Conor's 1st Birthday

We had sweet little Conor's first birthday party last weekend. He woke up and was SO sick. His eyes were swollen shut and he looked and felt miserable. He insisted upon being held the whole party. He also fell asleep at his own party. Poor thing! Everyone else seemed to have fun though!

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the whole party set up with all of the food, but here is the backdrop with the big cake, smash cake and oreo balls. I ordered the snowman cake and smash cake from Publix, since the smash cake is free for first birthday's. I took a picture of what I wanted and they did a great job! It was also SO reasonable. The party was at 10am, so we had a lot of brunch food. My mom brought a breakfast casserole and some assorted specialty breads. We also had ham rolls, sausage balls, fruit, "snowballs" (aka white powdered donuts) and there were a couple of other treats on the table.

Snowman cake

Smash cake

I made these little snowman oreo balls and they were so easy and yummy!

I made this little snowman out of foam balls, cotton batting and buttons. I couldn't find a top hat, so he is a Nashville snowman with a sparkly cowboy hat :)

Cake plates and utensils

Since it was a morning party, we had mimosas and bloody mary's

Cocktail straws, which I had bought for Peyton's first birthday and forgot to use :)

There was snow on the trees outside

The entrance was a snowman made out of coffee filters and plates. It was actually pretty easy to make. I had planned to make more of the snow strings, which were fishing wire and marshmallows. I had seen a picture of an anthropologie store covered in them and it looked really cool. However, it was a sticky sticky mess and I only ended up making 8 of them. If you ever decide to make these, let the marshmallows sit out for a few days and get stale. 

I took most of these pictures after the party, so I only had a couple of party favors left. They were melted snowman cookies.

I love making these for first birthday parties. Just love looking at how much he has grown.

Newborn, 1 month, 2 month

3 month, 4 month, 5 month

6 month, 7 month, 8 month

9 month, 10 month, 11 month, and 1 year

Snowman juice boxes and water

Since this was mostly an indoor party, I tried to come up with a few activities for the little ones. So this was a snowman building section. I made some play-dough and then gathered up a few other things I had around the house for building the snowman. There were googly eyes, sticks, ribbon and buttons.

I figured the boys wouldn't be very interested in playing with the play dough, but the girls had a blast.

Might be my favorite snowman of all!

We also had a snow station. I had planned to make the snow out of shaving cream and baking soda, but Michael found some really awesome snow on amazon that was super cheap and made a ton! My kids enjoyed it so much. We will definitely be ordering more for some more winter activities. It's messy, but tons of fun.

While the girls were building their snowmans, the boys were all huddled around Patrick's ipad quietly. 

The quiet only lasted a couple of minutes, before they all went nuts with a snowball fight. 

The boys decided it would be more fun on the trampoline

The birthday boy was happy for about 5 minutes of his party

His eye looked a lot worse in person than it looks in the pictures. You can kind of tell that his left eye is swollen here.

Grandads

This one looks a little mischievous to me

This was about how he felt the whole party, poor thing

And he fell fast asleep

We woke him up for the cake smashing, which did not go well

He cheered up for a little bit after the party

Our family pictures are sort of chaos these days...

My middle child loves to smile for the camera

We headed to the doctor after the party and poor thing was exhausted!! He also clearly needs a new car seat!

I had a lot of fun celebrating my third little baby's birthday party. Cannot believe he is already 1!! It went by so fast!

Conor- 12 Months

My precious Conor is 12 months old! An entire year has just flown by! But at the same time, I don't really remember what it was like without this precious boy in our family!

He is so happy and has the BEST little giggle and smile. He really loves to play peek a boo and he laughs so hard when you play it with him. He loves to wander around the house and mess all kinds of things up. He prefers not to play with toys and instead to open cabinets, play in the toilet, turn on the bathtub, and get in all kinds of trouble! He is definitely a busy little bee!

He has slept through the night a total of about 5 times....yikes! Between his multiple ear infections and teething, we just can't seem to get on a good sleeping streak. 

This little boy is also spoiled rotten! I don't think I have left him for more than a couple hours at a time because he refuses to drink a bottle. The boy is 12 months old and has not had a single bottle! He really really loves nursing and it is going to be a battle when I decide to finally stop breastfeeding him. I had planned to stop breastfeeding him shortly after his birthday, but we have tried giving him milk out of a sippy cup and he just hates it. He LOVES juice though, just like big brother Peyton.

He is a very good eater and really really loves food. He loves meat, bread and fruit. Just like the other boys, he does not like the texture of fruit and prefers it in baby food form. His favorite snacks are applesauce, cheerios, granola bars, goldfish and yogurt melts.

Big boy at his 12 month check-up. He weighs 21 lbs, 13 ounces (40%) and is 32 inches tall (97%). He is one tall little boy! His legs rolls get me every time :)

Playing peek-a-boo at the doctor's office for his check-up. He thinks it is so funny!

He learned to walk this month and has been busy trying to keep up with his big brothers!

Daddy was out of town one night, so Patrick decided to put on a little show for me and his brothers. 

Conor got to go sledding for the first time. He was not fond of it at all

Suprisingly, he loves the trampoline. The big boys can't jump too high yet, so I just sit with him on the trampoline and he bounces very gently around. He absolutely loves it!

One of his favorite times is meal time. He gets so excited to eat his food. Love it!

We had a big snowman birthday party for him. Poor little thing was so sick and slept through a good portion of his party. 

Conor I love you so much! Makes me a little sad you are going up so fast!

Potty Training

My sweet little Peyton is potty trained! He has been pretty dang easy to potty train. We struggled and struggled with Patrick, so it was a nice surprise to have Peyton potty trained so fast.

We started talking about potty training a few months ago (in September), but he was NOT ready... like cried and cried when we tried to put underwear on him. So we decided to put the potty training on hold and wait a couple of months. Around Christmas Peyton started asking to put on underwear. We started right after Christmas and he has done wonderful! It took him a couple weeks to learn how to go #1. We had a few days with 15+ accidents a day, yikes! It took him a couple weeks after that to learn to go #2 in the potty. He has now mastered them both and we have gone a good amount of time without an accident! On the rare occasion that Peyton takes a nap, he has not needed a pull up. It has been great! I am so proud of my big boy!

First time wearing underwear!

He was so much easier to potty train and I think mostly because he is such a people pleaser. Praising Peyton goes a really really long way. If he sees that you are excited for him, he is 100% motivated. Even though he has learned how to go potty by himself, he still says "mommy come watch me!" Patrick is also very encouraging of Peyton. Patrick will cheer for Peyton and tell him that he is doing so well. Peyton just beams with excitement after Patrick encourages him!  It is too cute.

I took Peyton to go and pick out a potty training surprise and instead of picking out a present for himself, he picked out a present for his brother instead. I love this child's giving spirit!

He was ready excited to give Patrick a present!

After a couple days we went back to the store and I let him back out another toy. He needed a special surprise after such hard work! So proud of my sweet little guy!