The Rex Cake

My awesome friend Meredith has turned into a very talented Cake Boss.

She made this R2D2 cake for her son's 5th birthday.

I was thrilled when she volunteered, or perhaps I should say I volunteered her, to make Thatcher's Rex cake.

Meredith is all business when it comes to making a cake as you can see.

She experimented with making the entire cake edible using rice crispy treats but it wasn't quite strong enough to hold Rex's head up so the head and legs are styrofoam.

Meredith did let me participate a little bit.  Cake Boss is truly the BOSS when it comes to making her cakes and she only gave me the grunt work which stained my hands green for over a week!

Besides dying the fondant frosting green, I did help in baking 5 cakes, all different flavors, which became the edible body of Rex. 

Meredith covered him in fondant, carved in some scales and sprayed edible frosting to give him some more depth.

Rex came together perfectly on top of graham cracker "sand".

Voila!

All of this made for one happy birthday boy! 

Thank you Meredith!!

These....

are the notes from school I LOVE!

Flashback: Samantha's 2nd Birthday

One of the best parts about keeping this blog for our family is going back through old posts.  It amazes me how quickly the kids have changed in such a short amount of time.  It is also fun to look back at Samantha when she was Thatcher's age to get little reminders on what is to come or to see how different or similar they are. 

I thought it would be fun to re-share Samantha's 2nd birthday party since we just had Thatcher's party. I love that our circle of friends has remained unchanged except for most of us have added a sibling or two to the mix.  And all the kids look like mini versions of their 4-year-old selves.  So cute!

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From November of 2009

This day, two years ago, after 36 hours of labor (YES, 36!), Samantha Delilah was born. She was stubborn to enter this world and has not missed a beat since! She keeps us on our toes and we think she is the cutest, smartest, wildest most outgoing and independent child we could have ever asked for.

Samantha will jump from the top of a slide to the bottom without bothering to sit down and it is not uncommon to find her atop our kitchen counters dancing and jumping. She is always the filthiest of the kids when they have a play date and if she could live in a bounce house 24/7, she would be quite content.

Year 2 has already brought us nap-skipping and increased time-outs, but it's not all terrible. We also get to listen to her sing her favorite songs in her sweet Samantha voice and we can hold 2-way conversations and both understand each other. 

To celebrate Samantha turning 2, we had a "Yo Gabba Gabba" themed birthday party a couple weeks ago. We decorated the house with all sorts of fun "Gabba" decorations, had a bounce house and squeezed a ton of friends and family into our little home. Both sets of Grandparents came to the party which really threw her for a loop. She kept saying, "Two Grandmas and two Papas are here." Samantha was showered with awesome gifts and lots of love. Thanks to everyone for making her 2nd birthday so special. 

Here are a ton of pictures from the party:

2-Year-Old Thatcher

He loves Super Balls!

The little bouncy balls you get from the quarter machine at the store are like gold to Thatcher. 

He is never without one in his hand and sometimes he will carry around 4 or 5.  He sleeps with them, eats with them and won't leave the house without one.  He likes to play "pass it" with them, tossing them back and forth with us.  He will scream bloody murder if he drops one while we are out and I have been known to chase these darn balls down the street to stop a full on melt down.

RAIN BOOTS!  He got these rain boots from his buddy Connor when he first started walking and they were WAY too big but he would still wear them.  They are now just fitting him and they are the first thing he puts on in the morning if he doesn't have them on already, yep that's right, he sometimes sleeps with them on!

He is super easy (most days) to get down for a nap.  You just have to give him a book to read

 and about 10 minutes later he is OUT.

He is ALL boy!  He loves digging and dinosaurs and cars and balls

and trucks and airplanes -- complete opposite of how his sister was at this age.

 He stands up the entire time he eats dinner.  It is a habit we can't seem to break.  As soon as we tell him to sit down on his bottom, two seconds later he is standing in his chair....

PAJAMAS!  He is constantly in them.  It is a battle to get him to take off his jammies.  He loves them so much because his real clothes don't have trucks, dinos or trains on them.  So most days it is rain boots and p.j.'s all day. 

Bumps and bruises and black eyes.  This poor kid is rarely without some sort of mark on his body.  He is constantly falling off the couch, off the table, off the bed....... :(

Thatcher is such a loving boy.  Always asking for "bisous" and hugs and when he wants us to hold him he says in the cutest voice with his arms stretched out, "hold you Mommy" or "hold you Daddy".

And this picture pretty much sums up Thatcher perfectly!

We love that you are one of a kind Thatchie Boy!