Payton's Birthday - The Party

For the party portion, as usual Megan went overboard on the planning, but the kids had a lot of fun. We invited all of Payton's cousins to come, so we had kids ranging in ages 0-9 years. When they first got there we had a craft table set up for the

kids to make their own monster. They were quite creative and we had some very cute monsters in the end.

After they were done they could go over to Marcus and get a snow cone (just like Mike and Sulley had in the Himalaya's)! Of course this was a huge hit, the kids and adults were begging for seconds.

Next we played pin the eye on Mike. It was pretty fun to watch the kids blindly try to figure out where it went. Ren got his eye to closest.

Then we brought out The Cake! Payton was very excited when he say it and thought it was pretty cool. After we sang to him he took a chunk out of the corner of it, it was pretty funny. We are discovering that he is not so much into the cake as he is the ice cream, but he did like pulling the fondant off and just eating that.

Last but not least we opened presents. Megan tried to keep Payton from being swarmed by the other kids as he opened each present by letting only the people giving the gift come to him. They all sat in a circle really well.

A couple of the cards Payton got played music when you opened it. He thought it was so cool that he walked around the entire circle and held it each kids ear so they could hear it. It was so dang cute!

Overall Payton had an awesome birthday and he had lots of fun. Thanks to all the family that came and for all the great gifts. We may need to move into a bigger house so we can fit them all, but Payton sure does love them! :)

Payton's Birthday - The Cake

Payton turned three this year! His latest obsession was Monster's Inc., so that is the theme we chose for the party.

For the cake we wanted to make a really cool one with Mike Wazowski on it (because he is Payton's favorite).
After watching the Ace of Cakes show, we figured it would be easiest if we used some sort of fondant to cover it.

So we baked the cakes and frosted them with cream cheese frosting (buttercream didn't sound too appealing to Megan).

Next Marcus made a white marshmallow fondant (with a recipe Megan found online) and we covered it with white, then he continued to make a green so we could make Mike.

We rolled it out and cut out the piece to make his body, arms and legs, then did a little details with just some black frosting.



Overall the cake looked pretty cool, but we learned that working with fondant for the first time is not the easiest thing.

Girls St. George Trip

Over Memorial Weekend the girls in Megan's family had a little getaway trip to St. George. Only the babies were allowed to go, the rest of the kids got to stay home with their Daddy's. Payton had fun with Marcus helping him fix the sprinklers and other things. He likes getting dirty, especially if it involves using his digger and dump truck!

While the girls were in St. George we gave our parents condo a makeover. That was our gift to our mom for Mother's Day. We had a lot of fun shopping for new decor for the house, making curtains, bedspreads, and new decorations for the house. The babies were very cooperative for us and had fun playing with each other.

We had our cute little naked babies dancing on the table after dinner one night making us all laugh.
Emma and Skyler had fun playing with the pig (one of the decorations we had to get rid of).

Emma enjoyed sitting in the sink and playing while her mommy was putting on her makeup.

We had all the babies on one row for part of the car ride home, they were so cute to watch (as long as they were all happy) interacting with each other and playing with their cup. Skyler was the biggest tease of the three and kept trying to steal Emma and Gingers cups!
Eventually they all fell asleep, apparently Emma likes to sleep in strange positions. Yes, she is snugly buckled in her chair - that girl just has some long legs that she inherited from her mommy!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

Mother's Day was great this year (as usual). Marcus and the kids got me something unique this year that was a lot of fun to look at, touch, and even lick...!It is a super cool ice sculpture that had gerber daisies frozen in the middle and said "We 'heart' U" and "MOM" all around the base. Thanks babe and kiddos!

Easter

For Easter we had an Easter egg hunt at Grandma & Papa Witkamp's house with half of the cousins and a few some neighbors. As usual the kids were anxious to get outside and find all the eggs. Payton really got into it once he figured out there was candy inside of them. He dug in as soon as they were back inside. Emma really enjoyed holding the plastic eggs and drooling all over them. It was a lot of fun watching all the kids go crazy.

On Easter Sunday we took some pictures with the kids in their cute little outfits. They looked so adorable. Payton had fun hanging from the tree
with all of the beautiful blossoms and Emma enjoyed the new experience of sitting on the grass with bare feet. Springtime is so pretty!

Kauai Vacation

We had the opportunity to join Marcus' dad in Kauai this year and we had a lot of fun. We didn't have the greatest weather there, but at least it wasn't snowing there! Payton had a blast in the hot tub and splashing anyone close by.

We were able to go to the beach a couple of times, which Payton absolutely loved.


Emma got to put her feet in the sand while Payton played in the waves. He thought it was so great when they would come up and get him. He was giggling like crazy, it was adorable. Megan took a video of it, it is kind of long, but fun to see his excitement and what water splashing on him made him do...

Payton got knocked down by a wave one time as he was trying to run to Marcus, and Megan was taking pictures. She captured the moment of the wave going over him and Marcus quickly reaching for him. Payton got a nice taste of the ocean through his nose and mouth, but once he recovered from it he didn't seem too bothered by it. We think it scared mom and dad more than him.




Marcus and Nick were able to go snorkeling once and got some great pictures of the frenzied feeding fish.




Payton also enjoyed digging in the sand and filling up his bucket. He only threw sand on a couple of people close by. He also liked running around and collecting sticks or chasing any chickens that were close by. Poor chickens got more exercise in a few days than they do in their whole life!

Some non-beach things that we did is we went on a little train ride around Gaylord's plantation. We got to see how pineapples and many other fruits grow. We learned little facts about the island, saw some horses, and we also got to stop and feed the "wild" boars.

We also went to breakfast and had yummy banana macadamia nut pancakes with "coconup" syrup. Later Payton discovered the semi-fear of a baby gecko being put on his shirt...

And he also got to feed the goats by Grandpa MOH's house...

and he even got to go toad hunting with Daddy and Papa Nick! He thought that was so cool! (no they didn't kill or eat them!)

Payton tried to help out his Mommy by carrying her bag for her. It was quite heavy for him and the only way he could keep it from dragging on the ground was by putting his hand on his head. It was very funny and cute!

Marcus was nice enough to hold and take a picture of one of Megan's least favorite things in Hawaii. A huge nasty dead spider that we found in our room (scary!). Not to mention the 4 inch centipede we found too! Yuck!

We saw some beautiful sunsets and Megan had us pose for a cheesy kissing picture.
The kids were very good for us on the plane rides. We lucked out on our way home and had a really empty flight so the kids were able to lay across the seats and sleep, while mom and dad attempted to sleep sitting up.