Bunches of pictures from the PARTY!

Stetson blew out the candles before we could even sing Happy Birthday!

Birthday Party Prep!

Baking the cake.

FIRST: Let me just say, if you ever need to make a cake in a pinch but don't have a cake mix check on the back of your Hershey's Cocoa box, there is an awesome recipie for "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake and "Perfectly Chocolate" Frosting and they are oh so yummy! The cake is really moist and the frosting is to chocolatey!!

SECOND: When you plan on making a double layer cake like this with the rounds MAKE SURE you grease them up good and flour really good or else you will have to make another batch of cake like I did!! One of my first Rounds I did came out in a couple pieces!

THIRD: That cream in the middle is Vanilla pudding. It's pretty tasty, but I don't know that I will make a cake like that again. I just think the cake devoured the taste of the pudding, almost as if it weren't even there.

moving on...

FOURTH: Creating the DECOR... Can you tell what it's going to be? If anyone reading this has any tips for creating structures with better frosting I am all ears. I used a Royal frosting recipe that had 4 egg whites, 4 cups powdered sugar and a little cream of tartar, but as you can see in the picture below, the frosting was "leaking" down in between the oreos.

Let me tell you the bulid up of this contraption though. There is one full graham cracker on the bottom for some stability, then 2 HUGE marshmellows on top of that with a cut wooden kabob stick holding them together. On the 2 marshmellows is another full graham cracker. (by the way: in between all the layers is a little bit of the frosting to hold it all together) Then, as you can see in the picture, 3 HUGE marshmellows held together with another kabob stick, I think after that I put the oreos on to keep the thing stable. And I really had to GOB the frosting on the oreos to get them to stick onto the marshmellows, partly because they weren't clear to the edge or the graham cracker. Then I "glued" two half graham crackers to the sides and one on top. Then make cake round that fell apart came in handy for the curved structure at the top!

Of course, the boys got to enjoy "helping" me make the cake too!


What a CUTE face!?

Baby Karston was just chillin'



And the finished product!... technically: I added some red frosting around where the cake was separating on the side because of the pudding in the middle.

Frosting this sucker was probably the most diffucult part. That frosting was too runny if I didn't add more sugar after adding the food coloring. For his chimney, I guess you call it?, I used 3 mini chareston chews and I'm sure you've figured out the red stuff is licorice, I used twizzlers. Also I had to stick a kabob stick on each side and the back to stablize it on the cake.

(The mess of black frosting and twizzlers in the front was a mistake, pretty much just made it up as I went. Phil said it was a nice railroad track. ;)
Bet you didn't guess it was going to be Thomas!

Birthday Boy!

On his very special day he got to go play at the McBride's home while Mom and Dad went out to get him a present! Are we such procrastinators or what?!

He got to open some mail from Grandmas and Grandpas!

Stetson is such a fun little guy to be around. He loves to play with trains of any sort. He will even line random things up on the table and say, "Look, Mom, train!" He plays with the baby toys that hook together and calls that his train.

He's got a great imagination, and he is teaching Preston to have one too. He pretends to have some kind of food, let's say, ice cream and he shares it with Preston and so Preston takes a bite of it from his hand. Stetson is slowly but surely learning how to share with his brother. Although he has had his cars taken away before because he refuses to share. It's tough learning the hard way!

Stetson is a bugger to go to bed for Mom. He likes to keep company until he falls asleep but, Mom can't do that all the time. A lot of the times though, he will just hang out on his bed staring at the ceiling until he finally falls asleep.

He's talking a whole lot. He is at the stage where he wants to show us everything, and if we don't look right away he will keep repeating himself until we do look. He also finds bugs in the house and either A: says hurry mom, look look, bug... get it! or B: runs from it says, 'Save me! Save me!'

Stetson is one little character. We are working on getting to know more friends and getting out to play with them more or having them come over. Stetson definitely loves having friends!

Trying to Catch up!

It's like he knows he's cute or something? Preston is 17 months here.

Funny combination: Chocolate on face and now ready for oranges. But look at that oh so happy face! (Just about 3 years old here!)

I think Karston was 7 weeks here.


He is in his cute 3 month outfit given to us from the Relief Society presidency, too bad he is too big for it now!!



Dad interacting with "baby Karston" as Stetson would say. He actually almost laughed!! It was so cute! Still about 7 Weeks here.


Stetson just loves his baby brother. He told me one time that "baby Karston" was his baby and that Preston was Mom's baby.

Swimming!

FUN in David and Stacy's pool!

Preston is obsessed with holding the ball.

Stetson loves jumping into the water!

Aunt Donna and Drew, he is a fantasic swimmer for a 2 year old, by the way.

Little Cousin DREW... soo cute!

Karston at 8 Weeks

Karston is starting to smile alot more and make "COO" sounds. OH IT'S SO CUTE!

Preston's First Birthday and Stetson Update

Cake!

OUR little Monster turned 1 on March 22, 2011 We always call Preston the monster because he likes to get into everything and EAT anything!! He will barrel over you just to get to something he wants. He is a MONSTER! But a cute one!

Lovin' that cake! Only minutes before he was so done with dinner, but there's always room for dessert right?

Preston's 1 year STATS:

19 LBS = 5th %ILE

HEAD = 50th %ILE

LENGTH (not sure) = measured 5th %ILE, but the Dr. thinks that the tech maybe didn't stretch him out enough because he was higher last time.

My "little" boy. He is just TOO active to gain weight, he eats like it's going out of style most the time, but can't sit still so he just burns it all off!

Being a monkey

STETSON UPDATE: Stetson is getting to the age where he realizes that presents are really cool and that he likes to open them. He is getting the idea in his head too that everyone has a birthday, well, Preston and his cousin Kenna do anyway. Those were the recent ones. Something funny about Stetson: He went on the last Scout Campout with Dad and when they came home we was super hungry. It was a little before dinner time. He asked for an egg and I said, "Sure you can have an egg!" He was so excited he sang the words, "Happy Birthday to you!" But it was more like this "Happy birthday...(short pause) to you!" With all these birthdays around, I guess he's really learning the song. Another time he started singing a primary song, "Sing, sing, sing" out of no where! He is such a character! Oh and he likes to strike poses when he is just in his underwear. I can't wait to see what the future brings with Stetson in the house!

Preston 9 Month STATS

Preston turned 9 Months just days before Christmas, this picture was taken on Christmas day.

At his appointment he was:

17.8 LBS = 10%ile (down from last time)

HEAD = 50%ile (same)

LENGTH = 25%ile

Preston is such a happy little guy most of the time, unless he's hungry. This kid eats more than Stetson! He recently got FOUR TEETH on top!! They all peeked out on the SAME DAY!! Crazy!