Sunday, April 24, 2011

Brycen’s Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Birthday Party – Part 1

Yes, that says part 1. I have so many pictures from Brycen’s party that Windows Live Writer won’t let me publish the whole thing. I have to split it up. So here’s part one of two!

We had a birthday party for Brycen on April 8th. It was so much fun! It’s one thing to plan a party, but it was so much more fun planning a party for my little man. I wanted to pick a theme and plan a party without going overboard. Let’s face it, there are some super spoiled kiddos out there with over-the-top birthday parties! One of Brycen’s favorite shows is “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse”, so we thought it would be appropriate to have a “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” theme. It was fun to put together and the kids really enjoyed it!

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I wanted to send the little kids home with something as a party favor, so I decided to make mouseke-tool boxes for them. I found the boxes at Birthday Express and made the Toodles name tags in Photoshop.

 

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I found the mouske-tools at Zurchers in Idaho Falls and a few things at Walmart. I love Zurchers and the fact that they have an entire section dedicated to “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse”!

 

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I found the color pages for the kids at Disney Junior online. They had a ton of different options to print.

 

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Amber, Mom, and I made the Mickey Mouse cupcakes. I had a plan in mind, but it only lasted for about six cupcakes. The original plan was to make stand-up ears on the top of each cupcake, but when they got too top heavy we decided to lay them flat. Both ways turned out really cute.

 

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Dad feeding Brycen before the big party

 

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Party time!

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We had an episode of “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” playing as guests came and during dinner. The little ones loved it! Especially Lillie and Kate. They had front row seats.

 

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Time to color!

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Gramps and Brycen

 

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I was embarrassed just looking at the gift table!

 

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Great Gram and Brycen

 

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Present time! And boy, was that little boy spoiled. Everybody got him such awesome presents. We have wonderful family!

Uncle Che’ and Aunt Amber gave him the pillow pet, as well as bear jammies and a bear book (it was a bear themed gift-so cute!) He loves “Moosh”!

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Uncle Aaron and Aunt Britney gave him the bath time basketball toy. Bath time is all of a sudden a lot more fun for that little boy!

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Lillie eventually started helping open gifts. She was very helpful!

This gift was a glow sea horse from Uncle Dustin, Aunt Erika, Lillie, and Jack. Brycen has loved that little sea horse!

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Every little boy needs some cool kicks! Tyson went and got Brycen some little Nikes.

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He really liked his new See ‘n Say he got from Grandma and Grandpa O’Connor. He had fun playing with it with Grandma Miller and Kate.

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He is pretty much set with summer clothes!

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Amy gave him some super cute Gymboree clothes. They will be so fun for summer!

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Grandma and Gramps Miller gave him this Mega Bloks pirate ship. Kate was pretty intrigued by it as well!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Brycen’s First Birthday

I feel like such a crappy mom with how bad I’ve been slacking on our family blog! I forget with the recipe blog sometimes that I need to be updating our family blog as well. I need to get it together!

Our little man turned one on April 5th. It’s almost the end of the month and I still can’t believe he’s one. The night before his birthday was full of all kinds of emotions. I found myself reading old blog posts about his birth and his early days. It’s amazing to think that these kiddos were once so tiny. I also read some journal entries back from when Brycen was born and in the hospital for nine days. I was so emotional I didn’t bother writing directly in my journal. I typed all my feelings out on my computer and ended up printing the pages and inserting them into my journal. I don’t think I would have taken the time to write in my journal during those days if I hadn’t just done it on the computer. Has it really been a year ago? April 14th marked the one year anniversary that our little man has been home from the hospital. And what an amazing day that was! Pretty much one of the best days ever.

We had a birthday party for Brycen with extended family members on April 8th. It was so much fun! The pictures below are from his actual birthday, just in case it takes me another two weeks to get his birthday party pictures posted. I had so much fun with my little boy on his birthday. He received so much attention, it was like he was just born all over again. It was a great feeling. I loved his birthday!DSC_0371 edit color

I wanted to take Brycen to lunch for his birthday. I let him choose the place and he picked Costa Vida. Ok, maybe it didn’t go EXACTLY like that, but he does like the rice and beans that come on the salad at places like Costa, Bajio, and CafĂ© Rio. I asked him if he wanted to invite anybody else and he chose Grandma, Aunt Amy, Aunt Amber, and Aunt Britney. That’s totally how that part happened. :)

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Grandma wanted to take Brycen to Orange Leaf for dessert. He sure loved it! Especially the confetti cake flavor. Just like his mom! Aunt Amber and Aunt Amy came with us, but Aunt Britney had to go back to work. He sure had fun with his O’Connor aunts and Grandma!

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We spent the rest of the afternoon playing with toys and watching Disney Junior. At around 5:30, Grandma Miller came by with a Wendy’s frosty and a new pair of jammies for Brycen. He sure loved that frosty! And the jammies are great too. His birthday clothes are all 18 months-he’s creeping up on that size pretty quickly! Still in the 12 month clothes though.

 

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For dinner Tyson and I took Brycen to KFC for one of his favorite foods: KFC mashed potatoes. We discovered his love for these spuds when we went to Salt Lake City in March. He eats the entire side order by himself. Growing boy! Dinner was fun.

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We decided after dinner to let Brycen’s tummy settle before he ate his cupcake, so we gave him one of his presents. We had gotten him a few things but thought we’d give him one to open on his birthday and give him the rest at his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party (pictures to come later). He was excited to open a present!

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We got him the Fisher-Price cookie jar. It is so cute! He really likes toys with lots of sounds and songs. And he loves his new cookie jar!

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We gave him his jumbo vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting and confetti sprinkles after he opened his present. I wanted to get a before shot of it before  Brycen dug into it and it was unrecognizable. (Or so we thought would happen…)

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Pretty cool flame!

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And then we took the flame away. As you can see, he wasn’t too amused by the cupcake.

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I think these pictures say it all! Especially the one directly above. Silly boy!

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We tipped it back up and tried to get him to taste it. He ended up with a frosting-covered arm.

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This was the after shot of the cupcake. It doesn’t look a whole lot different! It was ok though. Tyson and I had a couple of bites before tossing it. It was pretty good! It’s funny how you picture your baby’s first birthday and after you give them their cake they dig right into it, getting all sorts of messy. Oh well! He loved his cupcake at his big party so that works.

 

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He was fine once we got him cleaned up and back to his presents!

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Along with his cookie jar and jammies from us and Grandma Miller, he received a sock monkey from my parents’ neighbor and family friend, Diana Hanson. He loves that little sock monkey!