3 and 1

November is a month of birthdays for us. Alex turned 3 on November 21st and Rebekah turned 1 on November 23rd. The celebrations were a lot of fun and we are glad to relax now and rid our house of cake and ice cream.

The Scuba Diver Party
For those who don't know, Alex is completely enamored by anything to do with the sea, especially sea animals and SCUBA DIVERS! This interest has been going on now for well over a year and we hope it sticks because we have a lot of fun with it and are learning all sorts of things about marine life as a family. Soooo, since this was the first year he has really understood what it means to have a birthday, I went all out and did a Scuba Diver Birthday Bash. The night before his birthday, I couldn't sleep for the excitement I had and that next morning I woke up very early as if it was better than Christmas morning as a kid. I just couldn't WAIT for my Alex to wake up and see what we had in store for him.
That morning I made him huge pancakes and he got to cut whatever shapes he wanted to out of them with cookie cutters. That afternoon Joseph took him to the mall and let him ride the carousel and those race car things and got him candy while I stayed home and made him a pretty cool Scuba Diver Cake. He invited 8 friends to his party and with parents we had about 30-something people over to our house for this party. Next year, he gets 3 friends. :) I decorated with sea life things like the under the sea tablecloth and a HUGE Scuba Diver balloon. As the kids got there, I had a table set up with little chairs and sea life coloring pages out for them to color while the movie Finding Nemo was playing. Once all the kids were there, we played Pin the Tentacle on the Octopus after which each child got to pick a couple of prizes out of the "ocean." The prizes were things like fish shaped ring pops, shark gummy candies, and fish bubbles. Then, we had our good friend Jason play the Happy Birthday song on his trumpet, since Alex's other obsession is music and wants intently to play the trumpet when he is bigger. He blew out his candles, ate lots of frosting, and then went crazy with all his friends spreading "ocean" all over the place. There were only a few tears in the process and all in all I think he had a great time. Here are some pictures.
The Cake
The Cake with CupcakesThe BalloonThe OctopusThe OceanThe Real FunThe Kid on Sugar
A Note About My Alex: If you have ever watched the Anne of Green Gables movies, there is a part in there where they are all ooing and awing over Diana's new baby. Diana says something to effect of, "Isn't he just the most beautiful perfect baby ever?!" To which Marilla replies, "Every baby is the sweetest and the best." I do believe that every parent thinks that of their own baby/child . . . at least I hope they do . . . so forgive me for my ravings about my sweetest and best Alex. He is a light to me. My best little friend. He is smart, he is a friend, a teacher. He is kind and sensitive to other people's feelings. He is hilariously creative. He is talented and I believe that he is very very special. I love him dearly and I cannot imagine my life without my Alexander Joseph. Happy Birthday my big boy.

The Crazy Caterpillar Cake
Rebekah's party was a lot more low key, which was good, since she added her own special spice to the party. We just had the four of us at her party. I made her a cute caterpillar cake (idea taken from my friend Sarah's blog) and she decided that eating cake wasn't really that fun . . . so she decided instead to decorate our entire kitchen with it as she squished and flung and tossed and smashed that cake into bits. It was pretty entertaining. After we very carefully cleaned her up, we let her open her presents and play for awhile. I can hardly believe she is one now. No, she isn't walking yet . . . she can stand and stand and go from standing to sitting down easily . . . but she is a little chicken and won't even try taking more than one step. Stinker. Here are her pictures.
The CakeThe DefianceThe Mischievous FaceThe Mess (Picture does not do it justice)The Ice Cream. She actually liked this part.The matching kitty that Alex got her. By far her favorite present. His is the orange one and he has slept with it for about a year now. She loved it, so he wanted to get her one just like his for her birthday. He picked the same one but in grey.Giving the kitty loves and pats. In this picture, she is saying, "Oooooh, Ahhhh," in a tender voice. A Note About My Rebekah: As she is also the sweetest and best I have a few things to say about her as well. Rebekah is my joy each day. She is such a happy and friendly girl. I see her making people happy in her life just by her presence in a place or in a person's life. She has a way of making people smile. She has a great sense of humor already. She loves to dance and can't stop herself from swaying when there is music. She loves to snuggle her stuffed animals and her family. She is feisty and though I tease her about it, I love that about her. She will go far with that I think. She is also very smart and understands how things work quickly. She is a very good communicator with her grunts and tones changes. I love her more than I can say and our family would be incomplete without her. Happy Birthday my happy girl.

Videos
Happy Birthday song on the trumpet. Alex loved it!

Rebekah decorating our kitchen with cake and frosting. Messy, but worth it.

I also just had to include these couple of other pictures of the kiddos. Rebekah loves to sneak into my room and empty my tissue box. This is how she got our attention to show off her trick. She loves to hide behind doors and play peek-a-boo.And decorating for christmas!! We will have a very busy next week or so, so we decorated for Christmas the Monday before Thanksgiving this year! Alex LOVED putting the star on the tree!He also loved putting the candy canes and other ornaments up. It is so fun to have 3 year old. Did I mention that I have very negative feelings towards Blogger?? Very very negative. You would think that something as big and popular as blogger would find a way for those of us who don't read Html to fix stupid blue underlined words and and an easier way to move pictures around. Grrrrrr. Now that I have that out. I feel better. :)