A Cowgirl Birthday

I love planning birthday parties for my kids. My goal is to come up with fun activities, creative decorations and a party that my kids will be happy to invite their friends to. Usually, although not always, birthday parties for my kids are in our home. I like to have them in a familiar place.

The parties that haven't been at home, that I can remember, are: Elise's 1st b-day which we had in Victoria. Scott's 3rd birthday - at the Zoo (everyone that was invited had zoo passes or else lived at the zoo, so that was easy!), Scott's 8th and Todd's 7th combined for a Sports themed party for which we rented out our church gym, and Elise's 5th birthday, which we had at the splash park last summer because her 4 cousins were staying with us and what better activity to do with 7 young children and 4 adults on a hot July afternoon than go to the splash park!

The themes I've done for the kids are: (and yes, I enlisted the help of my 9 year old to help me remember all these!!)

Scott: Age 1 - Zoo (at home), 2 - Bob the Builder, 3 - Zoo (at the zoo), 4 - Kindermusik, 5 - Friends over (no theme), 6 - Fireman, 7 - Wall*E, 8 - Sports, 9 - Lego

Todd: 1 - Sesame Street, 2 - Friends over (no theme), 3 - Kindermusik (joint party with Scott), 4 - Cars, 5 - Pirates, 6 - Hockey, 7 - Sports (joint party with Scott), 8 - Angry Birds

Elise: 1 - Pigs, 2 - Ladybug Picnic, 3 - Princess Tea Party, 4 - Strawberry Shortcake , 5 - Splash Park, 6 - Our most recent party adventure - COWGIRL!!!!

There were 7 girls, plus Elise and her brothers (well, the boys only lasted part of the time!) at the Cowgirl party and we had a great time.


I love this Mason jar and cupcake papers idea for the drinks. This was a little gem I found on Pinterest!



Each cowgirl got a hat to decorate and take home with her.


Scott decorating one of the hats.... we also stamped on bandanas that the girls took home.


I made a banner out of scrapbook paper that says "celebrate". It is now hanging in Elise's bedroom.


The goodie bags had a bag of chips, a big chocolate bar and some cowgirl foam stickers inside.


I went with simple cupcakes instead of a big cake, as per the birthday girl's request. In the batter of each cupcake, before baking, I put a few raspberries (picked by Elise, herself!) and then a single raspberry on the top of each cupcake after icing them.



We played a few games at the party...

Musical Chairs with some hoedown music:


Pin the tail (which technically only got played the day after the party because we ran out of time at the birthday party... but our friends saved the day the next evening when they came for dinner and played the game with Elise! Phew... we had one sad little girl on our hands when she realized that pin the tail got missed, but was happy when she could play party games the next day, too!!)


Ring Toss:


Scott and Elise playing after the party with one of her presents...


And the best part about having a theme party is that we get to dress up, too!!!

Lego-Mania!

We LOVE Lego in our house. It's also one of the reasons I can usually be found with a pair of (clean, designated for house-use-only!) shoes on. Those things HURT when you step on them!!

Scott turned 9 in mid-March, but since it was Spring Break, I decided his party would have to happen later. Todd's party was right around his birthday, which is also right around Scott's birthday. In past years, we have combined the parties, and we may do something like that again in the future, but this year we did 2 separate parties, so I wanted them to be ss-pp-rr-ee-aa-dd out!!! Scott really wanted a Lego themed party, so I turned to the Internet and my brain for some inspiration and we had the party yesterday.

So... here are some of the fun things we came up with for Scott's LEGO birthday. The kids helped with some of the decorations, too.

The invitations:

Each invitation had a combination of blocks that added up to 9. I think planning a party is as much fun for me as it is for the kids to attend the party! I used a 3/4" circle punch for the bumps (not sure of the official Lego-lingo for the connector parts!) and the straight parts are 1" for each bump. A 1 block measures 1"X1", etc.

The Decorations:

Scott and Elise built some decorations out of our Megablocks and Duplo blocks. The kids don't play with these anymore, just the small Legos now, but we still had some around and they made for some fun party decorations! The link for the Lego men on the patio doors is listed below.

We opted for small bags of chips, and just had them in larger bowls on the table. Also, instead of making punch and having spills, we bought 2 cases of juice boxes from Costco. I have seen how some people wrap the juice boxes to look like big pieces of Lego. Loved that idea, but I knew we would be going through a lot of juice boxes since there were so many kids here, so I just set them on the table undecorated! For lunch we also served pizza. It was Costco pizza, but the kids were guessing all kinds of fancy places for where it came from! I guess they liked it! I think it tasted just as good as any "fancy" pizza place, anyway!!

Saw this soap dispenser idea on a couple blogs, and Pinterest, as well, I believe. So cute! The kids want to keep our soap like this all the time!

The Games:

Straw relay... Each kid got their own straw and had to suction on a piece of lego at one end of the table and keep it on there until the other side of the table! They were great at this. 

 

 

Same idea as the straws, only this relay was with chopsticks... proved to be much harder for them than the straws!

 

Lego Toss Game. (Todd is setting up the game here for me... I don't have a pic of the kids actually playing the game!) The kids stood behind a line and had to toss Lego pieces into different jars for points. WAY harder than it sounds! After 4 rounds, only 4 kids got on the board. It's a variation of the Lego Ring toss games I saw online, so maybe those games would be easier. Some of the kids wanted to keep going until they got on the board, but others were happy to move onto a different game.

Lego Pictionary... I divided the kids into 2 teams. Each team chose one person at a time to build a word I gave the 2 builders in secret, and then the rest of the team guessed. I'm not going to lie to you... it got pretty loud in there during the guessing portion of the game, but it was a riot, and I was so glad the kids got into as much as they did.

The cake:

This baby might not get me a job on Cake Boss, but the kids sure ate it up. I covered wafer cookies the night before in coloured icing and put on coordinating smarties. It's a chocolate cake in there... and the cupcakes are white cake because I knew there could be some kids who weren't chocolate lovers (so strange to me!!)

 

The day after the party I found the #9 candle that Scott wanted... oh well, we went with individual candles in a pinch. And I even had a couple sparklers to add to the excitement!

The decorations:

I wanted to make some Lego men heads as decoration, but as I was making them, I had the idea that the kids could decorate them. Then they chose a goodie bag and clothes pinned their Lego head onto their bag. This also helped them all remember to take a goodie bag at the end!

Tip: To get corners round using any circle punch, just slip the corner in from the top. 

The goodie bags:

Inside the goodie bags I put a chocolate Easter Bunny, Lego fun facts (link to these below - truly cool to learn about the life of a Lego block!) some Lego shaped candy, and a bag of chips.

Fun Fun Fun! The kids all had fun, and Steve and I had fun planning this party. I don't know how many more years Scott will want a party with a bunch of friends over. But I am glad he wanted to do it this year!

THANK YOU to everyone that made Scott's birthday extra special!

Some of the things pictured above were from other bloggers that I found during my party planning.... They have generously made their resources available for personal use, and I thank them for that, as well!

Lego Fun Facts sheets... Roots and Wings blog

Lego Guy for decorations... Winks and Daisies blog

Some super-cool Lego information... how it's made, etc.: How Stuff Works blog

Some more great info on Lego parties... Tip Junkie blog and HERE

Lego Kirigami tutorial: Zakka Life blog

Of course.... Pinterest and Google :)

And this next one is a resource I didn't actually use, but I sure think it would be handy for someone that wanted to have the whole party planned out for them... From Aussie Pumpkin Patch: Lego Party pdf. Just the title of it "pdf" makes it sound so complete, I think! It is a great resource, but I found it long after my planning was already well underway.

Another birthday gift

Todd's birthday party was yesterday... that post is coming soon, but I still have to get a few pics off of our phones before the photo story can be completed!

Today, Todd is at a party for one of the girls from his class. For this party, the invitation stated that it is a "$5 party" so he was to creatively wrap $5 and that was all he was allowed to give. We came up with an idea this morning to creatively turn $5 into artwork. I wonder if she will keep the coins like this, or if she will peel them all off to spend. Since the picture didn't look complete with just the $5, there is actually about $7 here, but I didn't care! Scott helped Todd make this art, and I think they did a great job!! They are attached with Stampin' Up! glue dots, which will just peel off when she wants to spend some of this money, and it is on a painting canvas, so she can technically use that again, as well.


I also thought she should have something more, and since her favourite colour is blue, I asked Todd if he wanted me to make up a tote to use as the gift bag, and then she can use that for a piano book bag, or whatever she wants to carry in it. I made it in less than an hour, just in time for the party!!

Sept. 6th

It's Sept. 10th today, but Sept. 6 was a very special day in our house. It was Steve's birthday, and although I wished him a HB on Facebook, I didn't do it on here. Too many social outlets to remember to post on, I think!! At least I remembered to say it to him face-to-face!!

We had a good day that day, even though it was overshadowed by the first day of school. That was always a bit of a drag for Steve growing up... having his birthday in the first week back to school, and often (like this year) on the actual day that school starts.

But, we had fun. It was just a half day, so we took the kids to Boston Pizza to celebrate school, and to celebrate Steve.

Then, later, we took the kids to Steve's parents' place and we joined up with another couple for some delicious Mexican food.

Here are a few memories from our day.

All ready to go for the first day. How can I possibly have 3 kids in school already? That went by so fast!


Elise listening to her first story in Kindergarten. She was so excited to be there!


Lunch at BP's, I love father-daughter pictures!


Olé!! Dinner with friends at Del Pollo Restaurant.


The food was delicious... we love Mexican food!



Happy Birthday, Steve. Glad I got to spend the day with you :)

FIVE

Five years seems like a long time. But it's not. Not when you see time racing away from you in the form of a little girl growing up far too quickly. Right before our eyes, and in the blink of an eye. One day she was born, and the next day she is five years old. How does that happen?


She is one of a kind, precious and beautiful. She loves Jesus. She speaks her mind and she loves to snuggle. She is a determined little girl, who, at barely 2 years old decided she was done with pull ups and said, "I'm not wearing those anymore." In a day she was potty trained - she does most things with that same determination. Like the day she wanted to ride a bike - she just got on the bike and did it.


You'll go places, kid, because you are fearless, and you march to the beat of your own drum (or harmonica!) and you don't make decisions based on what others think of you. I like that about you. Don't ever change!

See this outfit? She picked it herself... and it totally works for her!


She is also kindhearted and sweet. But if you ever tell her that, she might just make a pirate face and say, "ARRRR!!" so, maybe keep that to yourself! But her heart shows through to her friends and when she is around little animals.



We can dress her up, but.... you know the rest! Even under fancy clothes, she will always be herself, just waiting to get home to change into something that better shows her personality.


She loves the colour blue.




In just a few short weeks, we get to share her with the school community... bitter-sweet, for sure. It means she's growing up too fast, but it also means she gets to explore her world and grow more into the person God created her to be.

Elise May, we love you and cherish you. Happy Birthday sweetheart!