Alex's First Birthday!

I can't believe my little Alex is one! I can't believe a year ago, I had a little newborn, was sleep deprived and adjusting to two kids.

Well, we celebrated his party on Saturday. I've been looking forward to making his cake for a while. I decided on the pattern a few months ago. Here is the inspiration:

There were a few cake images I found, that helped me solidify the design. Thank goodness for the internet!

So here is Alex's cake!

This took me a long time to make, about three and a half hours. For most of it, I was watching three kids, so that may have hindered my time. But it was just time consuming, not very difficult.

I made the shapes a few days before, which was fine for the diamonds and circles, but not so much for the stripes. I had to make new ones for the white and blue because they would crack and break when I tried to bend them. Luckily, the yellow ones were fine.

I did have a problem when I started the second layer of the diamonds. They diamonds were not all the same, so some of the corners wouldn't match up. Plus, I was losing surface area with the curve of the cake, so they didn't match up because of that as well. I was just going to go with one row of diamonds, but Dan convinced me to just cut each diamond a little smaller and see if that would work. I'm glad he did and I'm glad I listened to him, because it really made the cake look better that way.

I was excited to a make a two tier cake. There were a few places where the base yellow fondant didn't quite work like I wanted it to, but those are just minor things.

I originally was going to put these letters on popsicle sticks and stick them on the top layer of the cake, but after three hours I was kind of done with the cake. I realized it was going to be really crowded on top and they weren't long enough to put on the bottom layer and stick out on top of the top layer (make sense?), so I just stuck them on the cupcakes.

In case you couldn't tell, the colors were yellow, white and blue. I did an initial themed party, with "A." I got the idea here, from the Martha Stewart website.

Party favors!

I made some popcorn and melted white chocolate and coated the popcorn with it and added mini M&M's. It was so good! And of course, I forgot to hand them out. Figures.

Water bottle labels.

Cute little name sign.

Thank goodness I have a cricut machine, otherwise I probably wouldn't have made all these decorations.

Hanging A's.

Dan was kind enough to hang these for me, while I was getting other stuff ready.

I started making the decor a few weeks before, in the evenings. Just doing a little at a time.

Our little family!

Alex getting ready to blow out his candle.

He was a little hesitant at first, not quite sure what I had put in front of him.

I ended up cutting a chunk of the cake off, and cutting it into little pieces.

Then he really dug into it.

Dirty cake hands!!!

Alex playing with some of his new toys.

Overall it was a fun party and I was very pleased with how the cake and decorations turned out. I think Alex had fun, even though he didn't know what was going on. He got some fun toys that he really likes (and Anna, I should add).

I'm off the hook until Dan's birthday. I told him to start thinking about what he wants and I'll make him a fun fondant cake!

A Halloween Miracle!

We decided to get very festive this year for Halloween. At the beginning of October, we started talking about what the kids should be for Halloween. Dan had already decided to be a sith, from Star Wars. Supposedly, his entire Art Department at school was going to dress in a Star Wars theme for a Halloween party of one of the teacher's house (turned out he was the only one to show up and the guy hosting it didn't even dress up). We decided Anna should be a bumblebee. Then, Dan suggested that Alex be one too. After a few days, I decided I would dress up as one too.

Me and my swarm of bees.

It's not easy getting a three year old and an almost one year old to look simultaneously at the camera.

It was fun to plan out their costumes and make them. I made our skirts from black and yellow tulle, and ribbon. Dan's mom gave Anna a similar skirt for Christmas a few years ago. I used that as my model and just copied the idea for our costume. They were pretty easy to make. Just cut tulle into 5-6 inch strips, about 24 inches long for her and I can't remember how long I made mine. Tie them around a band of elastic that will fit around the waist. Add ribbon every 4-5 strips and there you go!

I made the antenna head band from elastic, felt and fuzzy pom poms. I wanted to do yellow, but I had these leftover from when she was a lady bug two years ago.

I sewed strips of yellow felt on this black shirt. It has a logo on it, but I made sure the stripe covered it. The wings I found at the 99 cent store and they actually have a little bee on the back of it. I made the purse from felt as well. Overall, this was a very inexpensive costume. The shirt, leggings and shoes were given to me. The tulle was on sale for like 74 cents a yard, the wings were a dollar, and the felt was 25 cents a sheet. The ribbon was $2.

Alex's outfit on the other hand, wasn't as cheap. I actually splurged a bit and paid $10. I got it at a big consignment sale they have here, twice a year. I originally had sewn black stripes on a onesie and was just going to have him wear black pants. But this was so cute, I couldn't pass it up. I'm glad i did, because otherwise, his outfit would have been kind of lame, compared to ours.

He wasn't a big fan of the hat, but doesn't he look so cute in it?!

I don't normally dress up, but I'm glad I did this year. It was fun.

My outfit was easy to put together as well. I just had to pay for the tulle, ribbon, and wings.

Here is Dan's outfit. He made this cloak himself, without a pattern. It turned out pretty well! I won't say how much he spent on his. It was more than all of ours combined. I told him next year, no more cloaks! He made one two years ago. He needs to branch out. Lol.

His co-worker, the one who threw the Halloween party, had these light sabers. He let him borrow them. They're pretty cool. At our ward party, a few teenagers came up to Dan and asked if they could give him a hug, because his costume was so awesome. Haha.

We got to take Anna trick-0r-treating for the first time this year. I really enjoyed it. It was so cute to see her say trick or treat and get excited about her candy. We just went around the street behind ours. As soon as we came inside, she sat down and checked out her loot. We put Alex in the stroller and luckily, he was fine with that.

So I wanted to tell about the title of this, A Halloween Miracle!

So our ward party was on Saturday. I need to give a little background info first. I mentioned that I got him black pants at the consignment sale. Well, there was actually two pants pinned together. I only needed one pair, but for the price of one, I could get two, so I got both of them. Friday, before we went to Dan's co-worker's party, I went to the local consignment sale and got Alex black socks. They also had Halloween costumes on sale for $2. I briefly looked at them and saw some bee costumes. So Saturday, a half hour before the ward party, I go out to the car to get our costumes that I had left there from Friday's party. I had changed Alex into his sleeper before we left, so we could easily put him in bed, and put his costume in the diaper bag. Well, I quickly realize I left the diaper bag at Dan's co-worker's house, along with his costume.

I'm pretty bummed, that Alex won't be able to dress up and we won't all match. I tell Dan this and he suggests to go the consignment store and see if they have a bee costume for Alex. I had totally forgotten about that! I had 15 minutes before they closed, so I hurried over there and lo and behold, I find a cute bee costume that is just Alex's size! I get home and remember that his black pants were left at the other house. Then, I remember that I had bought TWO pairs of black pants. Whew!

So it all worked out, we had fun at the party, we all looked cute and it was a Halloween miracle! My main reason for sharing this, is really to show just how kind Heavenly Father was to me. When I think about how there was a costume just his size and that I had been led to buy two pairs of black pants, it's just worked too perfectly. It's amazing to me how He was able to micromanage the little details, so Alex could have his bee costume and we could all match. It's obviously not the end of the world if he didn't have one, I would have lived and gotten over it, but He knew it would make me happy. He knew it was important to me and He foresaw something I had no way of predicting. It really made me happy that He helped me out so much. There have been a few other things recently that have really helped me see Heavenly Father's hand in my life and His kindness and mercy to me. Elder Bednar gave a talk a few years ago about the tender mercies of the Lord. I'm so thankful for those and thankful for the little and big blessings I receive from Him.