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!

Birthday at Legoland

Spring break always happens right around Dallin's birthday. So this year we decided to take a short weekend trip to Chicago to take the boys to the Legoland Discovery Center. On the drive up there, Dallin got to open his first birthday present from his Easton grandparents: The Lego Movie.

They were silently glued to the screen for the rest of trip.

When we arrived, Dallin could see the Lego logo on the building and got very excited because he thought we were going to a Lego store. It was a little bit cooler than that.

Now, I've never been to Legoland in California or a similar place before, but I knew that this Discovery Center wouldn't be on quite the same grand scale as the theme park. I DID think it would be a little bigger though for the money we paid and have more than two rides. I forget that things cost a lot more in big cities and that we are so used to not spending our money. Every time Mckay or I felt a little underwhelmed by the experience, we reminded each other that this was for the kids. And our kids had a wonderful time.

There was a replica of the Chicago skyline made from Legos.

And a rainforest filled with lego animals.

They liked the hippo.

Dallin was VERY excited to see Darth Vader.

 And R2-D2.

We watched the short 4D movie (the boys were not impressed with the 3D glasses and kept taking them off) and went on the two rides.

There was a big play area with tunnels/slides and big foam bricks for building with. There were tables for building with duplo blocks and tables for building with regular Lego bricks.

We built several different models of cars and then put them to the test on the track.

Most of them crashed into pieces at the bottom of the ramp but Mckay managed to build a pretty sturdy car.

We ate lunch at the cafe there. The website said that outside food would not be allowed and that we could buy sandwiches there for $3.

This is how big a $3 sandwich is. One piece of bread folded in half with a slice of turkey on it.... No cheese, just turkey. They did have closer to normal-sized sandwiches for purchase at $8-$10 each. 

*sigh* "This is for the kids. This is for the kids..."

We bought a few sandwiches and shared a tiny snack size bag of chips for $1.

We were pretty hungry by dinnertime. We left Legoland and drove to the nearby hotel we had booked for the night. Then we picked up our dinner: a 30 inch pizza.

I don't remember how exactly this idea came to us a few weeks before the trip. We were talking about how we should get pizza in Chicago because Dallin loves pizza and Chicago has great deep dish pizza. Then we thought about how some places sell really big pizzas, so we did some searching to find the biggest pizza available in Chicago. Bacci Pizzeria won with 30 inches. That's almost as tall as Connor.

And this was GOOD pizza too. Good sauce, good cheese, nice crust, better than most chain delivery pizza places. It cost $35 and we had leftovers for a week, but it was totally worth it.

We spent the night at our Homewood Suites hotel. (Suites are the way to go when you have kids at a hotel. The kids slept in the living room on the sofa bed and we got our own space in a separate bedroom, with Bennett in the pack 'n play.) We ate a big breakfast at the hotel, had a relaxing morning and went to the nearby mall to walk around/play before driving home. We all had a really fun time. And now we'll have to go to the real Legoland sometime. 

November and Thanksgiving

With Dallin being at school all day, Connor and I get to spend a lot of time together. And since he went to all my midwife appointments with me and helped me get out our baby things, he was really pretty excited for Bennett's arrival.

When I got the baby car seat out, Connor put his baby in and read him a book.

I would often find him with a stuffed animal down his shirt, pretending to be pregnant.

***

Thanksgiving was the day after I came home from the hospital with Bennett. It was a very lazy day. 

My wonderful parents cooked all of the dinner for us. I requested my favorite turkey recipe and my dad did a great job.

Here's our 7 pounder next to the 11 pounder bird.

 Ready to eat!

 For dessert, we had a delicious selection of 5 pies.

It may have been overkill for 4 adults, but we couldn't narrow down the choices. The leftovers made a good snack over the next week for a hungry, nursing mother.

A few days later Bennett got his first bath at home.

He doesn't like being cold, but as long as I kept him bundled and warm, he enjoyed it.

 I just can't get enough of his sweet face.

The excitement of a new baby hasn't worn off yet. Every morning, Dallin and Connor are so excited when Bennett wakes up and they ask to hold him.

Most of the time, they are sweet and gentle to him. We've only had to remind them a few times that Bennett can't wrestle yet.

 I made a quilt for Bennett while I was pregnant. 

The plan was to have it finished completely before he was born, but that didn't quite happen. I did manage to finish it before he was 3 weeks old, so I'm pretty proud of myself. I love the fabric and colors and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.