Happy Birthday, Boys!!

The boys had their birthdays this month, and boy did we celebrate! Chase turned 1 on the 17th and Ethan turned 3 on the 20th. I decided to let Ethan have a friends birthday/playdate in the afternoon, then we did a family birthday that night.

Most of my friends that have kids his age have girls, so he was a little outnumbered gender-wise. But he loved it. We had a Cars themed party, because Ethan is obsessed with Lightning McQueen. We played some games-- a bean bag toss (the kids mostly ran up to it to throw the bags in the holes) and a prize walk with music, and then we made candy cars out of gum packs and life savers, and decorated cupcakes. It was pretty fun, the kids seem to enjoy themselves! These were the only pictures I took of that morning, then my camera died.

That evening we had the family over for dinner and cake and ice cream. I made lasagna and Eric made the cake-- isn't it awesome??! I was so worried he wasn't going to have time to do it, he insisted on it being a 3D Lightening McQueen cake instead of a decorated sheet cake. We had baked the cakes the night before, but he didn't start decorating it until 2 pm and the party was at 6:30! But he did such an awesome job, Ethan loved it! Mom (Rindlisbacher) made a bear cake for Chase, and he kept growling at it. He loves bears. My dad took the pictures because I couldn't find my camera charger, so these are all from him.

(You can click on the collages to enlarge them)

The Cakes

The Guests and the Presents

These were some other pictures I got from my Dad's camera. I just downloaded Picasa and I love the collages you can make with it! I'm not very good at it yet, so I'm sure they'll improve as I practice more.
My babies are getting so big!! (At his 1 year appt Chase weighed in at 22.6 lbs, and Ethan weighs 27. Yea.) Chase is now in an upright, forward facing car seat and loves it. And he's starting to take some steps on his own, so it won't be long now until he'll be walking and unstoppable!