Stella's Tale

Will Turns 3!

10:00 PM

3 Years. I have no idea where 3 years has possibly gone. But my baby, my first born, my sweet little Will Will turned 3. Before I know it he'll be in school, then heading off to college and getting married. Time goes way too fast.

To celebrate, we had a "Fast Cars" themed birthday party the Saturday before his actual birthday. It was a Disney "Cars" theme, but Will calls it "Fast Cars" - you know, because he's adorable. We kept the party relatively small and invited immediate family as well as some of our friends with kids around Will's age.

I kept the decorations relatively simple with some balloons, checkered flags and some paper lanterns I already had on hand. I also made an assortment of road signs that we hung up around the house.

I made some centerpieces with black construction paper and chalk lines and put a few race cars on each of them. Admittedly, I didn't take the best pictures of all the decorations and details.

I bought some Cars plates, napkins and a banner and made up some giveaway bags for the kids. They said "Luigi's Spare tires" and I filled up some clear plastic bags with chocolate frosted donuts. Adorable and delicious. Too bad I didn't take a better picture!

We used our fireplace as the gift staging area. The red, yellow and green balloons were supposed to look like stoplights. Thank you, Pinterest.

Erik thought it'd be cute to use John's clubhouse as the car wash. It was pretty cute.

I put a horse crossing sign above Stella's food dish area because I thought it'd be funny. And a dead end sign on the laundry room door.

Guests started to arrive. Hi Riley!

Melissa, Riley, Amy & Mara

Uncle Tom

Uncle Pat & Steve

The birthday boy was pretty excited about his Lightning McQueen birthday cake.

Our family celebrating with the birthday boy.

He's come a long way from being scared of people singing happy birthday to him! Last year he cried. This year he was really excited.

Saying cheese with Grandma & Grandpa.

Will sure loves his Grandpa Joe. The feeling is definitely mutual. I love these 2 together.

Hey Will, you've got a little something on your face!

It got late, but it was time to open presents with mom's help. He got Cars 2, two different Lightning McQueen Race cars, Lightning McQueen sunglasses, a bug catching kit, some books, cones to ride his bike around, puzzles, a talking globe, firetruck legos, a Mukwonago sports t-shirt, foam golf balls, an activity easel and a sticker book!

We took him to Culver's on the day of his actual birthday and had dinner and ice cream while we were there. We got home and let him open another bag of small gifts and his humongous birthday card.

"I'm 3!"

Here he is pointing out all of the number 3's that mommy wrote on his birthday card envelope.

John took the opportunity to try to steal a race car while Will read his card.

We hope you had a great birthday, Wilbur! Daddy and I love you so much and are so proud of the little man you've become. You are kind, sweet, funny and a little stubborn. We wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

We started potty training you this past week and you have exceeded our expectations in how ready you were for it. Just another example of how mommy & daddy are nervous to try something new with you and you always take it on like you've been doing it forever.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy. We love you to the moon and back.

Family

Halloween 2015

7:35 AM

Earlier in the month we went to a pancake breakfast with Nana & the kiddos at the local fire station. When we were there, the boys got fireman hats and Will decided he wanted to be a fire fighter for Halloween. As luck would have it, he had picked out fireman boots on a shopping trip and had a hand me down fireman coat from one of my cousin's sons. When it comes to putting together a Halloween costume it doesn't get much easier!

And that made it really easy to decide that John would be his little Dalmatian and would ride around in the fire truck (wagon) for trick or treating.

My mom crocheted John's Dalmatian hat from a pattern I found on Pinterest. I bought a cheap white long sleeve shirt and used a black fabric pen to make the spots. So easy and his costume turned out really cute.

I used an old cardboard box, wrapped in red wrapping paper for the sides of the fire truck and some yellow construction paper for the ladder. Their fire department logo was WJFD (for Will & John) with Engine 13 (for their ages). We just taped the fire truck to the wagon with some duct tape. During trick or treat, John started ripping it apart making me wish I hadn't spent quite so much time making it. Ha!

We trick or treated at my parent's neighborhood in Mukwonago the weekend before Halloween. When we were done I wanted a picture of the boys on the front steps at my parent's house. It was a tradition when we were kids to always have our picture taken in our costumes and thought it would be fun to do the same with our boys.

Here's the point in the photo session where I used a peanut butter cup to try to bribe smiles out of the boys.

And here's where John realizes that there's a peanut butter cup involved and tries to take it from his big brother. No fear from this guy, even if he is a lot littler than Will!

Will's a really good big brother and decides to share his candy after all.

On Halloween day it was time to paint pumpkins! The boys are still too little to carve so painting is a much better option. Bear decided to watch Will as he created his masterpiece.

That night, we went to my brother and sis in law's house in Mount Pleasant to hang out, have dinner and do some more trick or treating. Their neighborhood has an evening trick or treat and the neighbors get really into decorating, having bonfires in their driveway and some even had haunted houses setup in their garages! It was a little scary but luckily it went over the kid's heads at this age. It was a lot of fun. My brother and I took the older kids trick or treating for a little while and Erik stayed with my sis in law and the little ones back at the house to hand out candy.