Lincoln’s 4 Year Old Pictures

 

I talked Lincoln into taking pictures by doing it at a caboose, unfortunately it was pretty cold and windy, so we didn’t last very long.

Lincoln’s Train Party

Last Saturday we celebrated Lincoln’s 4th birthday with a train extravaganza at our home. I’ve been experimenting with Photoshop a lot lately, so I designed a lot of the elements of our party myself. It was fun, but could be time consuming.

First up is the invitation. I found the train images online.

We were preparing right up until the party began, so I didn’t get a lot of pictures of the decorations. In addition to the table and giant four below, we had a lot of pennant flags made from scrapbook paper hanging up around.

A close up of the water bottle labels I designed. There is a train on one side and it says “Lincoln is turning 4".”

Jonathan and I made the cake together. It’s not as pretty as I would have liked (why didn’t I frost the bottom of the smokestack?) but Lincoln loved it, and that’s all that matters.

The birthday boy, in his freezer paper stenciled shirt, showing off his new smile. He’s dentally advanced.

We played a couple of games during the course of the party. The first one was “Pin the Smokestack on the Steam Engine.” I used the same train image from the invitations and Photo shopped the smokestack off. I had it printed as a engineering print (you can get a much bigger print for a lot less money) at FedEx Office, along with different colored smokestacks on cardstock so we could tell who was closest. I’ve used FedEx Office a ton over the last month, first for his Valentines and then for his party.

The second game was played was called “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” It was hard to get a good picture of this one, but basically we had a ton of “coal” (aluminum foil balls) that the kids “shoveled” (moved with plastic spoons) into buckets. They were very serious about this task and the room was very quiet while they worked.

We also made individual, train shaped pizzas. This is easy with 4 year olds because they don’t require a lot of extra ingredients. To some of them, pepperoni was a bridge too far.

Lincoln had a lot of fun opening his presents. When the time came, all the other children rushed to grab the present they had brought and crowded around the birthday boy.

I wish we would have remembered to film all of Lincoln’s friends singing him “Happy Birthday” but we are the world’s worst parental filmmakers. I’m hoping he’ll just remember since he’s four now. I bought a sparkler “4” at the party store, so there was nothing to blow out, but it was sure pretty. He got to blow out regular candles on his actual birthday, so all was well.

It was a really fun party, but a lot of work. As a result, I think Lincoln and Conan will have to share parties in the future. Two parties in two weeks would be a little rough, sorry boys.

Conan’s 1 year Photos

Here is my attempt at Conan’s first year photos.

Conan’s 1st Birthday

We celebrated Conan’s first birthday yesterday and I’m still in shock. Wasn’t he born like a week ago?

We began our celebration in the morning with a birthday banana muffin. Conan tried to grab the flame, so had to be assisted with blowing out the candle.

Flash forward to that evening. Jonathan came home early so that Conan could have his cake before he had to go to bed. I went with a simple ombre frosting and a sparkler one.

Conan thought that the one was pretty cool and also wanted to grab it.

He actually wasn’t that impressed with his cake. He tried a few bites, but mostly wanted to throw it on the floor.

Lincoln was a big help opening Conan’s presents. Thank goodness his birthday is coming up, too!

A few fun facts about Conan at age one:

-Conan has been boycotting nursing for the last several days. He’s been happy to drink pumped milk, but is not super interested in nursing conventionally.

-He is a wonderful hugger. He will climb up in our laps and wrap his arms tightly around our necks, all of his own volition. It is so sweet.

-He’s a biter. He landed several on my shoulder today and they’re still smarting.

-He is a waving maniac. He will wave at anyone and everyone. The other day I was driving and looked over my shoulder at a stop light to find a truck driver waving back.

-He wreaks havoc on our home in ways Lincoln never did. I’m constantly putting kitchen utensils back in drawers, replacing books on shelves, returning DVDs to drawers and shooing him away from the garbage/toilet/Legos.

-He is so happy. People are always commenting on how much he smiles and laughs. He’s really a wonderful little boy and we’re so happy he’s a member of our family!

Other Christmas Festivities

Agh, it’s already January 6th! Here are the rest of our Christmas pictures.

Lincoln helped make some cookie cutter pizzas a few days before Christmas. You better believe he’s eating a train shaped pizza! (Trains+pizza=heaven on a plate.)

 

On Christmas Eve we made sugar cookies for Santa, per our tradition.

Let’s pretend Jonathan looks like a normal person in these pictures and not the fourth musketeer. Getting rid mustache is the only reason I was happy to have him go back to work.

Conan in his Christmas pajamas. (Notice how there are no ornaments in this picture? They’d all been moved up by that point.)

Putting out the cookies!

The big day! Conan couldn’t be persuaded to open presents, but he did seem to like his toys.

I just loved how Lincoln wrote his name on this tag on one of my gifts.

The boys spent the rest of the day (and everyday since then) playing with their gifts. It was a wonderful holiday!