Connor's 5th Birthday

Connor's birthday in October is always at a busy time of year when all our weekends are filled up with Halloween parties, piano recitals, etc., so his birthdays are usually a family-only affair. This year, he really wanted to have a party with some friends, and we made it happen. The only time that worked for us was a weekday morning, which meant that his 5 year old friends already in Kindergarten couldn't come, but it worked out really well for the preschool crowd. Connor wanted an animal themed party. That's a pretty easy theme to throw together at the last minute (which is what I did!). 

When the kids first arrived, they decorated paper animal masks (found at Hobby Lobby).

Then we played a few games. Monkey bean bag toss.

I drew the monkey free hand on poster board, added details and color and attached to a large cardboard box.

Then they played an Elephant peanut race.

The kids had to push a shelled peanut with their nose across the floor to the finish line. This was actually harder than I thought it would be.

For the next game, the kids each had a straw to be their elephant trunk. They had to suck air through the straw to pick up foam packing peanuts with their "trunk" and move it into a bowl.

You could make this into a competition to see who could pick up the most peanuts, but these young kids just enjoyed the process and worked together to fill bowls. And they were all so quiet with straws in their mouths! This game was a win!

Then it was lunch time. I used our sandwich shape cutters to make elephant and penguin shaped bread.

 Everyone got to make their own sandwich.

Sides: animal crackers (obviously), tiger tails (cheetos puffs), apple boats (I'm not sure why, but that's what Connor called these apple slices), watermelon, and lion hummus.

I love the way the lion turned out.

Connor helped me decorate the cupcakes to look like monkeys and pandas. 

Connor placed most of the candy eyes on the monkeys, which is why it looks like they're all looking up surprised. We used m&ms, mini oreos, chocolate chips and sprinkles to make the rest of the details.

He looks very serious here, but I promise he was super excited to eat the panda.

I forgot to put these out with lunch, so they became a party favor to take home: tiger cutie oranges!

So simple but pretty adorable.

The decorations were also simple but I loved how it looked. I taped strips of green streamers to the ceiling to look like jungle vines. Connor cut out some paper leaves to attach to a few of the vines.

 The easiest part of decorating was using all the stuffed animals we already had at home and putting them on any surface that would hold them.

Like on on the ceiling fan, the couches, the TV cabinet...

and the curtain rods.

 Connor wanted me to take a picture of him coloring in a new coloring book he got as a gift at his party.

 We had a fun time and played pretty hard. So hard that Connor wiped out on the couch not to long after.

Snuggled up with his octopus.

Dallin's Superhero party

Dallin just turned seven! We had a birthday party for him with some of his friends. We suggested a superhero themed party and he was on board. If it was completely up to him, I think he would have chosen another Star Wars party. The best date for it happened to be the same Saturday as General Conference (at 12pm in the Eastern time zone), so we made it a morning party. We embraced Dallin's love for pancakes and made it part of the theme: it was a Superhero Pancake Breakfast Pajama Party!

I made the invitations on Picmonkey.

The Star Wars bunting from his last party got an update. I flipped it over (so all the Star Wars characters are still intact) and attached superhero/Avengers images. 

I went with paper cutout this time and taped them on with scotch tape, so this decoration is super temporary.

I cut out the Avengers characters from some Valentine cards we had leftover. Who knew a $1 box of Valentines would be so useful?

(You can see Yoda's ears poking out from behind a few of the flags. I mean to tuck them behind, but then I almost enjoyed seeing him hiding there.

Mckay and I dressed up for the party.

Mckay was "Marathon Man." He has the super ability to run 26.2 miles in just over 4 hours! 

I was "Super Mom." Teething babies drooling all over my shirt won't stop me at all!

We started right out with eating breakfast. We had banana muffins, an egg and ham casserole, fresh fruit, and pancakes in various superhero shapes.

I made spiderwebs (for Spiderman), the Batman logo, Captain America's shield, and The Hulk's face.

It was fun to try out different pancakes shapes. I don't think the "art" pancakes taste as good as regular pancakes. Maybe because they're thinner and not as fluffy, or maybe because the batter is overworked which makes them tougher. The kids didn't seem to mind at all though. They loved the cool shapes.

Making a lot of the food ahead of time really helped when having a morning party at 9am. I made all the pancakes the night before, then froze them on baking sheets. In the morning, I popped them into a warm oven (about 200 degrees) in a single layer on the pan until warmed through. The egg casserole was mixed together and sat overnight in the refrigerator, then baked in the morning. The muffins I had made a few days before and warmed them before serving. All I had to do the morning of the party was cut fruit and warm food. It was pretty easy!

After eating, it was time for superhero training. First, to be a superhero, everyone needed a costume. I had simple white capes for the kids to decorate with fabric markers and stickers.

I also sewed some easy felt masks.

Mask pattern found here.

 Everyone put on their cape and mask and listened to Mckay's training.

They played several different games with balloons.

Some of the balloons had signs on them. (Words bubbles found here.)

Using their best "splat," "pop," "bam" and "pow" moves, they had to get all the balloons onto the other team's side.

They played a round where they all threw balloons at Mckay and he had to dodge them. I think they all enjoyed that one the most.

 Then Dallin opened his presents.

He got tons of cool Star Wars and superhero gifts.

I printed these cool cupcake toppers (found here). It was way easier and cheaper than anything I would have found at a store.

As an added bonus, this was easy to do at home the night before when I remembered I hadn't planned any cupcake decorations. :)

Dallin had to blow really hard to get the candles out.

After everyone left, Dallin immediately asked to open the Legos he got. 

They spent the next several hours like this.

Dallin had a blast. I'd say this is another successful birthday party in the books!

January and February

(A lot of these pictures have been posted on Instagram. Sorry if it's a repeat for you, but I wanted to record these on the blog too.)

The past two months have been full of snow and cold weather.

We've played out in the snow a bit, but have mostly stayed inside for two months. And between Dallin getting sick a few times, me being sick for a week, and a handful of snow days off from school, we've been at home A LOT. Bennett has been fine with that, but the older boys: not so much. I've tried to come up with a few fun things to occupy them.

I saw this fun idea on Pinterest to put paint inside a ziploc bag and tape it to the table.

It's supposed to be mess free finger painting.

I think I should have used more paint. It didn't work very well because the boys couldn't quite figure out how to manipulate the paint through the bag. So 15 minutes of preparation bought me 5 minutes of them playing. That pretty much sums up parenting.

One craft project that did work came from the Kiwi Crate my mom ordered for the boys. It's a service that mails a few age appropriate craft projects to your house. Perfect for the winter months!

This crate had crafts related to baking. First they got to decorate a chefs hat and apron with crayons and stickers. Then they got to decorate a foam cake with "frosting" clay. They had a lot of fun with the cakes.

We've also played with the Periodic Table building blocks that Connor got for Christmas.

 

We spelled out the names for everyone in our family. Mine was the only one that could be spelled out perfectly.

The 3 boys all needed silent letters at the end of their names.

Other ways to keep life interesting when it's below zero:

Penguin sandwiches, floating through the cantaloupe-iceberg filled ocean, eating goldfish crackers. Connor loved it and has requested this lunch several times.

I found some Christmas pajamas on clearance for Dallin.

They pretty much made his life.

 For Valentine's Day this year, I didn't make valentines for Dallin's Kindergarten class. Too much effort for not enough appreciation, in my opinion. He chose Avengers cards from the store and we were both perfectly happy about that. Connor, however, was invited to a little Valentines party with some of his pre-school age friends from church, so I helped him make some train valentines to pass out.

I did it because 1) I only had to make 8 valentines, and 2) Connor was so excited about the trains and went crazy gluing hearts coming out of the smoke stacks. Worth it.

 Dallin's class had a fairy tale ball on Valentine's Day. The kids got to dress up as a fairy tale character. Dallin asked to be the big bad wolf and I almost made him this costume. Then I thought about how much time/money it would take, and then I remembered this costume we already had.

He was a dragon. The cutest dragon at the ball.

Connor, who now thinks dressing up in costume is part of Valentine's Day, wanted to wear something special to his party too.

So he went as Superman.

We've been to the doctor more times that I wanted to in the last two months. Once was for Bennett's 2 month check up, so that was to be expected.

He weighed 13 lbs 5 oz and is looking just perfect.

Dallin had a couple of ear infections. More doctor visits and antibiotics.

One morning just after Dallin got to school, I got a phone call that he had fallen while getting off the bus, cut his chin and would need stitches. From what I've gathered, his aid was holding his hand and Kendal's hand, and the Special Ed. teacher was holding Dallin's other hand as he was stepping down. Dallin was distracted looking at the other kids getting off buses, and with his coat hood up, his vision was limited. So when he tripped/stumbled/fell, he couldn't really see where he was going and his hands weren't really free to catch himself, so his face did the catching instead.

Luckily, Mckay hadn't left for work yet when I got the call, so we all drove over to pick him up and took him to urgent care.

He was pretty calm and happy by the time we saw him. 

He was cut badly enough to need three stitches. He HATED having his arms and head strapped down so the doctor could stitch him, but he was fighting so much that it was necessary. After screaming for 10 minutes straight, he was finally stitched up and we could leave.

As I drove him back to school, I told him he should tell his friends how brave and tough he was. His response was "I not tough! I was a little scared."

As for the rest of the month, we've been snuggling with Bennett

 and enjoying the peaceful moments.

The very rare, peaceful moments.