Birthday Celebration - Part 2

**Disclaimer - This post is LONG! I really wanted to document the whole story. Feel free to skip ahead to the pictures and be forewarned - there are lots of those too!

Besides our small family party, we did have another birthday party for our little firefighter. When I asked Dane who he would like to have at his birthday party he said, "Kellen and the firefighters!" My first thought was how in the world am I going to get some firefighters to his birthday party and my second thought was it was going to be a tiny birthday party with just Kellen here. So I started down his list of friends and he quickly vetoed any other friends being at his party. He said, "I want a small birthday party and I just want Kellen, Natasha (Kellen's mom), Jenny (Kellen's sister) Mommy, Daddy and Jaeger to be there." I asked him for a few days and his answer was always the same. Our little firefighter knows what he wants! (Honestly, I think that Jaeger's birthday party was just too overwhelming for Dane and he knew that he wanted just a few people here. )

My first task in planning his party was to try to get some firefighters to come to his birthday party. And since Firefighter Unk Tim probably wouldn't be able to fly in from New Mexico, I decided to just call the Glacier Fire Station. The woman that answered said no, we don't do that type of thing. Strike 1. So then I had to start thinking about who I knew that was a firefighter and that might be able to make this happen. I had a first grade student a few years ago whose mom is a firefighter, so I emailed her this ridiculously long email with links to my blog showing just how dedicated of a firefighter we had on our hands and her response was it might be possible! Zip a Dee Doo Dah! And as you can see below, it was possible!!

So, now that I knew the firefighters might actually be coming to Dane's birthday party, I thought I should try again to get Dane to invite a few more friends. If the firefighters were making a special trip to our house, I didn't want them to be disappointed to see just 2 kids. So, I pulled out Dane's preschool composite and we looked through the kids in his class last year. I figured with school starting the next week that it might be a good idea to have a few friends come over to help ease Dane in to going back to school. Once he looked at their pictures he saw 2 friends that he wanted to come to his birthday party. Yea - now we had a party!

Thankfully, our guests arrived promptly because the firefighters arrived right as the party was starting. I was not expecting them to be here so quickly! All the kids jumped on the couch to see the fire truck pull up to our house and then we all ran outside. We got so lucky that the day of Dane's party was absolutely gorgeous! It was the first sunny day we'd had in probably a week and a half. Firefighters Keith and Marilyn were amazing. Firefighter Marilyn walked the boys around the truck and showed them everything and gave each of them a turn at holding something - an ax, a mask, an air tank..... Then, Firefighter Marilyn put on her turn out gear and the kids thought that was pretty awesome. Lastly, they let everyone have a turn sitting in the fire truck. They were here for probably 45 minutes - it was incredible!

Finally, you made it to the pictures!

Our signal to the firefighters to let them know they had the right house.

Checking out the fire engine.

Firefighter Marilyn talking to the kids.


Firefighter Marilyn in her turnout gear. (This was definitely a highlight!)


Oskar, Kellen and Johan taking it all in.

The birthday boy getting his turn in the fire truck.

After the firefighters left, we went inside to have pizza and play firefighter! So, of course, everyone needed their own fire equipment: fire helmet, mask, hose and, of course, a milk jug air tank!

And here's Jenny in action!

The fire truck cake and fire truck chocolates for the guests to take home.



We pulled out a few fire trucks and fire fighters for the kids to play with.


And here are a few signs we had around the house.


**If you read this entire blog post you deserve a gold star!!! Sorry it was so long.

Birthday Celebration - Part 1

My first day of school happened to be Dane's birthday, so I haven't had a chance to get caught up on what his day looked like. (After such a nice summer with the boys, I'm having to remember how to be a mom and work at the same time! I think I'm finally getting into the groove though. :) )

Sadly, both Dan and I had to work on Dane's birthday, but we tried to make it as special as possible nonetheless.

We started the day with these....

You may remember that for Jaeger's birthday Daddy put my sad pancakes with the number 2 written in them with blueberries to shame with his awesome fire truck he artistically made for Dane. And since our resident pancake maker was working I knew I had to step up my game as I was pretty sure our little firefighter wasn't going to be happy with the number 4 written out on his pancake. As I was contemplating how in the world I was going to make a fire truck pancake for Dane I saw this plastic squeeze bottle sitting on my dish drying rack and I remembered that my friend, Erin, had mentioned the idea of using a diner style squeeze ketchup bottle to make fancy pancakes. Ding ding ding!!! The squeeze bottle worked great - if you're artistically challenged like me, give it a try. You'll be sporting fancy schmancy pancakes in no time!

Here are a few photos of Dane opening his gifts.
A fire truck shirt from Jaeger.

Some awesome fire stickers from Grandma Heidi & Grandpa Mike. And you'll see his awesome fire fighter outfit from Grandma and Grandpa in later pictures! You can also see his new Playmobil firefighter set from Mommy & Daddy sitting on the counter.

Later that evening, we ate Dane's requested birthday meal of yogurt, granola and craisins. And then we got to the good stuff - his cake! (Which was actually his first requested dinner. And when I told him that we were already planning on having cake and asked him again what he'd like to eat for dinner, he said cookies!)

Probably shouldn't have given this guy a tire to eat!

Our little firefighter blowing out his candles!



All in all, I think Dane had a great birthday filled with everything fire!

Stay tuned for another post about Dane's second birthday celebration.

Happy Birthday to our sweet baby Dane!

I can't believe that our sweet baby Dane just turned 4!
You may remember us doing a birthday interview with Dane last year. We thought we'd carry on the interview tradition.

Who is your favorite friend? Kellan
What is your favorite color? Red and blue

What do you want to be when you grow up? A firefighter!

What is your favorite toy to play with? My firesuit
What makes you sad? If I get a time-out, that makes me sad.
What makes Daddy happy? Knives
What makes Mommy happy? Getting kisses! (I love this!!)

What is your favorite food? "Mutella" (Nutella)
What does Mommy do that is funny? Laugh. I do this really high-pitched laugh and both boys think it's hilarious.
What is Mommy's favorite thing to do? Have lollypops
What is Daddy's favorite thing to do? Buy knives
What is Mommy really good at? Doing dishes
What is Daddy really good at? Renovating. He sometimes puts new lights in. (Lightbulbs that is!)

What do you like to do outside? Play firefighter

What do you like to do inside? One of the games I really really really LOVE to play is firefighter. I like playing airport too.
What is your favorite dessert? Chocolate lollypops

What do you think is scary? A bear

What is your favorite animal? A giraffe

What do you love doing with Daddy? Going to Home Depot to build something for kids (and get some cookies!)
What do you love doing with Mommy? Playing dress-up firefighter!

And here are some of our favorite things about you...
* When you want to be "uppie" and you wrap your arms and legs so tight around us. It just melts our hearts.
* When you wake up first thing in the morning with your sweet cherry cheeks and are so ready to get started with your day.
* Your continued love for firefighting.
* Your infectious giggle.
* When you take my face and give me a kiss on my right cheek, a kiss on my left cheek, a kiss on the forehead and then finally a kiss on the lips. I love that!
* When you make this funny horn sound from the corner of your mouth just to get us to laugh.
* Watching you suit up - whether it be your firefighter gear, scuba diving gear, hunting gear, bike riding gear or astronaut gear.
* All of your cute body parts, but your sweet little biscuits continue to be our favorite!

You are beautiful inside and out Dane and we love you more 1,000,000 firefighters!

Up Up & Away

Jaeger's birthday bash was a flying success! We had a full house and all the kids seemed to have a blast. I think the adults may have actually enjoyed themselves too. :)

Daddy, our party photographer, has barely had time to see his family let alone download the birthday pictures, so we'll post his photos when he has more time. It's that crazy time at Ward Air where he's out the door before we get up and arriving home after we've gone to bed. :( I did take a few photos of some of the decorations that I thought you might enjoy seeing.

Here are a few of the favors I made for our guests. On the left are candy airplanes made from Smarties, Lifesavers and gum. Here's the original idea from Family Fun magazine. On the right, my friend, Turkey showed me how to make chocolate lollypops. They were super fun and easy to make. Dane really loved helping make both favors. As soon as Jaeger would go down for his nap, we'd get crafting. :)

We put the favors inside this Motion Sickness Bag we got from Alaska Seaplanes. I love how vintage it is!

Jaeger got this adorable backpack from Grandma Heidi and it was a great place to store all the goodies for our guests. :) Thanks Grandma!

Dane also enjoyed helping me make the cake!

Here's the final product. Thanks to Daddy who tackled the writing on the cake and the adorable smoke coming from the back of the plane. He's so crafty! (You may notice that we wrapped the table with some of Dan's old aeronautical charts.)

We had several signs around the house. The welcome sign was on our front door and I'm sure you can imagine where the other signs were hung. ;)

We played one "game." It was kind of a hide 'n seek. The kids had to find toy airplanes in a kiddie pool filled with shredded paper. This was a huge hit and an equally huge mess! Here's one photo I managed to snap of Dane and his friend Kellen going crazy with the shredded paper. (Yep, that's Dane wearing no pants at his brother's birthday party! I couldn't get him to wear pants - what a goof!)

And here's a video of everyone signing Happy Birthday to our sweet birthday boy.

The Birthday Celebration

Jaeger's Birthday celebration started with blueberry pancakes.


I was quite impressed with myself for thinking to make a 2 out of the blueberries and then Dan came out with this creation for Dane! I've officially been reduced to washing dishes on pancake days! ;)


This was Jaeger's 2nd pancake in honor of his favorite song "Hey Bunny Bunny."




It was a beautiful morning (meaning it wasn't raining like it had been for 5 straight days!) so we headed to the glacier. We'd heard that the bears were out looking for salmon and we got to see this little guy searching for his breakfast.


After many phone and Skype calls talking to our wonderful family we opened all of Jaeger's cards and gifts. Dane really loved helping out with this task! And then we had one of Jaeger's new favorite meals - BBQ Applesauce Chicken (ridiculously easy and super yummy!) and of course, cupcakes for dessert. :)

Thanks Dane for helping out!

Can't you just hear Jaeger Ray saying thanks everyone for making my 2nd birthday so special. He loved all the phone calls, cards, gifts and love being sent his way!

Happy Birthday to ME!

I'd say this was probably one of the best birthdays I've had in a long time! Daddy made it absolutely wonderful - I was spoiled ROTTEN! It started with a wonderful weekend - sleeping in, breakfast at one of my favorite restaurants sans children, card making, and a movie date with my dear friend Wendy all planned by Dan! Then there were the daily chai teas delivered to me in bed in this adorable new cup for several days leading up to my big day. :)

And Daddy didn't stop there! Some how he managed to have the first real snowfall land on my birthday (I say real because we did have one snowfall a few weeks ago that caused quite the ruckus at school but it didn't stick and was gone as quickly as it arrived!)

Attached to a beautiful scarf and gloves, I got this handmade card from Dane. It's a bit small, but he's drawn a picture of me wearing helmet and goggles so I'm safe on my monster truck!

And if that wasn't enough, Dan had a birthday cake delivered to my school so all of my co-workers could enjoy it with me! And in the afternoon Dan personally delivered my favorite chai tea from The Flying Squirrel while I was teaching.

And here's Sneaky Dane - caught red handed licking every last morsel out of the cake lid.

Thanks to my 3 boys for making my day so special! And to all of my family and friends for all the phone calls, cards, gifts and love showered upon me. I really do feel pretty blessed and I suppose being 39 isn't so bad after all.