Survivor Birthday Party for Paige

Paige decided she wanted a Survivor themed birthday party.  This one took quite a bit of preparation before the party, but the girls had a really good time.  I even made a custom logo that we used on the invitations and also the tribe buffs.

Here's Paige at the start of the party - wearing her "buff" and holding our tiki man voting container (old formula can covered with paper mache and painted).

As the girls arrived, they drew their buffs (which determined which tribe they were on) and then they went to their tribe 'camp' and worked on their tribe flags, tribe name, and mascot.  We had two tribes - the green tribe became the Polka Dotted Panthers:

And the blue tribe was the Shaba-Laba-Ding-Dongs and their lovely mascot had a  cheetah front end and a zebra read end :-)

Then we got started on the challenges.  For the first challenge, each team designated a 'caller' who stood on their tribe mat and directed teams of two that were tied together at the wrist and blindfolded out into the yard to find bags of puzzle pieces.

They had to bring each bag back to the mat separately and the caller had to direct both sets of tribemates at the same time - by yelling at them which direction to go.

Once they retrieved all three bags full of puzzle pieces, they had to untie the bags that were knotted really well

and then assemble their puzzles...

After that was our very first Tribal Council, where the girls from the winning tribe all voted for who they thought did the best in the challenge.  There was no 'voting off the island' in Birthday Survivor :-)

The next challenge was the infamous food challenge.  The girls went head to head against the other tribe with mystery ingredients.  First girl to finish her portion and stick our her tongue showing an empty mouth earned a point for her tribe.

I figured I couldn't get away with anything too gross so it was all standard grocery-store fare: pimento stuffed olives, sauerkraut (pictured above), potted meat, baby food peas, and sardines.  We ended up with a tie, so the tiebreaker was Wasabi Peas - each person had to eat two and the tribe that finished first won.

The next challenge was an endurance competition.  Who can stand on one leg on a brick the longest?  After two minutes, they had to put their hands on top of their heads... after another two minutes they had to lift their non-standing leg out in front of them, etc.

The next challenge involved two balance beams with a large bucket of water at one end and two empty containers at the other end.

The girls had to walk across the beam and collect water through whatever means possible... mouth, hands, hair, buff...

and then return across the balance beam and deposit the water in their tribe's container.  Once they made it across the next tribemate went.  If someone fell off the beam in the middle, they had to start over.  First tribe to fill their container won.

There were a couple more challenges, including the typical Survivor auction, but not as many pictures were taken.  We headed inside where Paige had a Tiki Man cake:

Then we opened presents, the girls played for a little while, and then they camped out in a tent in the backyard.  A good time was had by all, but we all got very little sleep.  In the morning I made muffins and sent them on their way!

Happy 11th Birthday Paige!

Way past due overly long post about the boys' birthdays

Wow! It's been a while, eh?  Both boys' birthdays have passed  so just a quick updated on those.

Blake's was in May.  We just took him, Paige, and a few close friends to an indoor arcade/amusement type place.  They played lots of arcade games, but this ride was their favorite:

Then we just came back to the house for some Pac Man cake:

Then Dean's 3rd birthday in July.  We just invited some family friends over for the day.  I think Dean's favorite part was the blowers:

They jumped in a small bouncy house...

Played on the Slip-n-Slide....

and feasted on monster cake...

That's it for those sweet birthday boys!  Thanks for looking

Teacher Gifts - Coffee Cozies and a Gift Card

I have several other Christmas crafts I made but I haven't posted yet because I keep forgetting to get some decent pictures!  I need to wrangle those kiddos this weekend to get some and will post them next week.

I made the kids' teachers Coffee Cozies this year and included a cup (I just asked for them when I bought the gift cards) with a $5 gift card inside.  They turned out really cute!  I made three of the brown/turquoise fabric.  Paige also has one male teacher and I was originally going to come up with a different gift for him.  However, it was the evening before the last day of school before the holiday break and I hadn't ever picked up an alternate gift.  So.... I dug around and found this faux-leather that I bought at Halloween to make Blake's boots and wrist-thingies from for his Halloween costume.  I used a brown houndstooth on the inside and it ended up looking very manly :-)

It wasn't what I had planned for him but I'm happy with how it turned out and hope that he can and will use it.  If not, at least he got the giftcard too.  Here they are all packaged up and ready to go.  I included a personal note from Mark and I as well.

And while I'm posting, let me throw in this cake I made for my nephew's BDay last month.  His party didn't really have a 'theme', but my sister-in-law was taking all the kiddos go-carting and one of Nate's favorite video games is ModNation Racers, so I just took inspiration from the game cover.  He was happy and it sure was yummy, so I call it a hit!

I apparently need to work on my 'writing names on cakes' skills as well as my counting skills.  I started putting down little 'stars' of frosting to stick the candles in to - put down 12 'stars' but only needed 11.  We'll just call that extra one a decoration, shall we?

I'll get those pics taken this weekend and will post some more crafty-goodness next week.



Paige's Party Update

I'm way late posting this, but since I posted about it weeks ago I figured I'd better follow up.

Paige's 10th Birthday party went really well. We started out at the pool - we had drinks, sandwiches, fruit kabobs, chips & salsa, and cupcakes. All 'decorations' were in lime green and turquoise. The baskets for sandwiches and pails for chips and fruit were from the dollar store, and the drink tub was from Party City.


Here are the yummy cupcakes... chocolate rasberry, chocolate chip cookie dough, and apple cinnamon with honey buttercream. Paige requested the apple cinnamon as I'd made them before but the others were new. I think everyone loved the chocolate chip cookie dough - they were delish!

I don't know why... but this picture just cracks me up. I think it's because A) Blake's mouth is full and B) Erika is eyeing him awfully suspiciously...

The kids all had a lot of fun. While we couldn't reserve the pool for exclusive use, there were only about 6 other people when we arrive and 4 left shortly after. It was a lot of fun!


Paige's highlight of the night.... a Jacob Black T-shirt. We won't tell her I'm just a little bit jealous. Yes... I know he's 16 years younger than me, but he sure is nice to look at....

For the decorations back at the house, I did end up making several of the large tissue pom poms... but not as many as I'd planned. I also had streamers around the den where all the girls were sleeping.


They were up WAY too late, but it was a really nice reconnection for them right before school started. Not sure if you can see them, but as a party favor for the girls who came to the sleepover, I made sleep masks from two layers of soft fleece and leftover blackout fabric in the center (as the fleece was still allowing light through). There are a few of them to the left of this picture, right behind Paige.

And just so you know... this is how you can tell who the first one to fall asleep at a sleeover was...


Thanks for checking out Paige's Party! She really had a lot of fun and it was relatively stress free for me! Love it!

Paige's Polka Dot Party!

So Paige's 10th Birthday (Wow!) is coming up soon and I've been working out the details.

She couldn't really come up with a 'theme' but knew she wanted to invite a few friends (and include her brothers and male cousins) to our local community pool for a Pool Party! We won't have exclusive use, but we can bring in whatever food we want so it should still be fun! She then wanted a few of her besties to come spend the night - SLUMBER PARTY!

Without a real 'theme', I wasn't sure what to do for invitations, but she knew she wanted the 'colors' to be turquoise and lime green. Fun! So just playing around with invitation ideas, I came up with this:


It's bright and colorful and FUN and, best of all, Paige liked it! So I printed and we delivered about 14 of these. The few invited to the slumber party afterward received a small, separate invitation to that as well.

There's not a whole lot of decorating to do at the pool. I picked up some dollar store sand pails that I'll serve some food in (just finger food only - triangle sandwiches, fruit kabobs, chips, drinks and cupcakes) and then we'll have some pool games. I'm hoping to do Pool Noodle Relay Races, Water Tag (tag people with water shooter), and Frozen Shirt contests.

For the Slumber Party afterward, I wanted to do a few decorations at home. My plan is to confine the slumber party to our den. It extends from the kitchen, so they'll have access to more snackage for the evening, but keeps them away from sleeping babies upstairs. It will also prevent any prank-pulling on Blake (I speak from experience).

So I'm planning to make a bunch of these to hang around the ceiling. I already found aqua and lime green tissue paper... I just have to do the legwork.


For the back wall of the den, I'd also like to make a quick paper banner to hang. Something like this, but in Paige's colors:

If I have time and I'm motivated, I may pull out some Christmas lights to hang around the room as well, but we'll see. I'll post more pictures next week of the decorations and the party!

Blake's 8th Birthday

Wow! My second child is now eight... how the years scream by, yes?

Simple, small party... just a few friends at one of those "Bounce House" places... we've done one there before.

Couldn't decide what to do for the cake. We didn't really have a 'theme' for the party. So he just decided on a character from one of his favorite video games... SackBoy from Little Big Planet. (those circles at the top are where the candles will go)

Oh no, but it didn't start off this pretty :-)

Baked up a nice marble cake, split and filled it with chocolate buttercream... and then just HAD to take a potty break. Come back to find this:


THE DOG ATE THE CAKE!!!!! Oh my heart just sank. I guess it was better now than after it was frosted, right?

So I put the dog outside and cut out the corner of the cake (is that wrong? Would you have still used the un-eaten part?) I really had no choice... this all happened about 10 in the AM and the party was at 1:00.


And filled it in with a half-a-chocolate-cake-mix-baked-real-quick-in-a-loaf-pan. This corner was not pretty marble... did not have filling... so I was actually hoping we wouldn't have to cut into it at the party.


Everything turned out well... no one was the wiser :-) (until I showed them these pictures anyway).

Dean absolutely LOVED this big slide...


He probably climbed these stairs 30 times:


Blake playing with friends:


It turned into a money birthday, too. I guess maybe 8 year old boys are hard to buy for??? He ended up getting well over $100 in birthday money.

Happy Birthday Bud! Love you!

Rainbow Cake

Have you seen this? I know it's been all over blogland, but I guess I'm late coming to the party.

Omnomicon's Rainbow Cake




Once I showed it to Paige, she loved the bright colors and was anxious to try it. We used our own cake and frosting recipes, but followed the same 'method'.

Here it is 'in process':



She decided she wanted a Panda Bear cake, so I did the best I could on short notice. It's not near as elaborate as others I've made in the past, but she wasn't having a 'real' party anyway, so we made do. It was actually pretty neat - the plain black and white cake on the outside exploded with color once cut.

Excuse the messy photos - note to self: wipe crumbs and frosting from plate when taking blog photos... oh, and clean clutter off surrounding table...



It was yummy!

Birthdays

We just had Paige's Birthday a few weeks ago. I was looking back over several years worth of pictures and love the chronicle of time the birthday pictures show. I also love LOVE love making their cakes. I thought about, at one time, selling cakes; but the 'right' way to do it involves having your home kitchen inspected and certified 'commercial' before you can get a license to sell. Way too much trouble... so I just do it for fun.

Some years I really went all out with the cake, matching favors and goody bags, etc. Some years there just wasn't time.

I know we should be looking at Paige, but somehow I'm missing her 3rd and 7th BDay pics and need to find them before I post hers.

So, Blake's 1st Birthday was just family and a small baseball-decorated smash cake for him. No digital pics - maybe I'll scan them in soon. His 2nd Birthday was the first 'big' one with friends. It was a firetruck theme.

Blake's 3rd Birthday was at Chuck E. Cheese's and was all about Spongebob Squarepants.

Blake's 4th Birthday was just a small 'party' at his daycare - but they didn't allow home-baked goods so it had to be a store-bough Dinosaur cake that year.

Blake's 5th Birthday was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - I forgot to get a head-on picture of the cake though.

His 6th Birthday was at Pump-It-Up (bounce houses and obstacle courses) and had a Star Wars theme. The boy loves him some TOYS on his cake :-)

And his 7th Birthday. I'll be honest here - I was 7 months pregnant and really just 'phoned in' this cake. The party was on a Friday night and I'd worked all day and just really didn't have time to decorate it like I wanted to. The party was a 'Night at the Museum' theme as I took him and his friends to see the 2nd movie and then have a sleepover. The cake just has two little toys from the movie and uses one of the lines "Dum Dum - Give me Gum Gum". Blake didn't seem to mind.

It's so neat to see how he's grown and changed over the years. He's a real sweetheart and will still cuddle with me almost anytime I ask. He's got a real sensitive side to him although he can be a real tough guy when his friends are around.