~Flashback Friday~

I know you are all waiting soooo very patiently for Ryan's 3rd birthday update with pictures. I mean geez...it's been over a month since the party and almost a month since his birthday! Well, I hate to make you wait longer but I had to post about his first two birthdays first so here is my first installment of

Flashback Friday!

(wow...I used the word "first" way too many times in that last sentence!)

Ryan's Birthday Memories ~ take one

Ryan 1st Birthday....can you guess the theme?

Chris and I LOVE LOVE LOVE to throw parties! We also love having theme parties and look forward to celebrating Ryan's birthday every year....soon we will have two parties to plan each year. Thank goodness they are almost 6 months apart or we would probably go a little crazy.

Ryan was pretty much obsessed with Elmo and Sesame Street at age one so that theme wasn't hard to decide. Chris is very creative with making signs so we put together this one on the front door for the guests to see as they entered....

As pictured above, we made cupcakes instead of buying Ryan a 1st Birthday Cake. We are not fans of store bought cakes and actually make (well Chris is the master cake maker...more on that later) the birthday cakes each year. We decided on cupcakes because it was the perfect size for a toddler to smash and eat. This was Ryan's first taste of chocolate!!! Let's just say...he loved every last bite of his birthday cupcake!

Oh those LIPS...those big kissable lips! Eat your heart out Angelina Jolie!

...and those cheekies! I miss pinching those cute, chubby cheeks!

We had all our family and friends leave a message on this sign before they left. I have it in a safe place all wrapped up for him to enjoy when he is older. Now I know what you're thinking...boy aren't they creative with putting R for RYAN and number 1 for his age, huh? Yea, we surprise even ourselves with the things we can come up with!

Ryan was not only lucky to have one birthday bash....but TWO that year! We also celebrated his 1st birthday at Thanksgiving with Chris' extended family! Grandma High got him this cute cake...which he enjoyed tasting as well.

Did you notice that lovely black and blue mark on his right cheek? Well, that happened the day of his first party. He was playing with his cousins Maddie and Billy on a chair and fell off. It was actually quite comical because when we rushed over, the two older cousins both had their hands up and said, "I didn't do it....we don't know how he fell!"...such a kid response! This was his second big boo-boo...the first one happened the night of my brother's wedding where he got a good goose egg on his forehead from falling off a step. There have been many a boo-boo since...

Come here and give me a KISS!

As I looked back at the pictures of Ryan's first birthday, the biggest memory I have is all the love Ryan received from our family and friends! Sure there were gifts galore (tons of Elmo items!) but the best gift was having everyone together to oooo and ahhh over this sweet precious baby boy!

He is very much loved....

Ryan's 2nd Birthday....this theme is a little harder to guess if you aren't familiar with Eric Carle. The Very Hungry Caterpillar was Ryan's favorite book at age two.

Now here is where I get to show off my husband's secret talent! He made both these cakes from scratch! I didn't even know he could do this until he whipped these babies together the night before the party! I am in complete amazement with the things Chris can do sometimes. Isn't that caterpillar a spittin' image of the one on the book and look at that beautiful butterfly! Ok, so I have to give myself a pat on the back because I did help him mix up the greens so they were the matching shades from the book AND I came up with the crumbled "dirt" that the caterpillar is sitting on. It's chocolate filled oreos! Plus the caterpiller wouldn't have had feet if I hadn't thought about using hershey kisses...BUT Chris was and still is the master cake decorator.

To go along with our theme, our guests enjoyed a yummy feast that included ALL the food that the caterpillar ate in the book! If you haven't read the book, you won't understand...so maybe you should head over to your local library and read it...I can assure you won't be disappointed. :)
This is a picture of my sister Bambi and her husband Drew enjoying our picnic spread. She is almost 8 months pregnant with my nephew Owen.

Here's Ryan hanging out with his girls!! They can't get enough of him! haha

Speaking of being pregnant...so was I! We had found out a month before his party that we were going to have a second bundle of joy. We decided to surprise our family at his party. We had him take in a sign he had created that said "Mommy is going to have a BABY!" to show to all our family and friends. It was great to see the shock and joy on their faces!! I wish we would have gotten a picture of my mom's reaction but we do have it on video. Here is Ryan and Mommy...we are opening gifts. He is one lucky boy each year!

Once again, we celebrated Ryan's birthday at Thanksgiving as well. Grandma High got him two mini cakes in the shape of a kitty and a puppy! He loved them.

Chris' family, including Grandma and Pop-Pop High weren't able to make his first birthday party so they did not know about our exciting news. We decided to surprise them in a different way. This time we had him wear a shirt that said "Best Big Brother" on the front. We put a sweater over it and had planned to surprise everyone after dinner. But it was unseasonably warm last year and Grandma High kept telling me to take the sweater off the poor child so we went to plan B and surprised them all before dinner. I took his sweater off and had him go into the kitchen where Grandma High was so he could show her his shirt. As he was walking in, I told her that he got a new shirt for his birthday and she needed to read it. Well...she didn't get it at first! hahaha...she seriously read it like 5 times before she yelled OH.MY.GOSH! Her reaction was even better than Mom-Mom Delp's. Again, we didn't get it a picture BUT it's on video and watching every one's reactions is priceless. Now of course the birthday boy didn't really understand what the big deal was all about....he was just happy to get more cake!

Ryan's 3rd Birthday...look for a post COMING SOON!