Blue's Clues Birthday Bash

Yesterday, April 30th, we celebrated Renae's 2nd Birthday. We had a Blue's Clues motif. I made the two devil chocolate cakes and Shonda did the stacking and the frosting. Shonda did a great job!

Here is our creation of Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper. We were in a time crunch to get everything ready so I did not make a baby paprika. You also can see the three clues we made and the notepads underneath.
The activity was asking the question: What would Renae like to do for her birthday? I hid three clues outside and we had all the kids and parents go draw them. The kids mainly ran around and scribbled on their pads. The parents drew the pictures and we had "thinking time". No big chairs to sit on though.
The Clues were: an ice cream scoop, a cake server (knife thingy), and a small plate. One of our friends said it was to do the dishes! Silly Jordi! It was however to eat cake!

The only candle that we had was our Eeyore candle. I had to dig out the wick to get it to even burn this high. Renae didn't seem to mind and she blew it out in two tries. I wasn't close enough the first time she tried.

This is Renae waiting to blow out the candle. Like every good two year old, she also tried to touch the flame. Luckily Shonda was quicker than Renae.

I wanted to have Renae cut the first piece of her cake. Here she is cutting it. It was great. She kept moving the knife back and forth to help the knife move down the cake.

In Craig Hayes family tradition, we had only Christmas wrapping. At this point, Renae didn't mind. She was happy to rip it open and find out what she got!

Dora the Explorer from her Nana Hayes. Thanks Nana!

A puzzle from Doug, Sharlene, and Brigham Bitter. Thank you, She loves it!

Sidewalk chalk in the form of Vegetables with eyes that move from Jordi, Julianne, and Gerald Andrews. It looks silly and we plan to have lots of fun! Thank you Andrews!

Go to town Renae!

This is a 3d drawing board that lights up. Thank you Jared, Kari, and Reagan Shuey!

Renae needed some help opening this one. It was toddler proofed.

And when the toddler proofing was over, she received three books! The Jungle Book, Pocahontas, and the Lion King. Thanks to Andrew, Heidi, and Hyrum Potter.

There was one more present, but we got caught up in taking pictures of everyone who was there and so we didn't get a picture. But just know Nana, that when we get the doll house built, we will get a picture of it and post it. Thanks to everyone who came out to Renae's party and played with us.

After we had opened all the presents, Renae looked up at me and said: More? She even signed it. More?

Today, May 1st, is Renae's Birthday and later we will be giving her our gift. We'll post her birthday dinner and present from us later. Hopefully tomorrow. (Ya know keep our blog from becoming outdated...)

--Craig

Alaska Vacation

We spent a week in Petersburg, Alaska visiting Donnie and Meggan and their family. We had a great time. We played, worked (Craig helped Donnie tile a bathroom floor), saw the beautiful landscape, went out on the boat, celebrated Kenzie's birthday a few days early, and just enjoyed being with family. It was a great vacation.

As is typical of us, we forgot to bring our camera. Luckily, Meggan is very good at taking pictures and posting on her blog. Here are some of our adventures:

Kenzie's Unbirthday
Seeing the Sights
Mill Road and Family Pictures
The Boat and Swimming

Thanks, Donnie and Meggan, for a fun vacation!

Weekend in Utah

This past weekend, Shonda, Renae and myself traveled to the Land beyond Idaho, a.k.a, Utah. My older brother Donnie and my Dad were at the Fishermans Expo in Sandy. On friday we arrived to visit donnie at about 2 pm. I was then sent on a wild goose chase to find a dowel, wood or metal, while Shonda chased Renae all over the expo.

Luckily, I found a Lowes and returned hastily with my plunder. Shonda had met up with Sharece and was awaiting me outside. They left shortly after I returned with their belongings to embark on a trip to see the Arringtons.

I stayed to help Donnie at their booth for the remainder of the day. Then, I traveresed the lands of SLC onto I-80 eastward and onto Heber. We stayed the night with the Rowsers and were back on the road to Sandy once again. This time we planned to surprise my dad, who had no idea that we were coming, hence the surprise.

Only to find ourselves more surpised by his appearance. He grew out a the hair surrounding his lips. We treated my Dad, Donnie and ourselves to lunch at Chipotle's. I realize how much I miss that place. Good Eats. After lunch we returned Dad back to the expo and left merrily but in need of a much longer visit with him next time.

Lastly we made our way to Logan and stayed the night with Grandma and Grandpa Petersen. It was great fun to have Renae play with her "papa" and "mamapapa" as she calls them. When Sunday was upon us, we set sail back to the great land of Idaho.

Sadly, we took no pictures of this trip and thus, you all had read this instead. We love you all and we had a blast. To those of you we missed this time, there will be another.

This post was from the perspective of the Daddy and all other events that took place without him are not mentioned here.