Preston's 3!!!!

I'll be doing an official 3 yr old post for Preston later but here are pictures from his birthday party.
We had a friend party for him this year. His first one ever! I'm thinking maybe we will do those only every other year or something.... Lots of work/stress/planning/$$!
But he had fun and thats what matters. 

He was so excited to help me out with ANY part of the party.
We made a "Happy Birthday Preston" banner and he did all the gluing. Well.. some of it anyways. 

He went with me to go search for a pinata. Note to self, do NOT leave this till a few days before the party or you will be going from store to store looking for one. 

Jaxton helped by making sure I cleaned everything up. 

The day before his party the stuff was starting to take over the kitchen!
Oh, see all those monster trucks on the sink? Instead of doing goody bags I bought Monster trucks from the dollar store for all the kids and then attached a balloon to each one. 

Again, Jaxton helped by looking cute. 

Instead of putting candy in the pinata we did caramel popcorn. Seemed like a good/delicious way to save some money, but then wasn't such a good idea when the pinata was being pummeled by a bat. 

(fyi the pinata only took 1 bowl of popcorn, the red one, and when Patrick got home only the yellow bowl was left...that blue bowl just magically disappeared...)

Cupcakes!!! 

Decorations.

 Presents!!!!

This was the walkway up to the house. As long as the wind didn't blow it looked great.
Did I mention that the high that day was like 48 degrees?!?! So much for 16 kids playing outside for his party.... 

The whole view. 

We had subs (Krazy Sub!), chips, pudding cups, and were suppose to have pickles but I forgot to take them out of the fridge...

The birthday boy at his Monster Truck party!! 

The cupcakes were delicious.
Don't believe me ask Jaxton. 

And then after everyone left we gave him his present.
Yes. He is spoiled.
But he also happens to have a birthday that fits in nicely with after Christmas clearance deals. 

Yep. Preston got a Mercedes before any of us.
And its probably the only Mercedes we will ever buy him! 

 The next day on his actual birthday we had a family party for him which was a lot of fun & I took no pictures of... but he was shown lots of love.
I feel like Preston has been 3 forever already, but now it's official! 

Between the two

Sandwiched in between Christmas and Preston's birthday these things happened...

Jaxton had back to back ear infections/chest colds. 

My poor poor baby. 

In case you are keeping track that is 4 ear infections in a year. So far. 

Ok this one happened before Christmas, but look how cute he is!  

We had some cold days. Like REALLY REALLY cold. 

We made silly faces. 

We did puzzles. 

We looked adorable.
I LOVE him!! 

We made more silly faces

We tried out spikey hair. He looks so different with it! 

The end. 

Christmas :)

I know.
Christmas was like 3 weeks ago.
But better late then never!!

Christmas this year was different for us. It was the first year that we didn't have any family with us on Christmas morning. It was different. Andrew was in Florida, Jimmy was recovering from knee surgery, John & Rox were in Canada, and Laura was with her kids.

Christmas Eve when I was wrapping presents (yes, I waited till the last possible second because i hate wrapping presents) I decided I'd take pictures of what I was wrapping so that I could remember what they were getting. 

For Preston: 

They read this book in Nursery one week and he would not stop talking about how we need to give someone a better train. (for a synopsis of the book click HERE)

Or course all things Cars are a big hit. 

Books

More cars for Mom & Dad to step on/pick up all day long. 

For Jaxton: 

The nice thing about having small boys is that they were in bed by 8:30 and Santa could come right away. 

Oh this was also for the boys.
Preston of course loves to help me in the kitchen so we thought he would like his own. 

He was a little dazed when he came downstairs and saw it. 

Also nice that they didn't get up excited at 4:30, they were up at normal 6:30/7 time.
I know, the days are a comin when they stay up late and wake up early, but this year was nice. 

Present unwrapping time!!

Pretty sure Jaxton was bummed out that there wasn't fruit snacks in the box. 

The end result. Oh, the lawnmower in the back is Jaxton's too. Preston loves his mower and so we got Jaxton one so they can play together. And of course practice for when they open their own landscaping business. 

And a few hours later I remembered that we jot Jaxton his own chair & he has been using it to climb on things ever since.

It was a great Christmas.
That night we had our traditional Christmas dinner. Patricks' dad and Laura were able to come over and help us eat the delicious ham, twice baked potatoes, garlic roasted cauliflower, apple pie, and rolls. 

So while it was a different year for us with not so many guests, we still had a good time.