Happy Birthday, Eliana!

On Tuesday, our sweetest girl turned FIVE years old! She was a huge grouch the night before and was boycotting birthdays, parties and anything else we suggested but after a good night's sleep, she was on board with having a special day:)

Her brothers pooled together their money to buy her a little Lego Friends set and they were beyond excited to give it to her. I have serious suspicions that they woke her up just so they could have her open it! She didn't seem to mind too much.

We did school and other small things in the day but that evening we took her out to eat! She had such a good time, except for when they servers showed up with a candle in some cookies and yelled out a happy birthday song for the whole restaurant to hear! She was seriously mortified. I can only imagine what it would have been like if she was a teenager:) (hey, I'll have to remember that!)

Today, we finally had her birthday party! She has had her guest list set since the spring and changed the theme from Frozen, to Princess to Ballerina in the mean time. She settled on a Ballerina party and it was SO fun! I love planning a party and coming up with ideas but I am a huge procrastinator and then I dread the party. Then I love it while it's happening and after it's over. I'm weird like that!

The table was set with pink and purple (and a splash of yellow!), fitting colors for ballerinas!

I served little cups with berries, pretzels sticks, pink lemonade and homemade vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting. As I am delving more and more into "cleaner eating," I am shying away from products with food dyes in them. So after a little research, I found out that blueberries make a beautiful purple color!

I just simmered a cup of blueberries and 1/2 cup of water in a pan for about 10 minutes, stirring often. Then I poured the blueberry juice through a mesh strainer and pressed the berries until all the juice was out and let it cool. I added it to my buttercream frosting and voila! So pretty!

Some of our decorations:) Ballerina snowflake/origami!

Someone was very excited to finally have guest arriving!!

She invited 5 little girls, ranging between the ages of almost 3 1/2 and 6 years old. (one of the little sisters was too shy to take part in the picture!) They all came in their best tutus and ballet outfits!

Beautiful Ballerinas!

First I did a little craft with the girls so it would have time to dry during the party. I had cut out paper leotards before hand in shades of pink and purple. We glued them on white paper and painted their hands and made handprints for tutus.

It was a big hit and turned out SO cute!

I love how each little girls' was different and beautiful!

Next, we went into the living room for a little ballerina story. I read, "Ella Bella Ballerina and Cinderella." (Ella Bella books are very cute for those who love ballet!)

Love those listening faces:)

We had soft Nutcracker music playing in the background and I turned it up for some ballet dancing! Eliana led the girls in some stretches first:)

Then they twirled and danced to their heart's content!

I copied off of something they do in E's ballet class and pulled out a little stuffed animal to have the girls jump over. Big hit!

Love her face:) There were LOTS of pictures taken during this time but most were blurry action shots so I'll spare you! We also played, "Ballerina Says" (instead of Simon says) which was so much fun. I started it and then some of the girls wanted to be "Ballerina" and lead the game.

Next we had cupcake time!

Love, love this picture! Isn't she precious?

Blowing the candles out! The girls munched for a little bit and then we corralled them into the living room again for presents! (not hard to do at a party!)

 Surrounded!

Another Lego Friends set!

She got lots of fun things from her friends and cousin! Then we asked all the girls to turn around so we could surprise Eliana with her big present from us, my mom and stepdad and Ben's mom.

Surprise!

A new play kitchen!! It was so cute to see all 6 girls crowding around having so much fun. We could hardly tear them away! Until..... Wait til you see the next part. My friend's husband happens to own and operate a very cool local business. He just happened to stop by and offered to do something special for the party....

Ah!! He set up a princess bounce house in our backyard!! (Oh, how much I love having a backyard!!!) I mean seriously, this was the icing on the cake.

We told the girls there was a special surprise in the backyard and brought them in the kitchen.

Love their faces when we opened the door! They all screamed and ran outside:)

What followed was ballerina/princess mania!

Our happy birthday girl:) I'm pretty sure we'll never top this so that means I don't have to throw another party again, right???

My friend's adorable little girl!

Say, "Ballerina!!" What a fun party. It is a joy to be surrounded with family and friends, who take the time to help you celebrate your sweet kids. We are so thankful tonight!

Happy Birthday, Zakkai!!

 Yesterday, our sweet, spunky, loud and very funny Z-man turned 8! Eight? Wow. I kept trying to buy number seven candles at the store the day before and Samuel kept saying, "Mommy? He's going to be eight!" Everyone warns you that time will fly and you know that but then it really hits you when your fat little blue-eyed monster goes from 9 months old to 8 years in the blink of an eye!

I procrastinated, as usual, in planning a party and then suffered over terrible bad-mommy guilt the past week. But to my surprise, all 8 kids ended up coming to the party, despite my borderline late invitations! I was even getting rsvp's yesterday afternoon. Good thing I went ahead and planned for everyone coming!

We chose a Lego theme for his party, since he and S are mega Lego-lovers. It is a GREAT theme for a party! You can do primary colors for decorations, which are easy to find at the dollar store and use the legos you have on hand. It was actually fun to pick all the decorations and games, even though it was stressful, too. (Have I mentioned that I am ready to boycott parties?!!!) I just really really wanted our Zakkai to feel special. He is the middle child. King of hand-me-downs and always being "shushed" because he's talking so loud or pounding on the table like a drum. He simultaneously drives me up the wall and captures my heart in the deepest, most tender mommy part. He is so incredibly precious to us!

No school again yesterday so all three were begging to help me with party preparations all day! Wednesday night I finished the planning and then all day Thursday and Friday I did party prep. Here was one end of the table.

Juice boxes covered with construction paper, to look like Legos!

The boys built a fork holder out of their Legos!

I wish it hadn't turned out so blurry, but these were the Lego head pops! Made from marshmallows and almond bark coating. I painted the faces on with black cookie icing.

I thought they were adorable! Probably my favorite thing I made:)

The boys drew faces on yellow balloons and helped color Lego figures for decorations. Thankfully, my mom and stepdad showed up early and helped us tape up decorations really fast!! I forgot to take a picture of the cute sign we put out on the door...

My mama!

Ben and his mama! He's such a goofball....

It took about 15 minutes for everyone to arrive so we sent everyone upstairs to the boys' room to play Legos until it was game time. We are limited on space in here, with a really small living room so I made the boys clean their room so we could use it, too.

The first game was a car building game. We divided up the kids into two groups of 5, each getting a bowl of the exact same Lego pieces. They had 15 minutes to build the coolest, most creative, drivable car they could!

This was the upstairs group working hard. I supervised the upstairs group, making sure everyone was playing nicely and fairly! They were both done in about 10 minutes so we started the judging!

We brought their cars to the table and had them gather around and brought Ben and a friend of ours (whose son was invited) who stayed for the party to be the judges.

This was group One's car. They said it could drive and fly and they had to prove to us that it was drivable. It was! They won "Most functional Car."

Group Two went wild with their elaborate creation and won "Most Creative car!" They even said their car was computerized! How's that for some modern kids?!

Zakkai listening to the judging:) They were having so much fun!

For their prizes, each team got to pick a Lego Head Pop out of the jars. Most kids liked them, although a few handed their gnawed off pops to me wanting to save them for later:) ha!

I didn't get a picture of it but while they were waiting for the pizza to be ready, we played Lego Bingo! It was SOOO fun! They all sat in the living room and I handed out Lego Bingo cards. They all got a little pile of Legos to use as the markers and I was the caller. I had cards that matched all the Lego mini figures on their cards and I would call them out and show the cards around. We had time for 2 rounds before eating.

Coming up with prizes for games can be expensive on top of everything you already have to get so I did no prizes! The winner of round one got to be first in line for pizza. They loved it! We had a tie for round two so they had to do rock, paper, scissors to see who got to be second and third in line. Who needs a prize?! Here were some of them eating at the table.

It started out being the "girls club" in the living room but by the end they were all in there together. They started to get a little crazy at this point (and this is about when my mom and stepdad made their escape!!) I didn't get pictures of this part either because I was so busy trying to round everyone up and get them ready but we did Lego Head jars. You can click on the link to see what they are supposed to look like!

The kids and I ate baby food (yum!) so we could have jars to use. Pears are my favorite:) I painted all the jars and lids yellow and then at the party, set out plates of red, white, black and brown paint for them to paint Lego faces on them. Some of them turned out cute; some just look like paint blobs and 2 boys messed up and wanted me to re-paint them yellow so they could re-do them at home! It kept them busy until cake time.

I tried valiantly to make a Lego block cake and it looks awful but I tried! (It's okay, I really do know it looks bad! I was disappointed but I am hard on myself and Zakkai was happy so that's what matters!

The bottom layer was chocolate and then top layers were vanilla. The block parts were marshmallows and oreos. It may look terrible but it tasted pretty good!

Z blowing out the Lego candles! (found those at Meijer!) Poor kiddo got a bad tummyache during the painting part and sat on the couch with his Grandma for awhile. He didn't even try his cake until today!! We set aside a big chocolate piece for him. His friends went around the table and said something they really liked about Zakkai and then before they were even finished, the parents started coming!

For goodie bags, which can get way too pricey, I got plain yellow cellophane bags and drew Lego heads with faces on each one and wrote their name. In it we put a cool sucker, glowing slappy thing (who knows), smarties and if they wanted, another Lego Head Pop. They were supposed to have their Lego Head jars, too, in the bags but they were all wet! I told them Z would bring them to school Monday...

Everyone rushed off into the cold night and then we were left to open presents. Ben's mom stayed with us to watch, which was really nice. Couldn't believe how quiet it was after all the chaos!!

Such a beautiful boy:) I hate that his tummy felt so bad. He wouldn't get off the couch so we had to hand him his presents. (He felt much much better after some "manly time" in the bathroom right afterwards;)

Ah! Look at all these presents he got!! He got lots of Legos, a game, a giftcard and even a Dictionary from us. He seriously asked for a Dictionary for his birthday and was thrilled with it! He has been using it all day today:)

Happiest 8th birthday, sweet boy! You fill our life up with your zest. You drive us crazy constantly beating on everything like a drum but you tell me you like it and it makes you happy so how can we get too upset?? You are so funny, tell the most elaborate stories with the most minute details, have captured the hearts of your teacher and student teacher with how fun and smart you are.

You can build anything, figure out problems and mechanical things quicker than anyone I know, love to write your full name on all your homework, hate to dance, love doing math on the computer and underneath, when you stop and are still, you have the sweetest, most tender heart. We absolutely adore you, Z-man! Happy Birthday!