carve out the shape in the cake, he cut it exactly how it was drawn, size and all. And I did all of the frosting. It was really fun doing it as a family for Easton. Everyone felt so proud of their part in it!

Easton liked the party hats! He wore it the whole time. He ate a little cake. Mostly, he was into making messes. He started making a game out of trying to wipe frosting fingers on Dawson. I think Dawson may have ended up dirtier than the birthday boy!

Easton and Curious George in the birthday boy chair! Dawson, Dallon and Dad did the decorations for the party and they did such a great job! I love it!

We gave him the two toys in these pics. The Curious George stuffed animal was by far his favorite! We were all so shocked by Easton's reaction to him. He pulled him out of the box and hugged him, layed on him, rolled over with him, hugged him again... etc. It was the cutest thing we'd ever seen. It was like there was an instant bond between them. He loves Curious George. It really was the perfect party for our baby boy. I still can't believe his is already one.

he's not too popular tonight...

Well, tonight Easton's popularity ranking with his two older brothers went down the toilet... or should we say down the drain. He was taking a bath with Dawson. I turned my back for a few minutes just cleaning up the bathroom. Dawson yelled... "Mom, Easton pooped!!!" Dawson was outta that bath so fast. The funny thing is...  when Dawson jumped out and made such a fuss... Easton stood up, looked at him, and broke out into laughter!  I moved Dawson to the master shower and got it cleaned up with Dallon's assistance,  but both Dallon and Dawson couldn't have been more discusted with Easton. I don't know if poor Easton will ever find a bath partner again.  

Christmas Morning

Our kids started waking us at 3:45 am this year... talk about Christmas spirit! We managed to hold them off until 6 am because of baby brother. But at six we were up and celebrating. Santa was good to us. The kids favorite things they got were... Dallon a PSP, Dawson loved his Iron Man, and Easton got a sock monkey. We spent the day at home just hanging out and playing. I am so thankful for my family.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve the kids woke Aaron and I early! Yes... that's right. Christmas eve? Who does that? Well our kids didn't want us sleeping in on christmas eve. Too much fun to be had. Dallon and Dawson started the day off practing how fast they could run down the stairs for Christmas morning. Once they felt they had that mastered we made cookies for Santa. The whole day was fun and full of family traditions. We had waffles for dinner. Dawson helped make them this year. I've eaten waffles for dinner my whole life... this tradition goes waaaaaaaay back. Then we decorated stockings... another Sullivan family tradition. We had lots of extra christmas cards left this year, so I was in a hurry and decided to slap a family pic down on my stocking... others ideas came from that and before we knew it everyone was using the family pic in some way on their stockings. Dawson's head is riding a reindeer. Easton's head is in the star on top of the tree. Dallon made a funny face on all of us by giving me a mustach, Easton glasses, Aaron wacky hair, and Dawson a beard, nothing on Dallon's face of course. Aaron had us all riding in santa's sleigh... his was my favorite. (Aaron has a special stocking decorating talent) The kids were so excited for their favorite part of the night... the christmas eve present. They all opened pajama's. The bottom pic is them all in their pajama's. Easton's have sock monkey's on them, Dawson's are cowboy... and he kept saying "next time we go to Mammy's and Pappy's I'm taking these", and Dallon's were sports pj's. We hung out and Dallon read Twas The Night Before Christmas to all of us.

fun with gingerbread

For family home evening tonight we decorated a gingerbread sleigh and reindeer, and a train. We always decorate gingerbread houses each year but this year decided to do something a little different. Dawson's is the train and Dad helped him on it. Dallon's is Santa's sleigh and he and I did that together. I was very busy also holding Easton so it was mostly Dallon. They both turned out cute. It was a fun change.

first night of BMX bike racing

Dallon and Dawson have wanted to do bmx bike racing for years. When we first moved here they discovered the tracks. We live right by them. They have been interested in it because of watching Daddy's home video's of his old bike racing days when he was a kid. Aaron and his sister Melissa raced for years. (I'm sure I'll cover that a little more in another post.) Anyway, this was at their very first practice. Both of the boys did great and had a fun time. As you can see in the third picture, the hills are pretty steep and Dawson didn't quite make it up his first time around. If you know Dawson though, then you know he's really tough and a wild man at heart... it didn't slow him down a bit! (These aren't the best pics. It's at night, and under lights. Hopefully I can learn how to take good pics under those conditions so that I can capture them better). Both Aaron and I are excited for the boys to have a sport that they can do together, both practices, and race nights. And it's so fun to have lots of different childhood experiences.

I am now going to share with you the things that Dawson said to us in the car on the ride home after practice.

Mom, I want to tell you a secret. Lean in close... " I took first place." "I took first place 4 times tonight but Dallon only took first once." (I think that is why it was a secret... Dallon wouldn't have stood for him talking smack about him like that.)

The boys made one new friend at the tracks. He took them under his wing and was showing them the ropes. He was a real nice 8 year old who has been racing every week for a year now. On the drive home Dawson said "Logan only took one first tonight... and he's older than me."

We got a hoot out of all this talk. For one, this was only a practice. There were no official winners and losers. But it was so cute to see that he was seriously racing all those around him and in his mind he was definately the winner.

$65 for a locksmith

Our front door just stopped working. We would put our key in but it wouldn't turn. So, for a few months we just couldn't unlock it from outside. We mostly used the garage door as we came and went. Finally I called the locksmith and had him come take a look. I wasn't sure if our hardware on the door was broken or if the lock just needed rekeyed. Turns out - he found a piece of wood in there. I instantly knew that it had to have been one of the boys. So I asked, and sure enough Dallon remembers picking the lock with a piece of wood a few months ago.

christmas tree, lights & santa

We took the kids to see Santa a week ago. It was so much fun. Easton wasn't scared of Santa like the other two boys were their first year. I was expecting him to cry but he didn't. Dawson got stage freight or something... he couldn't remember what he wanted to ask for. Dallon went ahead and asked for a PSP again... he asked last year and didn't get it, so he said he decided to give it one more shot. We had fun decorating the tree. We did it totally different and so that was fun, especially for me. We decorated it, and then everyday since Easton has undecorated it. By the time christmas comes I bet the bottom two feet will be bare. He's broken 3 decorations, and opened 2 presents so far. Aaron rocked the house with lights. He always does such a great job. Can you say "fun family?"

sugar baby

I had just bought a new bag of sugar at the store this week and had put it in the cupboard. Easton chewed his way right into it. I knew the house had been quiet for far too long... so I went looking for him. He was very busy licking the sugar off his fingers and then redipping. Talk about a sugar rush.

thanksgiving weekend

We spent our thanksgiving weekend in Stephenville with our family there. I didn't get any pics of the actual thanksgiving dinner... but it was delicious. Marcie is such a good cook. On thanksgiving day we rode horses... a family tradition. It is always tons of fun for the boys and something they really look forward to. We also played bumper pool and fusball. The next morning Marcie and I were up at 4:30 in order to be at Walmart by 5 am for the day-after-thanksgiving shopping. We've been doing that together for the past several years. We bought tons of fun things for the kiddo's and saved some big money! Later that day we all celebrated Dad's birthday. His birthday was on the 28th. It was fun to be able to spend his day with him. He turned 56 this year. Dallon, Dawson, Stetson, and Banner wrapped a gift for him in brown paper and decorated it with sharpie markers... drawings and messages, etc. When Dad first saw the gift - he pointed to someones message and he said... "Who wrote this?" Dallon was giggling and admitted it was his. Dad read it aloud. It said "You are almost 100!" We all got a good laugh out of that.