Sunday, November 25, 2012

Hank and the Neverland Pirates

Henry had his first friend birthday party this year! You might sense a theme from Jack's, but I was really tired and tried to avoid throwing the party...but alas, it was not to be!

 So I made him a cool cake (this parrot is named Skully and he's from "Jake and the Neverland Pirates"). Fortunately, I took care of this the night before.
Of course, we left off preparing the games until the day of the party.
Bad call. Tyler became violently ill just moments before the first guests arrived (which meant that he was moving more slowly than he expected when it came time to put the cardboard "boat" together for the kids to play in, which meant it didn't get done, which meant that I kinda ran out of things for the poor kiddos to do...).
Each kid got their own souvenir doo-rag to start their pirate adventure. Then we colored pictures of Jake and his crew. That lasted a whole 15 minutes (I was supposed to be making a "don't eat pete" board while they were coloring, but...that didn't work out with the whole indisposed spouse).

But hey, after having a "cannonball" fight from the half-finished boat, the kids were hungry anyways, right? So we ate Skully.
During which I made a Don't Eat Pete gameboard. And then we plied the kids with more sugar. And then we opened presents. And they all played with the presents. Fortunately, time was up and they were done. Phew!
And then Tyler got better. (He really was sick. Food poisoning? He was the only one to get it, thank goodness! Can you imagine sending everyone home with their pirate goody bag and eye patch...and the stomach flu? Yeah, party of the year, folks.)
Oh, and the lack of picts from the party? Yeah, the photographer was ill... :)
And later we celebrated Hank's birth with far too many gifts.
He was pretty stoked about the Batman toy from Grandpa and Grandma Carla.
We love our "little" Hank-a-roo!
Fave color: Blue
Fave food: Pizza
Fave thing to do: anything with his siblings!
Henry is learning to spell now--so fun! He has an infectious smile (those dimple!) and loves to make other people laugh.  The kid has some crazy hair, but we can't really bear to cut it--it's so cute! His concept of time is iffy--"yestertimes" or "yesterday" is his reference to the past (no matter how far in the past it is). "Tomorrow" is the future. The kid is built like a tank and just barrels through life, never seeing any obstacles in his path. He's become pretty sensitive lately. Henry loves to run and jump and can't wait until it's warm again so he can play outside!

Monday, November 5, 2012

Alien Invasion (and Jack turns 8!?!)

It is still November, right?
Because otherwise, I'm really belated in posting about Jack's 8th birthday!
Shocking.
Anyhow, Jack turned 8. He partied like it was 1999. Or whatever the year was that ET came out 
(I jest! I know ET came out WAY before then.
What do you mean, what's ET? Kids these days, sheesh!)
Jack couldn't make up his mind about what sort of party theme he wanted. To be honest, I was so tired (at only 7 months preggo) that I wasn't up to putting major effort into a party.
A week or so before his birthday he decided on...
Harry Potter!
I said no. That is a them that needs some time to do well. 
"Aliens" was his back-up choice. (note to readers: searching under "aliens" on pintrest can pull up some uber-creepy things, as I quickly learned). We went for the non-horrific version.
So the kiddos built their own flying saucers...
 and took them out back for a test flight. It was a gorgeous, warm and sunny day.
I miss those days.
Some of the finished creations. We were all pretty impressed by how well those UFO's flew!
The kids spent ages perfecting their flying saucers. Seriously, I think it took up half the time!
 
Then we had a rip-roaring game of "land the UFO on the alien planet". It took about 5 seconds and the kids were DONE. I didn't take pictures of the moon rock relay, but that was another shortie. 
 Then, it was time to prove our human superiority by eating the alien UFO cake. Nope, not my snazziest creation, but I had a funeral to attend that morning and I valued sleep more than a pretty cake :) I am not the coolest-mom-ever whilst pregnant. There's always next year!
 Look, it's the cake again! If I had thought about it a little longer, I would've used the cake plate to look like the bottom of the UFO (and put a cow with a light shining down on it in the base of the plate so it looked like the UFO was beaming the cow up...ah, well, too late now!).
 
 But, hey, it's cake, right? So the kids ate it and opened presents and everyone went home, I'm assuming they were happy. Because we were all pooped!
 Jack's actual birthday morning, he was spoiled! A microscope! Lego game! Books! Oh my!
 And, of course, now that the kid is 8 he can be a CUB SCOUT!!! Thanks, Grammy and Pop, he loves the uniform! (3 months later, and I still have to get the unit patches and sew on his bobcat. Sigh.)
Tyler volunteers in Jack's classroom on Mondays, so he also got a pict of the class celebrating. Hooray!
Things about Jack right now:
He's sleeping (that's why I can get any blogging in :) )
Fave color: Green
Fave food: Pizza or tortellini
Fave thing to do: Read (esp. fantasy like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson)

Jack is learning to rock out on the piano. He's been playing about a year, and we're amazed at how quickly he's progressing. He's such a musical kid--one of the adults who helps me out at church was amazed that he can actually sing really well. Jack loves to be on stage. He is SMART, but he can get so caught up with what's going on in his head that reality fades to background noise (he may get that from his mom...). He is generally a fantastic big brother. Jack is very caring and compassionate. He is NOT physically competitive but is a perfectionist about non-physical stuff (like school work and being right). We cannot believe how quickly this kid is growing up!