Payne Family Fun: Isaac’s first birthday and spring break vacation

We celebrated Isaac’s birthday a day early since we were planning on leaving to drive to WA on his birthday (the last day of school before spring break). His birthday banner was so fun to make. It’s amazing how much kids change in the first year…and amazing how at one point or another they look just like each of the other kids. It took me just over and hour to create all the pieces once I finally picked out just the right pictures.

I tried a new recipe for carrot cake that had crushed pineapple and coconut in it in addition to carrots and it was fabulous. The only small snag was that I didn’t set a timer to dump it out of the pans while I was helping Mark study for his spelling test and by the time I remembered it was pretty stuck. Stink. So we whipped up some lemon cupcakes off a new website I found – your cup of cake -- and some honey cream cheese frosting. TOO TASTY! Since I was already missing dinner, which David and Lisa joined us for, putting together the banner there wasn’t much extra time to decorate the second try for a cake, so they just got some swirled frosting. Maybe next time when I try to get things done early it will actually work out :-(.

Singing to the birthday boy.

Isaac just stared at his candle, which surprised me because he loves to help blow on the fire in the wood burning stove so Neil, Spencer and Abbie helped him out.

He watched Neil unwrap his first present and then Ken helped him a bit with the others. A fun pop-up toy from Ken’s family. A puzzle from Heather, and a dinosaur blanket and car from us. Neil helped me sew his blanket up this morning and was an amazing helper. He ran the pedal the whole time and didn’t stitch my fingers in at all. After we finished the blanket I folded it up all nice and neat so we could wrap it and Neil grabbed it and ran to Isaac crib, where he was sleeping and tossed it in to him. “Here you go Isaac, it’s for you!” Luckily the blanket didn’t hit him and he stayed asleep. We tiptoed back out of the room together.

For our evening entertainment Mark donned his cape and did a yo-yo show with yo-yo he borrowed from a school friend of his. It was quite fun. He’s borrowing the yo-yo to show his new found talent to grandpa Fry. It was a really great conversation piece too because both David and Ken’s dad had done some yo-yoing as kids and so we got to hear some fun stories. I videoed Mark’s tricks, but here’s David trying “rock the baby” afterwards.

Isaac loved the car (and since the other kids were trying out his other new toys he didn’t have much of a choice either). He drove it on the tent and the dishwasher making the perfect sound effects to go along with it. Forget “what to different animals say.” It’s “what to cars and planes say” for this boy.

Neil was not short on friends at the party either…

After dinner and before the party started David and the other kids had a sword fight in the front yard with the new swords Becca brought out to us. Love this picture of the rug by the front door when it was time to come in.

All day Friday I was washing clothes and packing. Well, really I was waiting for our dryer and packing. It’s slowing dying and can only handle about two loads before it over heats and turns off. I thought I started early enough to still get my three loads done, but it wasn’t until a little after 4 that it turned back on to finish drying the last load. Stink. We were thinking of leaving when the kids got home from school at 3 and driving to Boise and finishing the rest of the drive on Saturday…..but we changed plans a bit and just left at 5 am on Saturday instead. The drive was really nice and the kids were pretty good. More pictures of that later…when I have access to Ken’s phone.

We took a short detour in Portland to visit my brother Mark. It was fun to see his apartment and he and Oscar made us a super delicious dinner that we took to the park. The kids saw a squirrel, which we never see in Utah and were all excited.

After dinner we played on the teeter-totters and tried not to let our backsides be wacked on the ground….except poor Spencer.

After that we drove the last three hours to Grandpa’s house and made it at 11 pm. We quickly shuffled all the boys through the shower and everyone crashed. On Sunday after after church Neil wanted to pick some flowers for Grandpa and found some really pretty bright yellow ones right in the lawn where he could easily reach them. Everything is just starting to bloom here and it’s SO BEAUTIFUL!!

While Ken, Neil and Isaac napped we played with Grandpa’s electric train. Mark got it going really well and got up to pulling four cars behind it. Then we played Spoons (where you pass around face cards and when you get four matching numbers you discretely grab a spoon from the center and keeping playing until the last person to notice doesn’t get a spoon). We also played Quiddler. Jessie won with Grandpa in second and Abbie third by two points.

After naps we made our Eater baskets and dyed eggs.

Neil helped dye Isaac and Daddy’s eggs and Abbie was the first to make a purple egg.

When Isaac is tired and sees a blanket he’ll grab it and just lay his head down on it. It’s so stinking cute! I didn’t catch him soon enough he has already started smiling for the camera in this picture. Another thing he has started doing is when it’s time for prayers he’ll scrunch up his face and have slits for eyes and a really cheesy smile and wait for us to start. I guess he’s trying to close his eyes. It’s simply hilarious. Sometimes he’ll even put his hands together. He’s sure getting to be a big boy.