Alex's Birthday

I really cannot believe my baby is now TWO! Brett and I were talking about how it seems like only yesterday he was our little baby, and is now more like a little boy. He has been such an easy child, and loves his family. We spent some time at Grandma Deb's celebrating his birthday last Sunday, and had a small family celebration at home on the 21st. We all went to the Training Table restaurant for dinner and enjoyed the guilty pleasure of burgers and fries smothered in cheese sauce - mmmm, it was yummy! After dinner, we came home and opened his gifts. It was fun to watch him, because he can actually tear open the wrapping paper and enjoy what is inside.

Here he is in "the birthday chair" opening a present from Grandma Cindy, and holding out Grandma Judy's $2.00 dollars (which will go to replenishing Alex's marble collection). Alex just loves carrying around marbles, and I can often find them rolling around the van, stuffed into his pockets, and in every nook in our home!
After opening two of his gifts, both Baby Einstein books, he had to take a few minutes to "read" through them. I truly think that we own every Baby Einstein book ever made. It is a true passion for him!
He got a vacuum from Grandma Deb, and loves helping me clean the house.
Another Alex favorite is Hammy Mammy (or Handy Manny as he is known on Playhouse Disney). Daddy bought Alex the Talking Handy Manny with all of the tools. He really loves playing with him, and even wanted to take him to bed, but he is HARD plastic, so we had Handy Manny wait for Alex to wake up in the morning on the floor by his bed!
Another fun gift was a package of Pops - the little wrappers you throw on the ground and they make a little explosion. What Alex really enjoyed, was throwing them at McKaleigh, Colton and Daddy!
When no one would let him throw pops at them anymore, he opted to sit on the porch and throw them at the potato bugs crawling across the porch.

Alex also really likes playing with his squirt gun - from Grandma Deb- but has a hard time getting the water out. He likes mommy to squirt him right in the mouth with it!

Another fun gift was this bubble lawnmower. He loves pushing it all over, grass or no grass, it's fun!
Daddy and I thought it would be fun to get these paint crayons for the tub! Even McKaleigh has enjoyed playing with them! As you can see, we may have a future artist in the making!
All in all, it was a pretty low key year for our little boy. Following this bath, we will find him enjoying a favorite activity - watching the opening songs to his most watched shows on YouTube (Hot Dog, WonderPets, Little Einsteins, and of course Handy Manny) before bedtime. I just cannot believe this is the last of our little Cushings - growing up so very fast! I guess everyone has a new puppy to look forward to!

School Carnival

Today we went to the school carnival...it was busy. There were quite a few fun little games, a hot dog dinner, cotton candy...what more could a family ask for, right? When we got there Alex was very excited and wanted to do it all. Here is daddy explaining how "line waiting" works. McKaleigh and Colton are old enough now, that we bought them wrist bands and let them go for it. There were 5 different blow up slides, that was where we spent the majority of our time.
We started on the medium Pirate blow up, and sent Alex down with McKaleigh. He absolutely loved it!
Here is our unhappy camper when he realized that he could not go right back up again, but had to wait in line again with Colton (I love that little onlookers face!).
He had so much fun going down those slides...
We decided to graduate him to the Monster Slide. it was the slide that all of the 5th and 6th graders were lined up for...it was pretty steep and I had visions of him just tumbling over on his face, but as you can see it was fun!
Here are daddy and McKaleigh patiently waiting in line for the big slide - notice the ladder in the background...Alex could not climb it by himself because it was too high and unstable, so we had to have the helpers take him to the top of the huge slide.
After sliding for awhile, we wandered over to the cotton candy...I love cotton candy! Alex was really unsure as to what to do with it at first, but quickly got the hang of it!
After a few treats we went back to the slides - here are the big kids getting ready to go down!
Here are Alex and I waiting our turn...I decided to try and send Alex down the Monster slide all by himself, with out McKaleigh or Colton. There was a lady in line behind me with a 4 year old who could not believe he was going by himself...after I said he loved it, a small crowd gathered to watch this little guy take on the slide!
No Problem! He went down like a pro, and once at the bottom shouted again, again and everyone clapped for him!
Here is a ride that was a little more fitting for a 2 year old!
But...an 11 year old? Well, she had fun!
And those were our adventures at the school carnival! We will have to wait another year for that kind of fun to come around again!

A Fantastic Day...

Today was a great day! We went down to Provo to see Uncle Mark, Uncle Rich, Grandma Judy and Grandma Cindy. The Uncles were bringing Grandma Judy up to Provo, and Grandma Cindy came down to drive her up to Oregon for the cooler Summer weather. The kids and I were very excited to go down and see all of our extended family and enjoy a great afternoon!

Here is a shot of Uncle Rich and the kids - he was the "ice cream" man for the afternoon - patiently letting the kids help him make homemade icecream, play in the ice and rock salt and of course there was never a lack of willing taste testers!
Here is a shot of Grandma Judy - doesn't she look great! She was getting ready for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!
The kids had a great time jumping on the trampoline, and I though it was so funny how crazy it made their hair.
We lost track of McKaleigh for awhile and looked all over for her...Aunt Katie actually stumbled upon this sign near her hideout under the stairs...
We were then able to end our search for McKaleigh - it seems as though she needed a little shut eye after such a busy afternoon! Here she is under the pink blanket - had she not left the above sign, I am not sure we would have found her!
Somebody else had a taxing afternoon - Our little Alex all curled up on Aunt Katie's bed.
After all of the napping, and I think at one point or another everyone fell asleep for a few short minutes it was time to play some more. Aunt Katie sat both of the boys on the counter and fed them some fruit - they are both little fruit lovers!

Then they got back to business...

Alex even played with Grandma Judy!

Here are some of us, out on the deck getting ready for a feast, prepared by the mean and wicked Uncle Mark!

Followed by more trampoline fun!
After dinner, the Uncles had a special treat for the kids...Marshmallow roasting in the backyard! Here is picture of the group getting the fire and roasters ready!
McKaleigh and Mallory helping Uncle Eric prepare the fire!
Alex decided to share his treat with Grandma Cindy!
One more shot of the roasting. Uncle Eric was very put out that we did not have Hershey bars and Grahams, but with 5, Yes FIVE desserts, we did not think we needed more!