Koen's First Birthday Parties

Okey dokey, this post is just about his first birthday parties. Yes, not party, partIES. Two in one day! I will do a separate one for what his first year of life has meant to us. So, here we go...two parties in one day!

Party #1 was with family and some of our good friends from work (and Lynette!).

Koen with gramma

Koen with his buddy Caden. When I say `buddy', I mean they will be buddies whether they like it or not:)

Kai loved helping Koen with his gifts. Koen liked the tissue paper. Ani cleaned up.

Do you think he's pretty pumped or what?

Made a train cake for his birthday. A train cake is harder than I thought so I just used the Thomas train we had already for the engine. Oh well, it tasted good! Kai liked his big brother role of blowing out the candles.

We just gave him a mini cupcake (or two) as it was past nap time and he was getting a little fussy.

He loved the icing and then squeezed the rest between his hands.

Because the first party was in the morning, we just had some sandwiches out and some other things....

I'm glad Koen loves his little fire truck. I think Caden likes it too!

Koen with `auntie' Lynette. He really does love her, it was just nap time!

Caden loving the firetruck.

Ani

Izzy

If you make cake pops, it's hard to find something to hold them so...I used Mega Blocks! Perfect solution.

I found that the mini cupcakes were a good idea (12 minutes in a mini muffin pan). You don't eat as much, even though it feels like you are. Good for the little guys too.

Then, in the evening, we had all our nerd friends over for dinner and another party! If you don't know, the nerd friends are a group of friends that Gary has had since university. Six guys, their wives, and a multitude of kids that keep on coming. Four families got together over the holidays for a mini nerdfest, a couple of times. It was a wonderful chaos as the 10 kids ran around...basement to upstairs, back down to the basement, over and over and over again. It was a wonderful evening and when everyone left, there was a smile on my face. Here's little Josh, the youngest of the mini nerds...

And the group of us. We look better when we are not trying to look good:)

The kids....

Matthew

Dinnertime

Gary thought we were smiling into the video camera he was holding:) Happy birthday Koen!

Dana, Melissa and Josh (who had just rolled over!)

Koen and Josh will also be buddies one day:)

I do have a video of the chaos, it was pretty awesome. Very few tears though, mostly lots of laughter and fun.

Cute little Addi

I got everyone to sign the mat of the photo and have put the picture frame up in Koen's room.

Thank you to all of those that were able to celebrate with us. We are truly blessed to have such wonderful family and friends!

2010

Wow. Happy New Year! I have to quickly do a post before tomorrow because tomorrow, my baby turns 1!!! It is so emotional for me to think back a year ago, to the day he was born. Just thinking of where I was at this time exactly last year...dropping Kai off at gramma's, having one last good night sleep, and awaiting the birth of our baby. But, I will hold off on the tears for now and I will wait until tomorrow to do his one year post.

I made a bunch of yummy treats for Koen's first birthday which we will celebrate tomorrow. Here I'm making cake pops. Seriously, these things are so ridiculously tasty. They look fun but taste even better. It's basically a cake with frosting blended up, formed into balls, dipped in melted chocolate and then covered in sprinkles. SO GOOD.

I also made these ice cream cone cupcakes from Martha Stewarts `Cupcakes' book. The icing colour with the sprinkles remind me of the book `Million Little Pieces'. If you've read it, you know what I mean:)

We have been super busy with family and friends this holiday. Yesterday, we got together with all our nerdy friends in Abbotsford for Josh's dedication in the morning, then we all had dinner together in Walnut Grove, and then Gary and I went to my friend Lynette's for New Years Eve. It was a wonderfully full day and night.

Here's Kai all ready to go in his new position in the van. We have turned Koen around and he is pumped about it!

Here is cute little squishy Josh all cuddled up with Dana. He sleeps so well in the wraps and slings. So awesome to be there for his dedication.

Here's 4 of the guys with their 4 new additions in the last year and a half (plus Micah in front!). I think Addi, the one girl, has 3 very nice options:)

Three of the kids having a tea party with real tea. Why haven't I done that with Kai? He was loving it!

Bennett was loving it too.

Below we've got Koen and Addi. These two are monkeys that love the stairs and keep us both nice and busy:)

Addi eating...isn't she so cute?!

Riley...the oldest of the `little kids'.

All right...I better get going on finishing up stuff for tomorrow. We are actually having two birthday parties for him tomorrow as our house cannot hold all those that we love so much! One in the morning and one in the evening. We'll see how it goes!

And finishing off with the picture of me and Koen. This is the first time I saw my beautiful, chubby, baby boy. I know you can't tell by my face but I was absolutely overwhelmed, amazed, and ridiculously happy to meet him.

Osoyoos Wrap Up

Okay, so there's no way I'm going to update each day. In no particular order, here are some happenings from the last 4 days. We had a fabulous time. It really warmed my heart that Kai has started to bond with the other mini nerds and that the second `batch' of kids are already giggling and reaching for each other:) Gary and I are utterly exhausted as our two boys kept us going non stop, especially throughout the night. Kai was sick with a cold and that meant that his coughing and complaining kept Koen up. Not a fan of sharing a room. I shouldn't complain, just being honest! Here we go...and oops, I don't think I have many pictures of the adults. Hopefully other people got them!

Feeding the gophers again at Lightning Lake. We also saw a bear while we were in our van and we watched it for a while. Gary told me to get outside the van to take a picture and he wasn't kidding.


We went with Jen and Andrey up the hill (maybe a 5 min drive) and went for an early morning hike/walk/stroll. It was so hot there so I loved getting out there early. One day it was 41C. Seriously folks, not my favourite:) We spent tons of time at the beach each day. Kai did fabulously in the water, I was so impressed with how brave he was. The men spent time racing rubber animals down a sand and water race track. Quite the engineering feat...or so they thought. We ate a lot of good food and hung out a lot. We shared a condo with 2 other families which allows you to get to know eachother a whole lot better in a short amount of time.


We did some geocaching and for some people it was their first time. I think the kids really enjoyed it. Who doesn't love a little treasure hunt?


`Falling down the drain' is where they lay down on top of the drain and then Gary would pick them up and throw them in the air in a blast off. I know, doesn't sound too fun but they wanted to play every night. We are having Kai's `real' birthday party in a week from now.



Two of the families couldn't make it so were were missing some serious girl representation.
Next year...next year. Last night, Ayden (mohawk) spent some quality time with Kai doing a workbook where they had to circle certain letters etc and Kai loved it.


Just wanted a picture to show I was there too. All the other ones were on the beach and a little less...um....ya. Kai was a bit of a gongshow. He would wake up repeatedly throughout the night begging to go play with the other kids and toys. His persistence would wake up Koen. There was nowhere to put him and punishment was not easy as there were 2 other families in the condo fast asleep:) My favourite moment was seeing Kai participate in a group hug with 3 of the other big boys. So cute.

Nerdy Day 3

We hit the beach again early this morning. The kids (and possibly the adult males) were LOVING the water race between all the plastic animals.
Matthew kept bombing down the hill and belly flopping on the kickboard. That guy is a fish!

Tonight we will be getting some pictures of Kai's 3rd birthday. We've got an icecream cake and he is pumped. Kids are napping...woohoo!

O So Nerdy Day 2

Today we spent hours at the beach. The kids built a river in the sand and raced plastic animals down it. The adults cooled off in the water. Good times.

We finished off the evening by watching a video of Jen's upper endoscopy, what...is that weird? It was cool. Love that there are other anatomy and physiology lovers here:)

Riley, the oldest of the babies, will be one in 2 weeks. He can move so fast, he keeps up with the big kids!

Hard to tell which kid is yours when they are in all of their sun gear:)

Koen with Addi...these two just sit there and giggle at eachother but I'll need to get a better picture of that.

Koen actually did not hate the water, he just missed all his naps. Well, he did sleep for 30 minutes today. Not adequate.

Yes, Gary truly is that white. I think it's great, it means he isn't getting too much sun exposure.

Kai got a bucket full of catfish and had fun releasing them. He was in the water/beach area for 3 hours straight.
I'm actually writing this Monday morning as the kids were up at 5am, well, let's be honest, Kai didn't sleep last night. He has a cold that included a fever last night. All he did was moan and groan and complain all night. We are way too exhausted. I hope he has a good birthday today. I was a little emotional last night thinking about his arrival into the world. Somehow 3 seems like a bigger deal than being 2. Happy Monday.