Eight 12 year olds all by myself, REALLY?

It's winter, so ideas for birthday parties are hard to come by when there's snow. Well, introduce

WINTERPALOOZA!

We decided instead of working against the winter, we could use it to our advantage. Funny thing here is, we had tons of snow the week before her party. By the day OF her party, no snow, not a single snowflake was anywhere to be found. Well, so I improvised, like I always do in the days of mommyhood. We had pizza, treats, soda, and played our snow games indoors.
We kept the winter theme throughout the party. These were her cute favors.

Everyone got snowman marshmallows with hot chocolate, a snowman on a stick, and a penguin oreo. These were a huge hit with all the girls. I was so glad I could impress eight 12 year olds.

I made all the decorations. Alexis wanted penguins and snowmen, so everything was one or the other.

We went with blue, silver, white, and black for the color scheme. Alexis wanted cupcakes, so I ran with these. A chocolate cupcake with an igloo made out of frosting with snow crystals with a penguin on top. I was impressed with myself that my penguins actually turned out so cute. We also had snowmen marshmallows and york peppermint patties candy pieces on the table.

A close-up of my cute little penguins.

Some of the girls enjoying pizza, breadsticks, soda, and a lot of treats. This equalled to a lot of hyper girls. It was a lot of fun to watch them and hang out with Alexis. The hubs took all the other kids out, so it was just me with eight, crazy 12 year olds. It was TONS of fun. I missed out on a lot with being an only child. It's nice to see what a bunch of girls do together.

Crazy Human Snowman Game

We had plans to race building a snowman outside, but with no snow, the game moved indoors. The girls split into groups and they had to build a snowman using one person. They had 6 rolls of toilet paper, gloves, a hat, a scarf, a carrot, and they had to draw 4 buttons on their "snowman."

It was crazy fun, and hysterical! What was even crazier, was what happened after.

I let them have a "snowball" fight!

What was I thinking?

They all buried Alexis under the "snow" and then dog piled her(no one got hurt). They had tons of fun, lots of giggling and laughter.

Here is just a small look at the "snowball" fight. A mess, but it was hilarious watching them. The hubs would have been going crazy, so it's good he wasn't here during this. Alexis had a fun time and her 2 hour party turned into half the girls staying for a late night and one actually spent the night. I was happy she had so much fun. Preteens are so silly and crazy! I LOVE IT!!!

Alexis turns 12

It finally happened!

My first baby turned 12!

EEK!!!

I can't believe it. She is actually 12 now, and she is no longer in Primary. She is in Young Women's now! OH MY HEAVENS!!! What's a mother to do. Oh, I know. If I hide under my covers and pretend it didn't happen, will she still be a baby? Please, pretty please, with a cherry on top.

No, you say she's only gonna get older. Man, this being a mom is hard work on the heart. Time just keeps flying by. Well, if she must be 12, then I guess I'll have to deal with it.

She's a GREAT kid, I mean, young lady. I could have never dreamed of having such a wonderful daughter, and I ended up with four. I'm very lucky!

Alexis is growing into a wonderful girl and I'm so proud to call her my daughter. She is so considerate, loving, responsible, funny, beautiful, smart, talented, sporty. I could go on and on about this girl of mine.

Each year the kiddos get to pick out their birthday breakfast and she chose cinnamon rolls this year. Don't they look de-lish? They were SO yummy!
This year she was having a big party, so we did dinner at home, but I did make her this decadent oreo cheesecake. It was gobbled up by everyone.

This year we lucked out and Alexis's present was actually given to us from the hub's parents. His grandma was a painter and she passed away a few months before. Well when they were cleaning out her place they found this easel and asked if we wanted it for Alexis. We said yes, and knew we could give it to her for her birthday. Needless to say, she LOVED it. We also gave her some canvases, and she has already completed some masterpieces. This was a hard birthday for me to wrap my heart around. I just was having a hard time realizing things are getting faster and faster here, and as a result, the kiddos aren't so young anymore. I feel like I need to catch up to them. I will, eventually, but in the meantime, can the younger ones slow down please?

Arrgh Mateys! Birthdays are a coming!

We had great plans for Laney and Logan's Birthdays. As it happens life laughed at us this day and happened while we were planning our plans. We were all set to go to Pirate Island for their birthday, all dressed in our pirate garb nonetheless, when out of nowhere I turned the key in our car and...

NOTHING!

The car was dead, the family car, and we couldn't even get it to jump start. So, on to new plans. Luckily I had a gift card to 5 Buck Pizza, so we still had our pizza and cake and just played some pirate games and watched a pirate movie.

The kids loved their pirate ship cake. Another very simple cake for mommy. I love when the cake that is requested is very simple to make.
I love that the cannons are the candles, so did Logan.

The front of the cake.

From the side view.

The kids with grandpa all ready to head off. Haha, little did we know, we were marooned.

Our whole family, poor Noah barely made it in the picture.

I just love these kiddos. Look at the excitement they possess. Although we had to stay at home, both kids still enjoyed their party. Hopefully next year's birthdays will go as planned. It definitely has been a bad year for birthday parties.

I'm NOAH...the Pumpkin King!

I can't believe my eyes, my little Noah Gabriel has turned another year older!I mean look at this adorable lit'l angel sleeping

and...
walking!

Well with another year older comes a special birthday for our lit'l guy. He ABSOLUTELY loves the Nightmare Before Christmas movie, so we threw him a "Jack" party! These are his invites to his party- a present for everyone.

with special info inside.

This was our entrance to our party. My dad took the boys out before the party so the hubs and I could decorate the house and keep it as a surprise for Mr. Noah. And boy, oh boy, did he just jump for joy. My dad said they didn't even pull into the driveway before Noah screamed, "Halloween Jack!" Noah has been singing "this is Halloween," from the movie every morning and afternoon when he wakes up. He also yells, "I'm Jack, the pumpkin king!" Funniest kid ever. He flipped out with his party. I forgot to get pictures of a lot of the decorations, but we basically used a lot of black and white crepe paper and balloons mixed in our Halloween decorations and some Christmas ones too.

"Zero" is by far my favorite decoration that I made. The kids love him and we are keeping him up until Halloween is over. He's hanging from our fan, so the kids just swing him around and he flies around our table. Bella loves him too and just screams and laughs in delight!

I made this Jack hanging for pin the "santy" hat on Jack. We lucked out and had most our family back in town, so we had a full house of kids to play the game. We have kept this hanging up too and every morning Noah says hi to Jack.

Noah's cake with worms in it. It was one of the simplest cakes I've done in awhile, but Noah loved it because Jack was on it.

I also made brownies with skeletons and bones in them. The kids all enjoyed eating the bone candy.

I made party hats for all the kids and any adult who wanted one. The treat bags were for our pinata fun we had at the end.

I found these cute spider lanterns at the $ store and thought they added a nice touch. I kept the food simple with sweet and sour meatballs for the adults and bat/bone pb & J sandwiches for the kids. We had finger dip and veggies, eyeballs, bread, and bubbly putrid punch with worm cubes. My kids loved the bubbly drink. I have never done dry ice before and they thought it was the coolest trick they had ever seen. Ah, the simple pleasures of life.

I picked up this little utensil holder at Ikea and was going to spray paint it black, but alas, I ran out of time, so I just decked it out to match the theme. I think it came out cute. We put forks in one side and knives in the other.

This was Noah lurking behind the couch debating on whether or not to play the "Jack" game. I made him the shirt he is wearing as well. He was so excited when he saw it and when he found out it was his to wear for the party, he just couldn't get it on fast enough.

Here is the pinata I made for the party. The kids loved that they got to hit the "oogy boogy man" until he broke. I decided to make one, because they are so simple and I just can't pay all that moola for a store bought pinata that is just going to get hit to pieces. For my first one ever, I think it turned out pretty good. And man, was it a strong pinata! It took quite the beating and only after I whacked it several times did it finally break!

Here's Noah taking a whack at it. We had this cute little orange "carrot" bat that the kids got for Easter. I added some black felt and turned it into a jack 'o lantern.

Mr. Noah being ever so patient at getting his loot from the pinata. Mad dash of kids kinda made him wary of getting near the loot, but grandpa helped him out. It was a fun party for our bunch and now I'm on to the next project-a baby shower. I love all the fun I get to have! I love making my kids' day. I hope they grow up knowing and feeling loved, because the hubs and I thoroughly love and enjoy each and every one of our kids. They make my world go round and I am very blessed to have them entrusted into my care. Happy Birthday my dear Noah Gabriel! I hope this 3rd year brings lot of love, joy, and happiness your way!

Kaleigh's 9th Birthday

FUN IN THE SUMMER SUN!

Kaleigh's invitations for her party.

We put an otter pop in each one with this saying...

I'd OTTERly love it if you

could POP on by for some fun,

summer birthday fun.

She was so excited to be able to have a friend party this year and we came up with "summer fun in the sun," as our theme.

She loves being 9 and is having a blast!

We love her so much and we're glad she is a part of our family. She is so bubbly and can give smack like no other. She fits right in and really can dish it out just like her daddy.

I've been procrastinating this post because it turned out horrible for her and for me to see my 9 year old in tears sitting on our grass. She invited 7 of her good friends and she was excited to play all the games we came up with. We had a balloon catching game, silly string tag, tug-of-war over the filled kiddie pool, water sponge ball game, and of course her cake and cupcakes. It all came to a screaming halt about 20 minutes into her party time.

I hadn't received any RSVP's but just thought people just would show up. Insert my BIGGEST pet peeve-no one RSVPing whether coming or not. Well not one of her friends showed up. Picture that cute, bubbly girl, balling on the grass. Heart-breaking!!! We called up some cousins to see if they could quickly come over and a couple of neighborhood kids who weren't doing anything and our very upset lit'l girl was once again happy.


These were our party favors. I didn't want to just give trinkets that would break in about 5 minutes, nor did I want to give them a ton of candy. Insert the dollar tree, I found these cute beach buckets, bubbles, water, silly string, and chalk. I made 8 of them and the total worked out to be only $3 per kid. Not bad if I say so myself. Love that Dollar Tree store.
We added the leis at the last minute(I got them awhile ago at Walmart in the clearance section)and the candy was left over after making the cake and cupcakes. I fancied up the water and bubbles with some cute paper to tie into her theme. Each kid got to pick the colors of sponge strips to make their own sponge ball and then they got to take them home.

I love these little waters, perfect size for the kiddos.

The beachy, ocean cupcakes. Kaleigh loved them and so did all the kiddos.

I made a surfboard to serve the cupcakes on. I know the fin goes on the bottom, but K wanted a pic of herself on it. The birthday girl gets what she wants on her party day.

Here it is with all the cupcakes on it. The kids were thrilled to find out they each could have TWO!! Wanna make kids' day... give them more cake to eat. They'll love ya for it!!!

I like to make a little cake for the kids at their friend party. Kaleigh absolutely loves sharks, so I made this one for her especially. The cake was rainbow too, which she also loves.

It was windy outside, so the second we lit the candle it blew out. We sang "Happy Birthday" to her and she dug in and ate the shark right away.

Friends and Family enjoying their good eats.

We gave her our presents we had for her and she was over the moon when she saw them. I made 2 hair clips for her, one was a flower and the other one was a corker ribbon bow. I used them in place of a bow and it turned out really cute.

This is one outfit we gave her. It came with some guitar leggings and a skirt. She also got a new pair of pants and a bop it game. Alexis has one and Kaleigh has been wanting one ever since.

Here are the leggings that go with the shirt. She loves them and put them on first thing Monday morning. Glad I could make her happy and I was very glad we could find some friends and cousins to attend the party. I was afraid she was going to hate this birthday. In the end we found out that it just so happened that all her friends she had invited all had other family plans that day. It would have been nice if the parents had RSVPed, but oh well. I think however, if it ever happens again with another friend party I will not be doing them anymore. I just don't want to see my kiddos so upset again.