Everett's Second 1st Birthday Celebration

On Everett's actual birthday (April 26th) we wanted to do another celebration just for him since his party was shared with his friend Matthew.  I really wanted Everett to have a number one-shaped cake like Anderson had for his first birthday, so I put on my brave "I'm a mommy now" panties and made it myself.  I took Anderson to the store to pick out the cake flavor and of course he chose sprinkles/confetti cake. 

Here's the cake before the frosting;

Here is the finished product:

The amazing part to me (other than that it actually looks OK) is that I did most of the decorations while the boys were both awake and playing around me in the kitchen. 

Anderson was thrilled at the prospect of having another 'party', so we had to put up some decorations and wear some party hats.  We sang to Everett, watched Anderson blow out his candle again, and then proceeded to watch Everett cry about eating his cake one again.  While he's normally a bottomless pit when it comes to eating, this boy does not want any birthday cake, under any circumstances.  Crazy, huh?  He loves fruit, cookies and other sweet stuff, so I'm not sure where this comes from- maybe it's the bright colors?  Anderson has no issues with eating cake except that using a fork just slows him down.



Out of Anderson's Mouth...

....literally come the funniest things.  I'm sure most 3 year-olds are the same way, but man does this cutie pie make me laugh (when not driving me up the wall!).  Yesterday, Anderson blatantly knocked over his big basketball goal that's in the playroom.  Luckily, no one was injured.  I was just about to give the little 'big man' a 'talking to' regarding the dangers of knocking over such heavy equipment when Everett decided to just crawl right under it like it was just another bump in the road to bigger and better things.  Then, Anderson exclaimed very proudly: "Everett's playing limbo!".  I literally doubled over laughing at this completely random, yet very sensible, realization that Anderson had.  It was like all of the sudden everything fell into place   YES, the enormous basketball goal was meant to be laying on the carpet JUST SO Everett could play limbo.  Of course, silly Mommy!

If only I had enough time to stop and write down all of the hilariousness that comes out of Anderson's mouth.

Another Boy, The Same Bear, and An Even Faster Year

(This is cross-posted with Facebook since there are a few people out there who aren't on FB- Gasp!)

I made (with much more ease the second time around) a short video compiling the monthly "blue bear" pictures that we take.  I made one very similar for Anderson and it's been fun seeing the comparisons.  I'll see if I can dig up Anderson's video too (it's been stored on our external drive, so not convenient to just grab).

Easter @ The Neumann's

I started by making Anderson some egg-shaped pancakes with spring-colored sprinkles in them.  (I can put sprinkles in or on anything and this boy will eat it like it's candy.)  He loved the pancakes and I even placed them on a bed of edible Easter grass, which he thought was so silly. 

Anderson had to do a quick check outside to make sure the Easter Bunny hadn't already left some eggs.  We explained to him that the Easter Bunny made his visits during nap time.  :)

He did discover his Easter basket full of goodies, though!

After church we came home and Everett went off to bed.  Anderson perched on the couch in the living room and got an Easter treat of a movie while Reese and I treated ourselves to a child-free stress-free cooking experience. 

We had a yummy lunch of ham, green beans, mixed veggies, macaroni and cheese, dressing, and deviled eggs that were spotted blue and other colors due to the dyeing yesterday.

While some little bunnies napped, the Easter Bunny visited the house, hid some eggs, decorated the front door, and even dropped some cotton from his tail as he left.

Anderson was thrilled when he woke up and saw his Easter basket ready and waiting at the door. 

Egg time!



(The cutest picture ever.)



 



This is just so adorable IMO.  <3

I think we figured out that Anderson needs some other kiddos at his hunts because he just went from egg to egg and just sat down to open it and eat the candy.  He needed some pressure to get those eggs into his basket!  I ended up picking up most of them otherwise we would've been out there forever and someone would've had a tummy ache. 

It was a wonderful weekend all around!  I love that Easter is a special holiday that we stay in town and get to celebrate Jesus as a family at our wonderful church.  I hope all my boys enjoyed it as much as I did.

E and His Food

Everett loves to eat.  He's my adventurous eater and will eat many things that Anderson won't.  Of course he gets rather upset when there are some food items that Mommy won't let him have yet, but are visible to him (popcorn, candy, nut products).  Well, these pictures sum up everything pretty well.  Today we went to a family Easter party at our church.  Anderson was enjoying a little picnic of popcorn and lemonade and Everett obviously wanted some.

 Hmmm...Brother has some food.



How can I get some of that?

Maybe if I just grab some?

Then Daddy & Mommy got out Everett's snack to distract him from the yummy, salty, choking hazard that Anderson was eating. 

Hooray!!  Food for me!

Then there was the spaghetti dinner. 



Our Easter Egg Hunt at the Zoo

Today Anderson, Everett, and I went to the Dallas Zoo for a MetroMoms Event. It was a zoo visit and Easter Egg Hunt all in one! (I go to lots of their events quite often and always have a great time!)

First, we started out at the children's zoo area where Anderson got to pet some farm animals like bunnies, pigs, goats, etc. Here's Anderson showing his small pig figurine (he has about 10 of these that had to make the trip with us) to the big fat pig.

Anderson got upset with the goat because he snipped at Anderson's hand looking for food. Anderson proceeded to stand there and talk to the goat about not biting for a few minutes. Hope he learned his lesson!

Poor Everett. He came down with a fever last night and had a BAD night sleeping, so he felt awful. (I couldn't cancel my ticket to the event/get a refund, so I toted him along germs and all- ooops.) He basically just rode around for the first hour or so in a sleepy,sick fog.

Here's Anderson showing the tiger his tiger.

A talking monkey we met along the way.

THEN, we got to the best part of the whole zoo (at least in my opinion)! The GIRAFFES!

Here's Everett standing at the fence showing us his super cute giraffe outfit.

Then, the giraffe came right over to us!

He was SO close!

For $5 we got to buy giraffe treats- leaves of lettuce. Here's Anderson feeding the giraffe. Look at that long tongue.

Here you go!

Anderson wasn't afraid at all! I wish I would've gotten Everett to go by the giraffe, but he screamed every time I got him close.

Can you tell I really liked the giraffe?

Time to hunt for Easter Eggs!

Anderson's collection

Anderson checking out his eggs with his buddy Brody.

The pictures abruptly end because Everett decided it was time to go since he felt like giraffe poopy.