Roller Skate Birthday!

Emmaline turned eight this month!  To celebrate we had a small party for her.  She really wanted to have a party at our local roller skating rink but we couldn’t afford that, so we told her she could invite up to 8 friends to go skating with her, then we would bring them all back to the house for cake, ice cream and gifts.  She thought that was a great idea!  We ended up with only 4 other kids, several people couldn’t come and one girl just didn’t show up.    Even though it was a small group it was still a great time!  Here are the pictures from her big day.

The cake: chocolate cake made and decorated by me!

The gifts: lego friends set from all her brothers, and a book about felt crafting from us.

And her main gift from us, getting her ears pierced!

The cake table and decorations:

And one final shot of the Birthday girl.  I can’t believe my baby girl is 8!

Betsy

Transformers Party

Josiah celebrated his birthday with a Transformers Party!  As usual, we celebrated as a family during the early part of the day and the party was later on that same day.  Josiah opened his gifts from us.  The kids all got him a small gift, and we got him a small play pistol, and a pair of rollerblades.  Here he is trying them out for the very first time…

Josiah asked for games for his party so I did some internet searching and came up with a few ideas.  For the first game I hung up a picture of one of the deception transformers (the “bad guys”) with a target on his chest that I made.  I printed out some stars for the kids to pin on the target to try and see who could “kill” him.  My original thought was to print out bullet hole clip art but I thought that might not go over well with other familys so we stuck with the safer stars.  This game was so much fun for the kids!

Then we played “Deception Bowling”, an idea that I found on the internet.  Prior to the party we bought bottles of Gatorade and had the kids drink them.  Once empty I washed them and removed the labels.  Then I printed up coloring pages of deceptions from the internet, had the kids color them, and taped them onto the bottles.  At the party we had the kids take turns bowling, keeping track of everybody’s scores.  This game was also great for the kids, they LOVED it and just wanted to keep playing!

When all the games were over I let the winners from each game pick a prize, and then I let all the kids pick one more prize so that everyone ended up with at least one prize. 

We served dinner for all our guests, Lasagna, a Green Salad, and French Bread.  I set up a table for the kids in the family room.  I had juice boxes for everyone, which I opened prior to the party starting and placed on a tray in the family room.  I also put extra forks and napkins on the kids table, so that anyone who forgot those things was covered.  :-) 

Then it was on to the gifts!  This ended up being a mostly family only party, because of various reasons friends couldn’t come, so the amount of gifts was small and very manageable.  There was a definite theme to his gifts, he got almost all guns!

We finished up the party with cake and ice cream.  I bought cupcake toppers from etsy.  Josiah picked strawberry cupcakes and buttercream frosting, very easy.  I served all the ice cream ahead of time in cupcake liners and froze them, so serving everyone was a breeze!

After all the guests left, Josiah spent the evening with Mark and I, shooting his new guns.  Ha!  On their birthdays we let the kids stay up later than normal, and sleep in our room, such a special treat for them.  Josiah was pretty wiped out from his big day, he only stayed up till 9:30…

This was a great day for him!

My Birthday 2013

We celebrated my birthday this past week.  It was a very relaxing day full of time with family and lots of relaxing.  Originally I had wanted to do some things outside but the morning of dawned cold and snowy, so we changed plans mid stream.  It all worked out perfectly all the same!  The only pictures that were taken were of me opening gifts… ah well, maybe next year I’ll do better!

 

Micah’s Birthday

We celebrated Micah’s birthday this past week!  We did an evening party, serving dinner, then cake and ice cream, and finally opening presents.  We limited guests to family only, so it was a small party but Micah had a wonderful time!

As usual we celebrated as a family first thing in the morning.  Micah enjoyed opening his gifts from us and playing with his siblings.

Later on in the day I made the cupcakes and dinner.  I tried to keep things really simple and easy so I just put truck pictures on sticks and stuck them into the cupcakes.  I made my homemade chilli and a green salad and my mom brought french bread.  It was all really good and we had hardly anything left!

Micah had a hard time blowing out his candles, probably because there was no one available to hold him up so he could be high enough!  He did eventually get them out, with a little help from some cousins!

For each of my kids my parents buy them a trike, and this was the year for Micah to get one!  He had so much fun opening the HUGE present!

Lego Birthday!

Elijah celebrated his birthday this weekend with a lego party!  He picked out the theme months ago so we had ample time to plan.  :-)  The only activities he wanted was for the kids to have contests building different lego things, so we set up a table in the garage with all our legos on it and all the bigger kids had contests, first to see who could build the tallest tower, and second, to see who could build the coolest thing.  The kids had so much fun!  After all the games were over most of the kids just kept playing with the legos, they are such a universal toy!

For Elijah's cake I made some giant legos.  I choose to frost them in bright colors, just like the real deal.  I tried stacking them but that was a dismal failure so I just lined them up on a few trays. 

After cake Elijah opened his gifts.  He got all kinds of legos, books, clothes, and other stuff.  He was one happy camper!!!  Overall it was a great party!

Another Birthday Celebration

This weekend we went out to my parents house to celebrate my Mom's birthday!  All of the family that lives here was able to be there for the party, which made it such a nice special time.

Emmaline and her cousin having fun with an old wagon!

Water Gun Birthday!

For Josiah's birthday we celebrated with a water gun party! 

Josiah asked for a gun party, but we decided on a water gun party because we don't have enough of the nerf type guns to go around, it would be too expensive to buy more, and a logistical nightmare to have each kid bring their own! 

We ended up doing the party on a Sunday afternoon, although in the future we are going to be transitioning birthdays to weekday nights or afternoons, for various reasons, mostly related to the large number of birthday parties with friends/family that we know.  Anyhow, back to the subject.  Josiah turned 5 this year so we allowed him to invite friends.  He only ended up inviting a few and only one of the families could come, so it was a small party, with just my family, Marks, and 1 other family.

We started out the party with a coloring activity, bookmarks.  They were not gun themed.  :-)  After that we did a water gun game in the garage because, wouldn't you know it, it was only around 50 degrees outside and we couldn't be doing water games when it was so cold.  We had set up army men on a table covered with a plastic tablecloth and filled all the water guns the day before.  Each of the kids got to choose a gun, then all the kids lined up around the table and shot over the army men.  They had a blast!  Then we refilled the guns to do another game, but it turned into a water gun fight.  The kids also enjoyed that!

After the games we had cake and ice cream.  I made chocolate and white cupcakes, frosted the white ones with blue (for water, you know), and the chocolate ones white with guns piped on them.  I wasn't real pleased with them but wasn't sure what else to do.  We also had a vegie platter and a fruit tray, standard for our parties. 

Finally, we finished with opening all the gifts.  Always a favorite with the kids!  :-) Then it was time for everyone to go home.  It was one of our best parties yet!

My Birthday

We celebrated my birthday this past Sunday.  It was a lovely, relaxing day!  I got to spend it doing just what I like to do!  In years past I have let everything go (dishes, cleaning up after kids, etc.) but have found that by the end of the day I'm so stressed by the mess that I come unglued.  So, this time I just did my regular activities, it made for a much less stressful time.  :-)

We started the day with bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, one of my favorite meals.  We used only food that we had on hand for my birthday meals but they still turned out nice and special.  Micah and Jeremiah had runny noses and coughs so I stayed home from church with them while Mark took the rest of the family.  It was a good morning, I spent quite a bit of time working on my dollhouse, reading, and relaxing.  It was sooo quiet with just the little guys!

When everyone got home we opened gifts.  Mark had taken the kids shopping a week ago and they all picked out gifts for me, it was fun to open them all and see what they picked!  They all knew exactly what they wanted to get for me, and I have to say they did a good job!  I also had a gift from Mark, my parents, and a few cards.  Then it was on to lunch: grilled chicken, jello, and tomato slices, with cake for dessert!

The afternoon was spent doing more hobby type stuff, playing games, playing with the kids and just relaxing.  We had tea and sandwiches for dinner, with ice cream for dessert!  After the kids went to bed Mark and I watched the movie he got me, "Yes Man".  Just a side note, we have a clear play DVD player which we used for this movie, it is NOT acceptable without the clear play.  It was a really nice day!

Animal Birthday Party

This past weekend we celebrated Micah's birthday with an animal birthday party!  We kept the party small, just family.  We have decided to limit the birthday parties to just family until the kids 5th birthday.  So, it was a very nice size group.  We decorated with blue balloons and streamers.  I made animal cupcakes, with some help from the kids!  We had cats, mice, and dogs.  We did just one activity, a coloring page.  I figured Micah is so little he doesn't need many things to do, he just wanted to play with cousins anyhow.  :-)  Overall it was a good party!