Two Birthday parties and a Slumber party all in one day...

Today was birthday party day.

Child #1 wanted to have two parties. One that she could invite her whole class to and one that would be a slumber party. Her first slumber party at our house. She's been to several slumber parties over the years but this would be our first.

Child #2 wanted Star Wars... again. So that's what we did. Again. I think this makes his third Star Wars party... boy sure does love Star Wars.

To make things a little easier on me, I decided we would again do the park for the class invite parties and that both parties would be "at the same time" again. The slumber party would be later that same night.

Overall things went well considering it was also the first day of Spring Break. Not as many people were able to come because of that but it was a good turn out and everyone seemed to have fun.

Child #1 wanted to invite her entire Posse (as I like to call them) of friends which is about 7 girls but I limited the number to 3 other girls... her bedroom just isn't that big for 6 other bodies to try to sleep in there. Two of her friends weren't going to be in town so she invited the three that were going to be in town.

Lots of giggles, pizza and me somehow getting sucked into nail salon mode painting fingers and toes half the night. Child #1 was quite happy with her party. I also promised her that she would be able to have the other friends over another time.

Now I'm very tired...

Eight years ago almost exactly

Eight years ago an 8 pound 4 ounce bundle of joy joined our family. He stole my heart and still holds it tightly in his fist.

Now my "Little Man" is growing up. He loves his brother & his sisters. He's sweet, kind and fiercely loyal. He plays Lacrosse, loves Star Wars and Legos. He plays hard and loves just as much. So very proud of the young man he's becoming.

Love you so much son.

Hogwarts Success

Well, I think the Hogwarts Celebration Feast was a success. At least by all the happy kids after wards. We had a really big turn out. Somewhere around 16+ kids. Wow talk about a lot of kids.

Child #3 was beside himself. He had a lot of fun and had a great time. He made sure every child got to choose a wand of their very own.

I think he was quite pleased by his presents too. Lots of Legos and of course the Lego Harry Potter game for the Wii. One of my mama friends came with her sweet daughter and rocked the "bestest" present... a small electro-static plasma globe thingie and a wand with a light-up tip and makes a whooshing sound. Child #3 was practically giddy. He loves sciency kind of stuff like that and of course a wand... that makes sound!! Lots of "Stupdify" was being yelled upstairs.

Yeah for another birthday party success.

Hogwarts Celebration Feast

Hogwarts-mania has officially hit our household. For years I've had different friends tell me I just had to read the Harry Potter books. I never did, they just didn't sound appealing to me. Maybe it was because I didn't have as much reading free time. I don't know I just never thought I would read the books.

So over the summer Hubby makes an unusual comment. Maybe he'll read the Harry Potter books. What?? This is the man that doesn't read fiction. Like ever anymore. I think I've seen him read 2 or 3 fiction books in the 17 years I've known him. It isn't like he doesn't read, he does. Lots and lots of history, military history, political and such. Just not a big fan of fiction. He read lots of SciFi when he was young but had pretty much given it up by the time we met.

So for him to suddenly without any prompting from me decide to read fiction? Mind blowing. Anyways, right around that time ABC Family channel was showing the Harry Potter movies over the weekend. We ended up watching most of them. The kids watched them with us. They really enjoyed them. So gradually I was sucked in and I bought the books for the kids. We recently started reading the books out loud before bedtime.

While Lego Star Wars is very popular on the Wii around here... Child #3 is seriously obsessed with wanting the Lego Harry Potter game for the Wii. Its almost all he has talked about for months. Needless to say I suggested that his birthday was coming up.

In light of the recently Harry Potter obsession, Child #3 decided he wanted to do Harry Potter as the theme for his birthday this year. You would think since the newest movie in the series is coming out in Nov there would be lots of Harry Potter stuff in preparation. Hell no!! Nada! Zip! Zilch! Everywhere online was sold out (was from the previous movies) and nobody local had any party supply items for Harry Potter. Seriously! It is insane. Thankfully a friends who's son used Harry Potter for his theme over the summer still had a few things leftover that she let me have. Good thing I'm kind of "crafty" too.

Since I couldn't find invitations, I made some up and printed them on card stock. They came out pretty good... considering I had to replace the ink cartridges in the printer after trying to refill them and it still not working. Seriously. Those ink cartridges are a total pain in the ass. I sent the cards to school for Child #3 to pass out to all his classmates. I couldn't find any rubber bands so I improvised with some brown satin ribbon. Really came out awesome with the cream card stock and brown ink. Very dramatic.

For the party favors I made:
Wands out of thin wooden dowels found at the craft store. Some painted white, some tan, some grey, some black, some brown. Then decorated with some sharpie marker to create some different designs.
A Snitch made from a Styrofoam ball and felt wings for decoration.
I came up with a "Honeydukes Candy" store theme. Typically I don't do candy for birthday parties (just cupcakes) but this time... lot and lots of sugar!
Candied Pineapple pieces
Lemon Drops
Sour Gummy Worms
Gummy Bugs, Caterpillars & Slugs (from Willie Wonka)
Chocolate covered Spiders (actually pretzel pieces)
Molded Chocolate Frogs
Licorice Floss
JellyBelly Jellybeans

Needless to say, lots and lots of sugar. Sorry other parents.

Cupcakes will be Chocolate with Chocolate Icing topped with Chocolate dipped ice cream cones to look like wizard hats. Also a batch of Yellow cake cupcakes with Chocolate Icing. "Since not everyone likes chocolate cake".

Drinks will be Fruit Juice punch, Ice water and Butterbeer. I found a recipe for Butterbeer online. It is basically Root Beer, Cream Soda with caramel syrup and whipped cream. Very very sweet.

Other decorations ideas I came up with:
Hedwig (Child #3's owl from Build A Bear)
The Sorting Hat (from Elope)
Box set of the Harry Potter books in hardcover in a very cool spiffy cardboard box "trunk"

Sadly, I have run out of time to create "brick castle walls" out of large rolls of newsprint paper and paint. Creating bricks using sponges. Or make the felt peak style hats the students wore in the first two movies. Maybe next time. Somehow I don't see Harry Potter losing any interest around here any time soon. Especially from the boy who wanted a Mickey Mouse birthday two years in a row.

We are having it at one of the neighborhood shady parks with has a nice sized gazebo with a large picnic table under it. Lots of shading trees surrounding the fun playscapes. A very nice park to have a party at when the heat gets up there like it is known to do here in Austin.

Here's to hoping its a success...

The 5 year olds birthday party.

So I pushed child #3's party to the weekend of Oct 2nd because the weekend of the 26th (his actual birthday) was suppose to rain the whole time... not a single drop all weekend. Beautiful blue skies and very warm. Okay yeah it was pretty hot that weekend but it didn't rain.

It was only suppose to be a 10% chance of rain for today... it was overcast all morning. We got to the park... a family favorite because of the awesome huge sandpit with buried dinosaur bones... got everything all set up down under the sunshade and not 20 minutes later...

Torrential downpour. Not just a little light rain. Wall of water pouring from the sky rain.

We quickly grabbed everything and ran up to the covered shelter areas. Thankfully the group that had reserved one side of the pavilion was finishing up (they were just waiting for the rain to ease up to leave) and graciously offered us the use of the area. The other group (which had NO ONE there yet and never did) was totally giving us dirty looks when we all first ran up to the area because we'd invaded their space. Yeah my little band of about a dozen people that were all huddled at two tables on the side away from them were just totally cramping their non-exsistant party guests style... and of course at least another 15+ people who had been out riding or running on the trails that suddenly ran for cover. Some people are just so classless.

While it was extremely wet and caused the cupcake icing to melt a bit and the oreo "Mickey ears" to slide off the cupcakes the kids still enjoyed them.

Even with all the rain (which caused at least a dozen people to cancel) and not too many guests showing up (thank you thank you thank you for those brave few that did!!!)... he had a great time. He is just such a happy boy. Truly happy. My 95 percent boy... he is happy 95 percent of the time.



My mom was able to drive over from Houston and spend the day with us. All the kids were so happy to get to see her and hang out together.

Everyone was wet and chilled by the time we got home so all the kids went into a warm bathtub while Mom and I snuggled in a couple of warm robes. We ordered Chinese food and watched Monsters Vs. Aliens again. Overall a success.

Where was I five years ago...

In a hospital ...

Five years ago today Child #3 burst forth into our lives. Literally. My bag of waters only broke when the OB popped it as he was crowning (Child #3 was nearly born in the caul). The Boy nearly shot out past him once it broke. The nurse squealed and threw her arms underneath the OB's to make sure he didn't slip though, it was that suddenly.

My labor was pretty quick... about 6 hours. Half a dozen pushes... He was born at 41 weeks plus 3 days... (give or take a few days)... because you know they only really determine EDD by throwing a handful of chicken bones into a corner. ;-)

So we were blessed with a second son as our third child. "Fiery one"... oh so appropriate. He has a fiery love of live. He's my 95% boy... he's happy 95% of the time... just have to watch out for that 5%, its wicked!! The only other name that might have been appropriate for him would have been Calvin... as in Calvin & Hobbes. He's got the thatch of blond hair too.

So since it was HIS day, he got to decide where we would go.

First stop was the Downtown Farmers' Market. We enjoyed Bacon & Blue Cheese Quiche, Caramelized Onion Quiche, Raspberry & White Chocolate Scones and the all time favorite the delicious Ginger Scones. I craved those scones my entire fourth pregnancy! Soooo tasty. We also enjoyed fresh lemonade and hibiscus iced tea. We ate under the almost 2oo year old Texas Live Oak trees. Beautiful day in the shade. Otherwise it was HOT! It got up into the 90s again.

After the Farmers' Market we did a couple of quick errands and then it was off to Terra Toys. The kids all love going to Terra Toys which is this wonderful local toy store. Its nothing like ToysRUs. They carry all these amazing toy brands that are just awesome. There are tons of things to play with so you get to try out the toys. Since it was Aidan's birthday he got to pick out a special toy. He picked out these 5 magnet balls. They are about the size of a large gumball. Everyone else got a little treat too.

Then it was back to the house to pick up the 6 qts of soup so we could then go to the Soup Swap with several of my Mama friends. The kids all played outside with some of the other kids that were there. Its so wonderful to see the kids playing with other children of all different ages. Especially younger kids. Child #1 is sooo sweet with some of the littles. Lots of fun was had by all... good snacks, good wine, good conversations and lots of good soup with my wonderful Mamas.

Then it was dinner time. Child #3 picked going to Culver's for dinner. Hamburgers, root beer and frozen custard! Happy happy boy.


He was so sweet as soon as we all started eating he was offering bites of his hamburger to all of us. Then after dinner it was custard time. We got three custards to share. One Vanilla, One Lemon Ice with raspberries and a Chocolate Heath Crunch which was the birthday boy's choice. All three children happily offered bites of their custards to each other and shared them all around with Child #4 .

Makes a Mommy's heart so proud... my littles are turning into such kind and generous little people.

Finally it was back to the house for presents.

Overall, I think it was a very good day. Next week we'll have the birthday party with lots of friends... it was suppose to rain all weekend so I pushed it back a week... not a drop of rain today and doesn't look like it for tomorrow now either. UGH!