Better late than never...

Happy Halloween! Ha ha... oh wait... what's today? Just kidding. I know I am a little late on posting my kiddos halloween pics and better yet my little boys' 2 year birthday, but it's better late than never, right? I especially like how Joanna phrased it as a Post Post. Ha... I thought that was pretty good myself, Joanna. So, now I shall Post a Post, Post Halloween and Birthday post. hee hee. Sorry, please excuse me, I think I am just a bit dilerious. Lack of sleep and lots of Dr. Peppers can do that to you.

Halloween was good. Matthew was a dragon....

and Paige was a princess....

Every princess must have her hair done before the big night... These are great for little kids. They are the sponge rollers we all grew up with. Put them in while their hair is still wet from their bath and let them sit all day until completely dry. I was so shocked she kept them in all day... I think it was the whole "every princess must have pretty curls" pep talk.

But go trick-or-treating... you must be crazy! Paige just wanted to dress up and play with her cousins toys. Which, I must admit, I was perfectly fine with. We are still keeping a close watch on her asthma so I was sort of relieved that she didn't want to go running around door to door and possibly risk getting worse.

Matthew, on the other hand fought to wear his dragon costume and just wanted to go inside everyones house when Richie took him trick-or-treating... mind you... in his jeans and a black t-shirt. No matter... the neighbors thought he was cute just the way he was and gave him candy anyhow.

The next day was Matthew's 2 year birthday, Nov. 1. Happy Birthday... my handsome man!

We actually celebrated his birthday on Nov. 2. Matthew is really big into cars so for his party theme I went with all things that have to do with cars.

The invitations for his party, I made to look like a traffic citation. These were so easy to create. I just used Microsoft Excel and formatted it to hold all the information needed for the party. I also added a custom family seal in place of the Texas State seal for authenticity. Two citations fit on one letter size sheet of paper and used light yellow paper like a carbon copy would look like.

For his party, I purchased some black and white checkered pennant banners from Oriental Trading to hang around the house and used car related products as decorations, such as a small gas can (brand new... without the fumes) as a weight for the balloons and a car wash bucket to hold the drinks with ice. For the cake I wanted to go with something easy like cupcakes, but boys with cars don't have cupcakes, so I went with something a little more boy like... donuts. I just took a truck decoration from his room and filled the back end with chocolate covered donuts as if they were tires.

When all the kids arrived, I took them to the backyard and had them make their cars so they could race them later. Each kid got a car fashioned out of a copy box with the bottom cut out of it and Richie painted over the labels in white and cut out handles on either side of the box so they could hold onto it when racing. The kids were then able to paint their box how ever they wished and add foam decals to it if they wished. We had some large circles to create headlights on the front of their cars.

Paige and my niece, Claire, actually decided to decorate my dad as well... ah... how cute!

As the cars were drying, we had cake and ice cream and opened presents... boy did he get a load of new cars to play with!

When we were done we took the kids back outside where Richie had setup a small race track out of cones and the kids drove their cars through the track over and over and over again! They had a blast!

For party favors, I purchased the 97 cent Hot Wheels and each kid got a Hot Wheels car and their new fashionable box car to take home with them. I have to say, this party turned out to be a big success!

Happy Birthday, Matthew!