Declan's 1st Birthday! Silly Safari Style! ;)

Of course, Hayden had two birthday parties, so why not Declan too? And less than a month apart!? I'm seriously considering combo parties from now on. Their birthdays are just too close together (march 1st & 29th). We had Decs' Spokane party on Thursday, March 29th evening (his actual birthday).  His 2nd party was that weekend in Chehalis at my Mom & Kenny's house- actually in Kenny's Man-cave! He was so sweet to let us transform it to a "kid-cave" with only on rule: no cartoons allowed! ;) And of course, once I picked a theme, I rolled with it... way too far for a 1st birthday! ;)  His nursery bedding is Silly Safari and he is SUCH A lil monkey, it was an appropriate birthday theme.

LOVE the tiger striped balloons! And the green tissue pompoms were recycled yet again from Hayden's party! ;)  I made the happy birthday banner with my digital scrapbooking supplies!  

These cupcakes are SOOOO good!  They are a guinness (the alcohol bakes out!!) dark chocolate cake with the yummiest vanilla bean buttercream frosting & topped with shreaded coconut & mini chocolate chips! MMMMmmmmm! also- I made the party hats, food labels & cupcake wrappers/picks with my digital scrapbooking stash. Hayden actually cut everything out for me- that girl has MAD scissor skills for a 4 yr old!

Monkey mix = fruit & nut mix from costco with some coconut shreaded on top!

~LOVED~ his cupcake! It was in his ears & bellybutton!?

These next pictures are from his 2nd party at my Mom's house in Chehalis. Mostly the same theme, but added some more food, since we had a lot more people- especially kiddos!

Hungry Hippo Dip = cream cheese, powdered sugar, brown sugar, vanilla & chocolate chips. Yep it's basically a sugar high, but SOOO good with animal crackers or any graham crackers

zebra cakes cause I thought they would look cute! ;) plus my cupcakes are SOO chocolate-y these were an alternative for thos chocolate haters (they do exist- Jeremy.)

The best place to be! DESSERT table! ;)

I love this high chair that my mom has at her house for the grandbabies. It's so vintage- but not very functional- my son seriously needs some seatbelts to keep him sitting! ;)

He loved his balloons more than his dinner- action shot of his food getting tossed onto the man-cave floor! ;)

Happy Birthday Declan!

Not so into the cupcake this go-round but still managed to make a mess!

 Opening presents! He got a couple Super cute hats! And actually kept them on his head! :)

*notice my zebra shirt!? Not everyday I can pull that one off, but it matched the theme so well! ;) *

~My Boys~

At Declan's 1 year old check up, he weighed in at a whopping 24 lbs 8 oz (90%) and is 31 inches tall (85%). He is going to be a big boy! The pediatrician said he reminds her of a clumsy puppy with huge paws (he has huge feet!)  He is wearing 18 month (some 24month) clothes, size 5 shoe & size 4 diaper.  He is right on, if not ahead on a lot of his physical milestones (except walking, but he's taking steps, just a faster crawler!)  He is super busy & starting to get more vocal. He says mama & dada.  He loves his big sissy & follows her wherever she goes. He LOVES her bed & crawls up onto it & jumps & wrestles around. He also loves to climb up chairs & the dining room table. He loves baths & water but hates diaper changes and getting dressed. He REALLY wants to go play outside & whenever someone goes out the garage door- he gets really upset if he doesn't get to go along. Right now he has some MAJOR seperation issues & really only wants mommy, daddy or papa.  We just took his bottles away & switched over to milk, and he's not too happy about it. His favorite toys are nontraditional- boxes, cups, pots/pans, etc. He gives the best snuggles & wiggles his little body when you say "snuggle." He is my lil sweet boy & I can't imagine our lives without his crazy busy-ness! :) 

Hayden's Tinkerbell 4th Birthday Party!

Let's just say that Hayden is one lucky lil girl! Since we moved from Olympia to Spokane just a few months ago- she was really missing her friends & family in Western Washington. We were already going to be in the area with Jeremy playing in the Microsoft Hockey Challenge, so we decided to have a birthday party for her over there (in addition to her party here in Spokane!).  = A LOT of work for mommy! :) And, because I'm probably insane & like to go "all out" when it comes to a theme- I put my crafty skills to good use on this one! :) We had her party at my favorite pizza joint in Olympia: Dirty Dave's.  It was centrally located for our seattle friends, chehalis family & olympia friends/family! Everyone spoiled her rotten & she had a wonderful time!

I made the tissue ball hanging decorations: They didn't travel too well & looked a lot better at home, but oh well!

We had limited space with this party room, so everything was pretty much crammed onto one table, but it worked.



Hayden & Hayden! :)

LOVE me some dirty daves cashew pepperoni pizza! :)

(I made all the food labels too!)



Since we were in a pretty small room & the weather was just crap outside, I didn't do much as far as the game department went.  Just printed off some coloring pages from disney.com & set out crayons.

Coming from out of town & then from a hotel/hockey arena, there was really no way I would've been able to make her a cake or cupcakes. Plus, everytime we were at any grocery store that had this cake- she always asked for it for her birthday party.  This one was from the safeway across the street from the pizza parlor & it was actually really good. I got the perfect size- no left overs to have to travel back to Spokane! :)

Pixie Punch = aka Apple Juice ;)



So- just a week later we got to do it ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!  I know- like I said, I'm crazy!  But, since we've only been here in Spokane a short while, Hayden doesn't really have very many little kid friends, so this party was primarily adults (family). 

We decorated with the lovely (they made a trip back & forth over snoqualmie pass) tissue pompoms.

Table scape (much more room here at home!)

Forgot to take pics of her Olympia party- but everyone got either a peter pan hat/glow in the dark sword or a set of wings/fairy wand (I made the wands) and everyone got a little jar of pixie dust that I also put together.

Lucky girl got to have TWO cakes! :) This one from JUST AMERICAN DESSERTS was SOOOO yummy!  

We got out the fairy puzzles to do too- since her grandparents like to do puzzles! ;)

Hayden & I made this cute #4 hanger for the door out of cardboard from a diaper box & cupcake liners.  FYI- it takes SIGNIFICANTLY more cupcake liners than one would think = two-toned #4! ;)

We had all sorts of goodies: Pixie Punch = apple juice; Pixie Sticks = pure sugar crack for kids; Fairy Wands = We made chocolate dipped pretzels rods; Fairy Berries = gotta have some healthy component! ;) 

Hayden & cousin Jake sword fighting! ;)

!!!THANK YOU!!!

to everyone who came & celebrated with us (at either party!)

Hayden loved her party & will probably expect two parties every year from now on.... uh oh!

Supplies:

Tinkerbell cups/plates/napkins/goodie bags:  WALMART

 Peter Pan Hats: A Rainy Day Play etsy

Fairy Wings: Halo Heaven

Pixie Dust Jars: save-on-crafts.com

Tissue paper, swords: Dollar Store

Michael's for a ton of stuff! ;)

cake #1: Safeway Grocers

cake #2: JUST AMERICAN DESSERTS

Printables: Disney

Happy Birthday Decs!

A year sure goes by fast! :)

I'll post pictures of his party soon (and hayden's 4th birthday party too!!) ;)

The Mijo-man

It must have been fate intervening- as I just made this layout of Mijo a couple days before his accident.

Mijo went to doggy heaven at 8pm on Wednesday February 22nd.  Today, March 4th, was his birthday; he would've been 7 years old.  I knew it would be hard to lose him, as he was such a part of our family, but I thought I had many more years until that day came.

Wednesday morning I found him laying outside covered with blood. I let him out to go potty, put the baby down for a nap & then came back to the door ~15 mins later to see him laying on the grass. I thought he was just sun bathing while waiting for me to let him back in, but when I called for him, he wouldn't get up.  I ran inside & grabbed a towel. I brought him inside, called the vet & my husband (who rushed home to take him to the Dr). The poor lil guy was screaming every time he moved. I thought he was going to die in my arms, he was barely breathing, becoming hoarse from yelping so loudly & shaking.  At the vet, he stabilized fairly quickly, was in shock & needed fluids. He had 3 puncture wounds; the pattern showed it was an attack from above- owl or hawk probably! Xrays looked fine, but all his puncture wounds were connected (you could go inside one puncture & come up/out of another)- as in his skin was basically ripped off through most of his body. I guess dogs have an extra subcutaneous layer that allows that to happen. The puncture by his neck was actually loose all the way to his skull (Dr was surprised his carotid artery didn't tear). The next step would have been surgery to attach skin & insert drains but he never was stable enough to go under anesthesia The Dr wanted us to come in to talk that evening. At 7:30 we met with the veterinarian (Super nice, called me multiple times throughout the day to give me updates). At that point, she said most animals give her a gut feeling & he just kept changing on her. One minute she thought he'd be great, then the next she thought he wouldn't make it. She wanted us to see him & see what his response was to us. It was so sad. He wouldn't look at us. He wouldn't lick my hand *ALWAYS was licking- used to tease how licky he was. He had a dose of pain meds before we got there & still was screaming every time he moved. The Dr was also concerned because he wouldn't stand or walk or put any weight on his legs. She said he probably was dropped after the hawk grabbed him. We decided to not let him suffer anymore. That was by far the hardest decision I've ever made. I'm just thankful that he was able to make it home (most likely happened in the field a few houses down) instead of just being gone with no closure or clue to what happened to him.  I think that he just wanted to get home so we could take care of him; took all he had to get home. :( We're so sad.

Anyone who knows us personally, knows that he was just part of our family.  He was our first baby.  Jeremy & I joked that he was practice for our real babies! :) We got him Memorial Day weekend 2005 and took his maiden voyage to Lake Coeur D'Alene.  He loved playing outside at the lake & his rottweiler auntie Raven.  Even though he didn't weigh yet 2 lbs, he thought it was so fun to run circles & bark at Raven (the huge rottie!)  I have pictures of it, but they are in storage right now.  Here's a few pictures when he was just a lil pup!! ;)

 Crashed with Daddy!

Doing laundry with me! ;)  Lil trouble maker always loved my panties!

This pic (tiny I know..) was taken out at Riffe Lake at Dick's Property. He loved it out there & would eat so much crap *pine needles, dirt, grass* that we hated taking him out there!

As our family grew, Mijo was always there documented in the pictures!  The only ones I have on my computer from when Hayden was born are these tiny ones.

He was always so good with the kids. Even when they were rotten to him, he would just nibble their fingers. He had NEVER bitten anyone, was not the typical ankle-bitter rep that chihuahuas have.

When Declan came along, he was also in all the family pictures!  In fact, our photographer (the LOVELY Jessica Rae Photography) also had chihuahuas & took some beautiful photos of him.

He always loved his belly rubbed, so he'd flip over like this the minute he saw you!

Guardian of the babies!

 Meeting Decs for the 1st time!

 I think this is my ALL TIME favorite family photo.  I think it's just too perfect that all of us INCLUDING the Mijo man are looking at the newest member of our family!

 He was a little dog, but had a HUGE personality.  He took up so much SPACE in our hearts, lives & home.  The house feels SO empty without him.  I hear his little pitter patter of his nails on the floor & his tapping on the slider to go outside. I still sweep/vacuum & find his hair all over everything!

There are countless times during the day when I think of him.  It's funny the things that are just habitual...like calling him the minute I drop something on the floor (he was our broom- I never had to clean up after the babies since he pretty much did all of it with his tongue!!)  Or when someone's at the door or comes home, I rush to find him so he wont bark & wake the sleeping baby.  Or when I get home & instantly open the door for him to go out & potty.  Or at night, when he would come to bed & snuggle the crook of my legs all night long, no matter how much I tossed/turned/got up with the baby.   Or when sitting on the couch, he instantly was in my lap.  I miss him so much.

RIP Mijo

03/04/2005 - 02/22/2012