3rd Birthday Trash Bash!

I cannot believe my baby boy is THREE!  Or will be soon.  We celebrated a week early since Joe and I will be out of town for the actual day because my best friend is getting married in Chicago.

Anyway.... We treated Sunday like his actual birthday since he is 3 and can't read a calendar.  We went out for breakfast and I brought sprinkles.  He found these sprinkles in the pantry weeks ago and kept talking about them being on his birthday cake.

Many people ask me why we chose garbage trucks as the theme.  Kamden has loved them since he was about 18 months.  We have had the same garbage man for years and he actually calls Kam and the dogs his "fan club."   I am sure Brody will join the club soon :)

My sister volunteered to make the cake.  She did an amazing job!!!! It was something I couldn't handle.  I love to bake and cook but the tediousness of constructing and decorating a cake is just not my thing. 

He received so many awesome presents from our generous friends and family.  Luckily, I am pretty good at rotating toys to keep things interesting.  We bought him a 27" trash truck that has gone to bed with him at every nap and bedtime since the party :)

Grandpa and Grammy got him a tractor and wagon for a combined birthday/xmas gift.  Holy cow.  I didn't think we would get him inside after the party!

 Unfortunately, I waited to the end of the night to grab a family picture... this is as good as it gets :)

Here are a few details about the party:

I made a few games for the kids... pin the trash can / trash man on the garbage truck and a recycle sorting game with little "grabbers"

I made some decorations out of trash.... some newspaper flower arrangements in aluminum can vases

For the drinks we had:

Toxic Waste - some green punch

Waste Water - plain old ice water

and a tub full of beer and wine with a "Don't get Trashed" sign

For the food we had:

Sanitation Subs - thanks jimmy johns!

Spoiled Fruit - fruit salad

Rotting Vegetables - salad

Junk - chips

Breckenridge - Part 3

Final post about this vacation.  I promise.

We took Kam to the Mountain Top Children's Museum.  It is small but cheap and fun for young kids.  They even had a baby area!  Kam took his doctoring very seriously...

 

One morning Kam and I went to do some shopping at Target.  I let him pick out a new toy since we didn't bring that many with us and he was getting pretty bored.  He was inspired by the trip to Great Grandma's farm and picked out a "tractor and wagon."  He found a small patch of grass next the the rental to play on... I think he was missing our big back yard!

 

The Riverwalk area was just a block or so from our house.  This is a fun area with the river, playground, often some performers, and always people watching.  The river was pretty high so no one was playing in it but it was still fun.  

Sidenote: Kamden is mildly obsessed (still) with Katy Perry's "Roar."  I recently made the mistake of introducing him to the video and that is what he is doing here... roaring into the water like she does in the video.  Cute but man... I am over that song!

At some point we went to the Breckenridge Recreation Center for some swimming.   I don't have pictures but it was a great indoor pool for kids.  Slides big and small and a big area that was 1'-2' deep.   

I feel like this whole post is about Kam but I swear... Brody was along for the ride and having fun...

 

There was a couple moments of hope that Kamden will eventually like Brody.  For you that don't know... Kam pretty adamantly does NOT like his brother.  He ignored him for as long as he could but now that Brody is on the move, he is hard to ignore.  Kam spends most of his day hording all "his" toys away from him. 

We wanted to do some light hiking but Kam was a bit of a mess.   Even when walking around town he complained that his "feet hurt" or "tummy hurt" ... aka.... I want to ride in the stroller instead of Brody.  By day 3, I was definitely wishing we had made room in the car for the big sit and stand double stroller.  Anyhoo, we went for a super easy hike at Sapphire Point.  It is under a mile and basically flat.  Toward the end Kam fell and I had to carry him the rest of the way.  I was thankful for such a short and easy hike. 

Brody LOVED his free ride on daddy's back!

This kid is done with the photos....

Ice cream!

 

We ate out on average about 1 meal per/day.  Sometimes that was just grabbing some takeout and bringing it home (because let's be honest, toddler + baby + restaurant = generally not fun) but it usually meant going out.  Here are a list of our favorites for my memory:

South Ridge Seafood Grill:  This was conveniently right across the street from our rental.  We had amazing thai curry PEI mussels and korean beef tacos.

Park and Main: This was the only place we visited twice if that tells you how great it was!

Twist: This was right next to our rental so it was great for take out.

The Warming Hut:  We went here for lunch and the kids were fantastic! I am sure this swayed my opinion of the quality of food but I remember it being great. 

We really enjoyed Euro Deli and Daylight Donuts (more than just donuts) for breakfast.



Thanks for reading along if you made it to the end!  We have a big boy's 3rd birthday party this weekend, then my best friend's wedding, then the BIGGEST home improvement project in years!

Breckenridge - Part 2 & July 4th

July 4th in Breckenridge is loaded with activities.  It reminded us a lot of Park City's celebrations 2 years ago.  The parade was fun... one of the floats was throwing snow!   

 Kids and adults alike go nuts for the main street water fight.  Fireman open up the hoses for 2 hours and people just play in the street.  Kamden REALLY wanted to help hold the hose like other kids were doing but he didn't want to get wet.  Smart kid.  That water was very cold.

This is him holding a fake hose and spraying water...

The art district had a sidewalk chalk contest.  They were super impressive!

That face... I want to pinch it!

My parents joined us for a couple of days over the holidays.  It allowed Joe and I to spend an evening out on our own!  Sadly, I didn't get any pictures with my mom but this one is awfully good of these three guys...

On the last day they were in town, we drove up to Vail.  It is about 45 minutes from Breck.  The day we went, they have a big farmer's market.  Kam was obsessed with this water feature... didn't seem to mind the freezing water.  Luckily, I had extra clothes with me.

Grandma captured this photo at the playground while they babysat and Joe and I went out for dinner and drinks

Breckenridge - Part 1

We love the mountains.  We love the snow, cooler weather, beautiful scenery, and laid-back lifestyle.  We got married in Estes Park, Colorado and like to visit the state often.  This year we took our longest vacation since Vietnam (when I started this blog!).  We were actually gone even longer than that since we went to Colorado straight from the family reunion in Nebraska.  I think we were gone 18 days total!

I don't have any pictures from the drive by it was basically torturous for everyone involved.  We spent about 10 hours in the car and 13 hours total travel time.  The drive was a bit longer than it should have been because we made a detour to drop off my Grandma after the reunion.  Fortunately, she lives on a farm with lots of trucks and tractors.  Kamden didn't want to leave! We were also lucky that Joe has family that lives outside Denver so we made another long stop there before the final 2 hours up the mountain.  It went as good as could be expected but we aren't ready to do it again anytime soon.

The place we rented was AWESOME.  It was a block of main street right in the center of town.  We wanted to stay walking distance to most things so that the kids didn't have to get in the car for much. 

Anyway... onto the good stuff....

I captured a few fun pictures of Brody playing with Kamden's toys while he was sleeping.  Brody changed SO MUCH while we were there.  He went from just (kind of) army crawling to full on crawling, sitting from laying, pulling up and occasionally cruising along furniture.  It was crazy.

The first few days were just spent getting the kids back into a normal sleep routine and settling into the house.  We were walking distance to a great playground at the local elementary school and the hot tub was a huge hit for Kamden.  Although, he corrected me that is actually a "warm tub."

After a couple days in town, we drove back down the mountain about 30 minutes to Silver Plume.  This is were we caught the Georgetown Loop Train.  This was awesome.  It was a roundtrip ride that lasted about an hour.  You can make it longer with a mine tour but we figured the kids weren't ready for that. 

The next day we walked around town and took the free gondola up to the base of the mountain.  There were a lot of summer activities up there but not much for little kids.  Kamden really liked the ride though!

More to come! 

Nebraska Reunion

Family reunion season!  Love it!  I apologize in advance for the crazy number of pictures.  This is the brief version :)

This year we met at in Nebraska, not far from Lincoln & Omaha.  The hunting lodge was a bit "rustic" but if viewed as very nice camping... it was a great place.  Plenty of space for the kids to go crazy.  We were right on the Platte River which would normally be awesome.  This year the area has been blessed with a lot of rain which meant the river was very high and not safe for the kiddos to play in.  Despite some rain, heat, and mosquitoes... we had a blast!

Did I mention this is is a hunting lodge....

This is how we do it.

 

This started approximately 7 minutes after the rain stopped...

 

These people were overlooking those two crazy kids and wondering the appeal of playing in mud puddles.  

There was way too much fun with water guns with both the big and little kids.  

Look at this little troublemaker....

These two have an adorable little bond

Some of the "big kids" ventured out in the river

The youngest two (the amazing baby T and Brody)

I am ready to gobble up this face

 

The Matriarch!

We had a rib cook-off.  We ALL enjoyed the entries but these two were the official judges.

Look at those clouds!  Luckily, this missed us but it provided a spectacular lightning show on top of some amazing fireworks.