Par-tay!

Since Grant's birthday was on a Saturday he had his birthday party the same day, so it was a full day of celebrations.

He started off the day waking up to balloons on the floor. He and Scotty slept downstairs that night so he was really surprised to see the balloons down there in the morning.

Then he opened his presents from us and his brothers. I love his happy face in this picture.

Daddy helped him put together his racetrack and they had fun racing the car that goes with the track and also his new Mario car.

We had pancakes for breakfast, sang and he blew out his candles. Mario participated too!

He had a fun party with all the family. His grandparents were very kind to give him two gifts he really wanted- a big Mater and a blue camera. It had to be a blue one! Here he is taking a picture of Mater with his camera.

Miles made him a Mario cake. It was awesome, as always.

Grant put the candle right on Mario's nose! When we took it off it left two little spots and looked like a pig nose.

Gotta love licking the candle!

Birthday Boy! It's hard to believe he is 4 years old.

You can't see the banner very well, but we were able to use the same file I made last year for his banner and swap out the Yoshi pictures for Mario pictures. Score!

I got a new idea from my carpool partner to hang some crepe paper in the entrance to the hallway. The boys loved it and called it the car wash. One week later it's still hanging up with only 3 of the streamers being torn down. Not bad!

After his party all the Lawrence's went to see The Muppet Movie, which was really fun. Then we went to his favorite place for dinner- McDonald's! It was a really fun day and it was great to watch Grant feeling special and enjoying every minute of being the birthday boy.

Happy Birthday Grant!

Grant is 4 today!! He is so excited for his birthday. He's been talking about it for a long time- it's been so cute! Grant has had an adventurous, fun year. As most 3 year olds experience, he has been figuring out all his emotions. And there have been a lot of emotions! He graduated from speech therapy right when he turned 3 and his speech has really blossomed. He says a lot of funny, sweet things. He was potty trained and did wonderfully with that. He started preschool in the fall and loves it. He went skiing for the first time. He survived swimming lessons- he really struggled with that, but he finished and he was proud. And he had his first black eye! Grant is a very sweet, funny, fun and crazy boy. He loves to run from one end of the house to the other making rocket, car and shooting sounds. He's a great brother and gets along really well with both Scotty and Collin. He loves Mario, playing Mario Kart, trucks, trains, riding his bike, playing in dirt, snuggling and getting tickled. We love Grant so much! He is a very fun part of our family. Happy Birthday Buddy! We love you!!!

Here are some pictures of him from the past year.

Smarties

Miles and I decided we should play Scrabble. Neither one of us has ever been very good at it. I have only played a couple times ever and I remember being very bad. So, for some reason, we (mostly me) got all excited about playing. We went out and bought it and sat down to play after the kids were in bed. We had to read the rules and decided to play the shortened way by ending when someone gets to the appointed points. The first game went way better than we were expecting. Then we played a second game and we ended up using every single tile. We couldn't believe it! We only had one curse word and one spot that was technically cheating, so we were pretty proud! I don't think we'll play with anyone other than each other though. We think we're doing well, but I'm sure we would be crushed by everyone else!

Thanksgiving

I always have a lot to be thankful for. I am very blessed. We will be enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with Miles' family this year. Good food, good company and fun games. Couldn't ask for more!

The thing I am most thankful for is Miles and our boys. They make me so happy. A few Saturdays ago Miles was gone early rock climbing with some Scouts and the boys and I were hanging out on our bed. (I was trying to catch a few more zzz's while they played, but that never works!) We ended up filming them singing songs. It was so fun and now they love to watch themselves singing. Well, Scotty was too shy to sing on camera, but hopefully we'll get him sometime. My favorite one was Grant. He started singing You're A Grand Old Flag but he got mixed up and moved to The Chapel Doors. Then he started again and...you'll see what he does. It makes me laugh every time I watch it. Collin has such a cute little voice and he loves to sing. He's so cute. I threw in Scotty's attempt- I love that he tried! I love these boys!!

Happy Halloween!!

We all had a fun Halloween. They boys were excited to get their costumes and they were worn a lot before the official day.

Every year we get all the Lawrence cousins together to take pictures in their costumes. It's always a wild adventure, although as they get older it's getting easier. This year wasn't bad at all.

Collin as a construction guy or Bob the Builder or Hard Hat Harry. He would decide what he was that particular day and we would address him appropriately.

Grant decided that he wanted to be Mario- same as last year. The bummer part was that the suit from last year was too small so we had to buy a bigger one. Maybe he'll want to be Mario a third time and he can wear this one again!

Scotty went to the Halloween store to get some things to be a vampire....until he saw this General Grievous costume and had a change of heart! It cost more than we budget for a costume so he paid the difference with his own money. He's growing up!

All ready and excited to go trick or treating. Perfect weather last night for trick or treating and then snow this morning!

Checking out the haul:

Halloween Muffin Tin Monday

Happy Halloween! We have 3 very excited boys today! Grant and Collin were excited about their "fooky" muffin tin lunch.

They had goblin toes (cheese puffs), monster fingers (grapes), ghost blood (milk), ghost pb&j, witches teeth (corn) and a spider (Babybell cheese) on a spiderweb (spaghetti).

Here is our construction guy and Mario gobbling up their spooky lunch. Scotty got a very similar lunch to take to school. He was very excited to wear his General Grievous costume to school and I hope he enjoys his spooky lunch as well.

Stop by Muffin Tin Mom to see more fun Halloween MTMs.

Preschool Halloween Party

Everyone was excited for Grant's preschool Halloween party and parade. He was excited for obvious reasons, and we were excited to go watch the adorable costume parade. There isn't anything much cuter than a bunch of 3 year olds parading around in their Halloween costumes.

Grant and I had fun making sucker ghosts for his treat contribution.

He drew almost all of the faces on by himself. He made them very "fooky".

They all came out for the parade and they were darling. Grant decided he wanted to be Mario again (he was Mario last year) and there was no talking him out of it!

I'm not sure why Grant thought he needed to hold Captain America's hand, but he did.

And he was insistent even when Captain America resisted!

Captain America ditched Grant when he saw his parents, so Grant went solo for the rest of the parade. He has his parade wave down!

They sang us a fun little Halloween song. With my handsome little Mario being the cutest, the tiny Darth Vader and Storm Trooper sure did make me smile!

Blowing kisses.

When I loaded up Grant and Collin to go to preschool this morning the van wouldn't start. Miles was in SLC, but luckily my Dad was able to quickly run over and take him. Then he even had time to bring over his battery charger and get the van up and running just in time to head up for the parade. Whew!

Collin and Grandpa were having lots of fun!

We can't wait for next year's parade!

Muffin Tin Monday

I had another day of a grumpy boy made happy by his muffin tin meal! Yay!

In today's muffin tin they had a bat shaped ham sandwich, mandarin oranges, corn, water, pretzels and a chocolate donut for a treat.

Grant went right for the bat shaped sandwich, Collin went right for the donut - I'm not surprised!

Stop by Muffin Tin Mom to see more MTMs.

Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?

I bet that Grant and Collin think this to themselves sometimes. They are at a fun age when their language is developing and they say the most adorable things....but sometimes, it's a bit hard to understand. I'm pretty lucky that I get to spend my day with two little ones that say the cutest stuff. And lucky that they are patient with me when I need some extra help to decipher what they have said. I love this age when they mix up words and letters and put their own cute spin on words and sentences. I loved it when Scotty was that age too.

Grant and Collin also say a lot of the same things. They seem to speak the same language, so to speak! The most fun one right now is spooky, which they pronounce as "fooky". There is a lot of spooky stuff around with Halloween coming up, so I get to hear their cute little voices saying "Oooh, fooky!" all day. I love it!

Here are some more cute things that they say:

Collin - Colla (Grant started out calling Collin "Ta Ta", then he moved on to "Ca Ca")

Scotty - Sotty

Transcript - Transmit

balloon - baboon (Pronounced the same as balloon but with a b, not like the monkey!)

Here are a few more of Collin's:

garbage - garmage

steamroller - skeamroller

There's lots more, but I can't think of any more specifics right now. These two are so cute. The other day I said to Grant "Grant, you are awesome." He replied "Yes, me am." I love them!!!