Mama's Little Cupcake

Today Claire Capri turned 1 year old!  She is certainly sweeter than sugar.  We had a 'cupcake' party for her to celebrate the big day!

My cupcake creation.  When I made this, I felt like I was on an episode of DC Cupcake!

Claire shares a birthday with this lovely girl.  Today Callie turned 9.  It was a combo cupcake/mermaid party.

Let me see here...

Not too bad...

Why does my mommy make me eat raisins, bananas, and green beans when we could be eating cupcakes instead?

My brother assisted with opening gifts...

Benny also assisted with toy operations...

Stevie and Lindy made it!

I'm only slightly biased, but this little lady is wonderful!  I'm blessed to be her mommy!

Fun Claire facts on her first birthday:

1) She still only has 2 teeth.

2) Crawling all over the place.  She will pull herself up, but gets scared and quickly cries for someone to come save her.

3) She talks!  I've caught her saying a variety of words including all done, hi, banana, and water.

4) She is getting more opinionated.  If Benny has something she wants, she'll put up a fight for it!  Likewise, he goes out of his way to keep Claire away from his things.  Sibling quarrels have begun!

Christmas 2014

The month of December never fails to be quite busy!  But, we managed to have a pretty grand time celebrating Jesus' birthday :)

Kevin's work has a breakfast with Santa each year.  Thankfully, both kids liked him.  No tears from these two!

Benny's big request from Santa for this year was a new Mickey shirt.  Benny wore it for 3 days straight.  I'm not kidding.  He wouldn't take it off.  He was thrilled :)

Christmas morning snuggles with Mommy.

Christmas morning snuggles with Daddy.

Trying out the new hat and tasting a candy cane :)

Claire got a new doll.

Benny got a new BMW.

Christmas day was at Nana and Papa's house.  Marian and John's family came with Buddy.  Benny and Claire adore this doggie!

Happy 3rd Birthday!

My sweet baby boy turns 3 tomorrow.  Yikes!  Time does fly!  We celebrated today with his party.  Stevie, Lindy, Nana, and Papa were the elite guests :)

When it was my birthday in September, I asked Benny what he wanted to do for his birthday.  He decided back then that he was going to have a Franklin party.  Franklin isn't the most popular character these days.  But, Benny loves him.  Franklin is a cute little turtle that has a best friend Bear and other friends such as Snail, Beaver, and Fox.  We love the books and the videos :)

Here are photos from the Franklin party!

Hey its Franklin!

Daddy surprised him with this jumbo Mickey Mouse balloon.

Claire loves to chase Mickey around the house :)

Semi truck car carrier from Nana and Papa.

Some more farming equipment from Lindy and Stevie.

What's great about Benny at age 3?
1) He loves to learn about the makes and models of cars.  For Christmas, he got the Disney CARS movie.  The whole family had a movie night to watch it.  He points to one of the cars and says "That's a Porshe.  Its engine is in the back."  I look at Kevin with a questioning look.  All Kevin says is "He's right."  Its safe to say his mom didn't tell him that.
2) Every time you go to the bathroom, you have to take the back off of the toilet so you can see how the toilet works.  Every time.
3) Cars---you wash them, you park them, you fix them.
4) He never, never stops talking or singing.
5) He likes to "hibernate."  This means he gets out daddy's sleeping bag, zips himself up in it, rolls around, and says he is a bear.