Happy Birthday James!

Our little guy turned 3 last week! How did I get a three year old?! Time flies and wow, he's changed so much in this last year! We had two celebrations - one of the day of, which just so happened to fall on game 7 of the Stanley Cup (we all know what happens, but in case James is checking this out in years to come...Canucks lost and there was a terrible riot that ensued). Happily for us, James was oblivious and went to sleep after a great pizza party still chanting "we want the cup!" and singing "Oh Canada"! A few days later, we celebrated with friends and family at our place. Rain tried to dampen the day, but we managed to get outside once it stopped and had a great afternoon playing, eating and playing some more!

Here are a few pics from the parties!

Cheese!

Stanley Cup Pizza Birthday Party!

Grammy made a delicious and adorable dinosaur cake!

Sharing Cake!

There are so many great pics of the day but my computer is slow to upload them, so I've just posted a few!

Happy Birthday Bud...we love you!

The 1st to Give Back!

Happy Birthday to our sweet little Mason! Wow a year has flown by! In honour of Mason's 1st Birthday we did the same thing we did for James' 1st Birthday and decided to give back to the community, as we feel so blessed to have happy & healthy children. This was an idea of a friends sister years ago and I hope she knows the legacy she is leaving with my kids!

We donated over $200 worth of food, clothes, baby items & books to the Langley Food Bank! We celebrated his birthday on Sunday with a great party with friends and family! Thank you to everyone who made donations and who came by to celebrate our little guy! We are so lucky! We love you Bubs!

Here's Mason getting his one present, Elmo, so now he doesn't have to try to steal James' Cookie Monster! Lots of sweet hugs for Elmo!

This boy loved his cake!

Thanks Shel for taking these pics!

Here we are in the midst of making our donation!

Neither child looked at the camera for any of these photos! Doesn't matter, what matters is we gave back!!

Happy 25 1/2 months!

Last night we celebrated James and Mason's Grammy's birthday at our place with a delicious bbq dinner on a lovely summer afternoon and evening! Every time I told James it was Grammy's birthday party, he seemed shattered that it wasn't his and pointed to himself sadly...so I told a little white lie and told it was also his birthday again!

Cutie pie Mason!

No birthday party complete without blue balloons or J Lohr!

Snuggles with Auntie Jocey! (notice lovely new paint colour in the background!)

You did it! Yummy peace blackberry pie from Krause (same place we got our wedding pies!)

The Terrific Two's!

I can't believe that James is two! At times, it goes so fast and to be realistic, some days feel like a week! Nonetheless, two years has gone by in a blink and we were able to celebrate our sweet James' second birthday on the weekend and mid-week (actual day was Tuesday) as a family!

Here are the guys waiting for the revelers to arrive!

And Mason didn't last too long!

The simple joys of a pretzel

Opening a gift from Auntie Jocey post-cupcake

Actual birthday morning - he wanted pancakes, so we did 'em up banana-blueberry style!

Flash forward three years and off to kindergarten:(

James got this adorable tee from our neighbours daughter-in-law Miranda, who is so creative! I love the retro shirt and how it already looks two years old - so comfy! Thanks Miranda!

What else do you do on your kids birthday - take 'em to the toy store and let 'em pick out anything they want! Ok, well within reason - I found James kissing a $25 stuffed Barney and I had to draw the line! We settled on a new basketball hoop and ball!

After a glorious nap, we took James to Captain Kids in Walnut Grove. And for only $2 for kids, this is the fun you can have!

James got to pick where he wanted to go for dinner and luckily for us it wasn't Chucky Cheese, but the local sushi joint we frequent! They know him by name and although he was confused we weren't getting our meal to go, he enjoyed a feast of miso, avocado rolls, dynamite rolls and I even snuck in some agedashi tofu!

Apres sushi - we came home and got our last blow of this candle from our sweet little guy! Happy Birthday James!