Logan's surprise party

This year for his birthday, Logan said he wanted a surprise party. I explained to him that it's not really how a surprise party works. He replied that he wanted a Spongebob party instead then. Well, he ended up getting both.

The weekend of his (or should I say OUR) birthday, Grandma Tami took Logan and Brandon to the ocean. The plan was that when they got home Sunday afternoon, Logan's party would be waiting for him. He thought his party was going to be the following weekend so he was definitly surprised when he came home from his trip to find the house filled with friends, family, balloons, and a big "SURPRISE!!".

I struggled with ideas for games and activities to keep the kids busy. Since it was a Sponge Bob theme, we had a Krabby Patty relay race,

we played "Sponge Bob bucket toss",

and had a craft table set up to make jellyfish.

After the games it was time for cupcakes and blowing out the candles, quickly followed by Logan tearing into his presents.

Logan got a TON of Lego sets, a pack of motocross bikes, some cash, and from us he got his favorite book "Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus". He brings that book home at least 2 times a week from school, so we decided to get him his own copy, along with another book in the series.

But out of all of the things he received, his favorite by far was a copy of Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars for the XBox from Grandma Shellie. He has been asking for that game for weeks before it even hit the shelves. He was a bit excited when he opened it.

Even though he ended up getting to his party about 2 hours late, and we had to rush through it after he showed up since people were ready to leave, he still had a great time and was truly surprised. Happy 6th Birthday, Logan!!! Six?!! Geez, I'm getting old.

Spring Break Shananigans: Part 2

On the second day of our spring break, Sawyer had a doctor's appointment in Auburn. Auntie and Caleb went with us to watch the older boys in the lobby while he was getting his check up. After we were done there we headed over to the Auburn Supermall for lunch and a trip to Super Jump Party Zone.

Logan, Sawyer and I had pretzels from Auntie Anne's.

Brandon and Auntie decided they wanted Hot Dog On A Stick.

After lunch I bought us all a pecan-bon from Cinnabon to share.

Sawyer was VERY happy with that. He was chowing it down.

With our bellys full (and a box of Cinnabons bagged up to take home for after dinner) we headed over to Super Jump Party Zone. Along the way we stopped at a few of the coin operated rides they have placed through the mall. Auntie hopped on the carousel so that Caleb could have a little ride in his Moby wrap.

As we kept walking along the corridor we came across a wind tunnel machine. For $2 you can shut yourself inside and get blown around by 80 mile an hour winds. Brandon and Logan wanted to do it, so I paid the fee, shut the door and let them at it. It was so funny to watch. I was hoping that the wind would blow their long hair straight up into the air, but it was blowing from above them so it didn't work out like I expected. It was still hilarious though.

If you are reading this on Facebook and can't see the video, go directly to our blog to view it.

We finally made it to our bouncy destination. Once we paid the admission and they removed their shoes, the older boys took off. Sawyer was a little hesitant at first to climb around on the bouncy equipment, but once Brandon took him around to some of the areas, and showed him how to climb the ladders to the slides, he was in heaven. It was so funny to watch him go down the slides over and over and over again.

When it was time to leave they weren't very happy with me. We could have stayed another half an hour, but Sawyer hadn't taken a nap and was starting to get burned out. The older boys left with out giving me too much grief, but I think the looks on their faces in the photo I took as we were leaving says it all.

Unfortunatly I didn't take anymore photos of our spring break adventures. But the rest of the weekend consisted of renting movies, lunches out, and a trip to the theater to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2. Usually spring breaks for us mean sitting at home and trying to not to kill each other. It was a nice change and a pretty fun week.

Spring Break Shenanigans: Part 1

The first day of Spring Break we took a last minute trip to Point Defiance Zoo. When we woke up I noticed that the weather seemed like it was going to give us a dry day so I immediatly decided we shouldn't spend the day inside. I told the boys I needed to drive to Tacoma to run an errand. They weren't very happy about having to actually put clothes on and leave the couch, but with the promise of getting lunch while we were out they didn't give me too much grief. I took a different route to get to the zoo than we usually take so they wouldn't recognize where we were going. They finally realized where we were as we pulled into the back of the parking lot. They were shocked and very pleasantly surprised.

I took 2 of these pictures, and in BOTH of them Sawyer had his eyes closed.

I decided not to take the Sawyer's stroller with us. The idea of this made me a bit nervous. Given his past of being the "runner" of our bunch, a stoller is usually a necessity. But Brandon was very helpful with keeping Sawyer on the right track and he stuck with the boys the entire time. I was very pleased.

When we were in the aquarium we saw this really cool sea urchin. It was bright purple with white spots and a purple and orange ball in the middle of it. Brandon and I were looking at it and he says "The orange thing is it's mouth and the white dots attract females." I said "Oh my gosh Brandon, how do you know that?" He replied "I just made it up." That kid kills me.

I don't usually let the boys play at the playground areas of the zoo. I'm mean like that. I just feel like we get stuck there forever and it's always at the end of our visit when I'm trying to get back to the van and beat the afternoon traffic. But this time I felt generous and let them play for awhile. I love this picture. Notice Sawyer running as fast as he can?

Sawyer loved the slides. He went down with Brandon the first time, then he went with Logan. After that he had figured out how to climb up the path to the top of the slides on his own. He was in heaven.

After we were done at the playground, the boys were getting hungry. Afterall, they had been promised lunch out, and it was way past lunchtime at that point. So we had lunch in the zoo cafeteria. Sawyer hated being strapped into the highchair and was whining and throwing a fit the whole time we were in there. So we ate as fast as we could and then headed home.

We had a great day at the zoo. It didn't rain a drop, the boys behaved, and there was hardly anybody there, so we almost felt like we had the place to ourselves. It was a great way to kick off our spring break.





Surprise!!!

#4 is on the way!

Sawyer's Second Birthday Party

For Sawyer's birthday party this year, we went with a Goofy theme. Goofy is his favorite Disney character. He has this little plastic Goofy toy he carries around with him everywhere. I can't even count how many times we've gotten strapped in the car and had Sawyer start crying out "Goo-feeeee!! Goo-feeeeee!!" and pointing toward the house. Then I get to run back in and grab his little friend. So the theme was a no brainer. The difficult part about having a Goofy party, is that you can't get any decorations without having the entire Mickey Mouse Clubhouse gang in there also. So we used green, blue, and orange streamers and balloons, and I improvised the rest. With a little help from a borrowed digital projector (thanks John), Chris traced and I painted a few posters to match the theme. One poster also doubled as a "Pin The Nose On Goofy" game.

Another poster we painted had buckets with holes cut in the top to toss fish into (since Goofy is such an outdoorsman). I hand stitched the fish about an hour before the party was supposed to start. Thank goodness for my big bag of random material pieces! Since the few kids that were here fall on the younger side we just let them each play around and didn't really give out prizes or anything like that for games. It was all just for fun.

On the last poster we made, we painted Goofy with his old pal Mickey and added a little twist for some extra fun. I think the adults had more fun with this than the kids did. But it was a hit with everybody.

This party started out as a small gathering of a family and a few close friends. But you know me, I can't do anything small, and it turned into a full on lunch spread.

I couldn't find a cake that I liked in any store, and didn't have time to make one of my elaborate cake creations. So we went with cupcakes instead. Complete with blue, green, and orange sprinkles and handmade Goofy picks sticking in the top. I also printed out Goofy heads to glue onto the front of lunch sacks for favor bags. Can I just say, I love our new printer. I don't know how I went so many years without it.

After lunch, games and cupcakes, it was time to open presents. Sawyer got a TON of toys. He got two different guitars, a couple of different road set ups, a monster truck, an Elmo doll and among many other things, cars. Hot Wheels are by far Sawyer's favorite thing to play with. It was so cute when he would open up a package of cars, whatever was in his hands immediatly got thrown down to check out his new wheels. We got him a bag with a half dozen, and he had to check out each individual one before he would move onto the next gift. Later in the evening, after everybody left, he sprawled hiself out on the floor surrounded by his cars and played quietly by himself for what seemed like forever. He was in Hot Wheels heaven. In total Sawyer received 35 new cars.

Sawyer's party was a big success. And he didn't have pneumonia like he did at his first birthday party! So that's a bonus! Now to get planning Logan's party......