A Lot to Celebrate!

Beginning with last week, Operation Prepare for Baby was launched!

The first phase was moving (and convincing) Andy that he needed to give up his "baby bed" and move into his "big boy bed". I have been priming the pump for this for weeks. The other two boys moved into their big beds at 20 months (Blake) and 29 months (Noah) but they were being "booted" out by a new sibling! Andy has had a little more time and was in NO HURRY to move.
Finally, last weekend he told me he was ready for a big boy bed, so we jumped on it! The two pictures above are the before (Sunday afternoon nap) and after (Sunday night bedtime).

I am happy to report that he has stayed in his bed, called for us when he woke up in the morning and at naptime and waited for Greg or I to go in and get him up- BIG accomplishments for Andy and for us! We already had the quilt and pillows that Greg's mom had purchased last year to go with his train bedroom, so we were set.

This past week also happened to be Andy's birthday week :)

He wanted a Pirate party because his favorite cartoon is "Jake and the Never Land Pirates" on Disney Jr. His friend, Kallee, wanted Tinkerbell. They were born two days apart and we were in the hospital together.

These are pictures of Kallee and Andy together in the hospital and again before their birthday party.

Tara (Kallee's mom) and I decided to do a joint party for family and friends in our church's children's area. It was a lot of fun! We had all sorts of dress up stuff for guys and gals. We had two small inflatables for them to play in and some coloring/art stuff to do. We had a treasure hunt to find gold coins, pixie sticks and "jewels" in a treasure box. We had a pirate cake and Tinkerbell cake and all the kids seemed to have a great time!
Andy in his shirt my sister, Jenny (savvy-stitches) made for his birthday. She also embroidered pirates on t-shirts for the boys and Tinkerbell on shirts for all the girls. That was our "treat" for coming to the party.

My cake looked perfect at home - a cute little pirate face. Then on the way to the party, it CRACKED! Seriously- there was nothing to do to fix it once we were there. At least it tasted really good and moist!All the kids digging in for their treasure once they found the chest!

We kept on celebrating Andy on Saturday (his actual birthday) and I'll share those pictures tomorrow!