Party for Pop

So thankful to celebrate this incredible guy we have affectionately named Pop.

Par for the course, we didn't have the appropriate number candles. So, the wrong numbers are better than no numbers, right? Especially if the numbers make you younger? Huh, dad?

Can you see what the boys gave Pop for his birthday? Battleship!

A little boy

You were probably stuffing your face with turkey and all the fixings last Thursday. I won't lie; we were too. But, we were also celebrating the milestone of six years as parents. Our first born, turned six, and I'm at a loss for words when trying to think about where the time went.

Six sounds so much older than five. Mostly because the preschool years are behind us. Those carefree mornings watching Curious George and pjs until 10 am are farther and fewer between. I cannot complain though, I have done my best to savor those days. And, this precious little baby of mine has grown into a curious and handsome little boy who loves learning. Just yesterday as my mind was flooded with the responsibilities looming this week, he piped in about how thankful he was that today was Monday, so he could go back to school!

Is there a lump in my throat or a tear or two rolling down my cheek as I think back to that day six years ago? Of course, that's the day I became a mom. Like most would probably admit, I felt ill prepared for parenting, despite the numerous books and articles I'd read (insert eye roll here). It really is true what they say about deciding to become a parent. It is the decision to forever allow your heart to walk around outside your body. 

As more time passes, I'm realizing that the best preparation for becoming a parent has been my faith in Jesus Christ. I have absolute certainty in God's unfailing love. His love has been so incredibly demonstrated and His plan for my life and the lives of my family members is meant to glorify Him. I can trust in His plan.

Part of that trusting is letting go of those snuggly mornings and impromptu play dates at the park. But, because God is good, those sweet memories give way to spontaneous trips for ice dream after school and listening to my oldest read. He's not a baby; he's a little boy. Besides, six doesn't sound anywhere near as old as seven, and we're still a whole year away from that.

Disney Diaries, Post 2 (Daddy's Birthday)

I'm not sure how many posts it will take me to get through our 9-day trip, but feel free to check out and anytime (but you can never leave...) The second full day of our trip was Saturday, which was also Josh's birthday. We were so excited to be celebrating at Disney World. Josh again had conference obligations in the morning and the boys and I goofed off a bit at the resort. Once Josh snuck away we headed for Downtown Disney, take 2. It was a beautiful, warm day. After walking around for a bit, we had lunch at the TRex restaurant, which the boys thought was pretty cool. The food was okay, and the place is pretty loud, but Jack & Sam loved the huge fish tank and roaring dinosaurs.


The park tickets we had purchased included a free add-on, which could be used at one of the Disney water parks (no, thanks) or Disney Quest, at DD. If you've never heard of Disney Quest, think Chuck E. Cheese on steroids, minus the ball pit and hamster tubes. It's a multiple story arcade, where you play as much and as long as you like with the price of admission. So, we gave it a try. I'd rate it a 5. A few games didn't work properly or were just too hard for preschoolers. If you have an older kid, who is big into video games, they'd probably love it. For us, it was just okay. We were glad we had not paid extra to do it. All that being said, the boys loved playing "Fix It, Felix, Jr.," the video game from Wreck It, Ralph. Sam also enjoyed racing as Mater, and the Star Wars pod racer was a treat for Jack.

There was lots of celebrating going on at DD since it was St. Patrick's Day weekend. There were Irish dancers, street performers and bands. It was a fun afternoon. We again returned to the hotel for a snooze before dinner. Since our bus trip to DD had been so lengthy the night before, we opted for a cab on Saturday. The whole 15-minute ride Sam kept saying, "I never been in a taxi before!" Then, when we took a van cab (rather than a 4-door sedan) back, he changed it up, "I never been in this kind of taxi before!"




Later that evening we headed over to the neighboring Polynesian resort for dinner at Kona to celebrate Josh's birthday. It was a great meal and the boys sure loved the umbrella's served in their drinks. I had called a few days earlier and arranged for a birthday cake to be prepared for our celebration. Our waitress brought it out, and we got to sing to Josh. The boys loved it, and hopefully it was special for their sweet daddy too!

We headed back to our resort to call it a night. Of course, we watched Wishes again first; it was now a nightly tradition. Jack's favorite part of Saturday were the rides at Disney Quest. Sam's favorite were the fireworks (which is probably when I asked him what his favorite thing was that day). Josh's favorite part of the day was the boys singing happy birthday to him and helping him blow out his candles. My favorite was celebrating Josh's birthday; a close second was the silly castmember who gave us a lift on his golf cart over to the Polynesian. He was a riot.

92

My grandfather turned 92 this week. We celebrated on Father's Day weekend in our typical fashion...family and friends gathering for a fish fry.

My mom & her sweet daddy. 92 years young.



 Sam showing Aunt Lisa exactly how to enjoy a S'mores cookie.

Such a poser.



Corn stalking with the cousins.

Cousin Lila with Jack fast on her heels.



Thank goodness the battery eventually died or we were all in for it. Dangerous!

Three Five

We spent the weekend celebrating my incredible hubby and his 35th birthday. Last year, Jack was a little excited about Daddy's birthday and exactly how we would celebrate. So, I'm learning everyone's birthday must be a big deal at our house, and that includes Daddy. So, on Thursday I got to work on Josh's favorite cake, which is a simple yellow cake with chocolate frosting. After my recent venture into cake baking for Sam's birthday, I decided I could make my own frosting, which turned out pretty darn tasty. Well, a simple cake won't do as far as Jack's concerned. He's four, so the question for weeks was, "Daddy, what kind of cake are you going to have?" Last year, we made him a cake with the General Lee on it. Lately, Josh and Jack have enjoyed watching Star Wars together so I decided on a Star Wars cake.

I picked out a couple of toys to decorate the cake, that would then be re-purposed as toys afterwards...genius, right? I told Jack which characters I had found to grace the cake, but that we were going to keep it a secret. About 5 minutes after I told him, he said, "Daddy, how would you like a Star Wars party?" Josh said, "That would be great. Was it supposed to be a secret?" Jack said, "Well, I'm not telling you WHO is on the cake!"

We were glad to have Josh's mom and dad join us Friday night to celebrate. Everyone enjoyed the cake, and Jack enjoyed helping blow out the candles and open presents.

On Saturday, we met up with my parents and brother and sister-in-law and Josh's sister and brother-in-law for dinner in Atlanta. Josh had the idea to eat at Fogo de Chao. A Brazillian steak-house, Fogo is a meat-lover's paradise. Of our party of 12, only two people had ever dined there. So, we were all excited about the experience. The little guys did surprisingly well. Sam is a steak guy, so he was golden. It was great fun celebrating all together and in such a fun place.

One more party post

Can you stand it? One more post about that darn birthday party for a two-year-old!? Just wanted to give a shout out to Pinterest for the great resources.

There was of course the cake!

There was the Nail It activity.

There was the Dig It activity.

 I bought two tubs and plenty of sand, but after some guest estimating I decided to only put out one since there would only be four kids 2 and under. Surely, the big kids wouldn't want to play in the sand? You can see who is crowded around the table.

The Cake

Since it took me weeks to prepare (and psych myself up) for making Sam's cake, it is only fitting the cake should receive its very own blog post. Again, a friend shared this cake with me on Pinterest, and I decided to go for it. When I first saw the cake, I thought it might be a challenge, but really thought it looked cool. Then, I saw the inside of the cake, which is beyond cool. But, also made me rethink my decision to make my child's birthday cake. My child's birthday cake that other people would actually see. I mean I've done cupcakes before. Cupcakes I can handle, but a cake?! I was a little intimidated by the prospect of a from scratch cake...I'm definitely more of a "semi-homemade with Sandra Lee" kind of girl. A friend convinced me I could do it with box cake, so I went for it.

I gathered my ingredients, and borrowed some gel food coloring from a much more experienced birthday cake creator. Day one was mixing, coloring, baking, cooling and leveling the cakes. Since I needed a yellow layer and a black layer, I tinted a yellow mix and a chocolate mix. I finished with four total layers, which I froze overnight on Wednesday.

Thursday morning, while the boys were at preschool, I gathered my supplies. The most important of which was this incredibly handy step-by-step photo tutorial of how to cut the cake, hence the laptop.

 

Then I unwrapped my layers and got to sawing with my bread knife. 

I think this was the most nerve-wracking part because the whole time I'm thinking: "I hope you know what you are doing. This better not be a total fail. I guess there is always the Wal-Mart bakery." When your counter starts to look like this, you might panic a bit.

 And it only gets worse, before it gets better.

But, it does get better, and you start to think: "Maybe I can follow simple instructions. Maybe this cake might actually look like it's supposed to when we cut it open. Maybe I'll bake my children's birthday cake's more often. Hey, wait...let's not get carried away here.

Then, these puppies (four total, I cut & photographed them in pairs) went back into the freezer overnight Thursday. Friday evening I pulled them out and covered them with a yummy chocolate buttercream I whipped up using butter, powdered sugar, cocoa, vanilla & milk. Thankfully by this point my mom was in house to help and was a great assistant on the parts that sort of crumbled or broke. We excavated the first cake and then covered with oreos, and soon moved onto the second cake. I already had some white cake boards, from when we created this beauty. So, I flipped it over to the cardboard side, to match my construction decor, and we were in business.

And what do you know, when we sliced it...it actually looked like it was supposed to. (Although mine didn't stay together as neatly as the original (probably because I used box cake), but overall I was pleased with my attempts. Best of all, the cake tasted fabulous. We barely finished the one cake, so we're still enjoying cake #2. FYI, it goes great with a cold glass of milk.

Dig In!

As I mentioned, the idea started small. It certainly grew from there. As you can see, we had great fun celebrating Sam's second birthday this weekend.

There was cake.

There was coloring.

There were candles.

There were creative kids.

There were really cute kids.

 

There were cones,

 

cones,

 

and more cones!

Birthday Eve

It's one of those that's gotten out of hand...you know what I mean. My child's birthday. It started when I found personalized stationery and gift labels (which I transformed into favor bag labels) dirt cheap after Christmas. The construction theme was born for Sam's 2nd birthday celebration. I mentioned the idea to a friend who had done the same theme for her son's birthday a few months prior. She mentioned she had found this incredible cake after the fact, and she and her mom convinced me I could pull it off. I was not so sure, but I thought it would look incredibly cool at my party Sam's birthday party.

So, for the past couple of weeks I've been consumed with what I always tell myself is going to be a no-big-deal, low-key gathering. I planned out my baking, mixing, building, etc. for the week. Yesterday was spent baking layers and building dirt cups, which were shared with Sam's sweet friends at preschool today.

It's not really too much work, but I do seem to sort of let everything else slide (hence the reason Josh didn't have any clean undershirts last Monday morning) when I'm in party planning mode. And, I know it will be great fun and all will turn out well, but it's not like a two-year-old will notice all the work put into it, right? Oh, well...such is the plight of a preschool party planning mama.

Battle Tested

This weekend was full of lots of fun as the four of us got to spend a great deal of it together. Friday was dinner and a movie, and Saturday included two parties. Of course the hit was the sixth birthday bash for our pal Britton. There was a crew of eager soldiers, and the immediately got ready for battle.

They were eager to conquer the fierce obstacle course.

After their successful completion, they were sporting their hard earned battle helmets and dog tags.

This is a battle tested squad, and they had such a wonderful time. Thanks, Brit! Hope you had a wonderful sixth birthday, buddy!

p.s. Sam was a fan of the cake pops, too!

More Four

On Jack's actual birthday, I asked him to pick his favorite meal that mommy makes for his special birthday dinner. He chose "chicken & crackers," which is also known as Poppyseed Chicken casserole. He chose apples as a side dish. Please tell me he'll always be this easy to please.

Also, he requested this candle special. "Can I have a candle that is a 4, Mommy?" I guess it was too much work blowing out four separate candles at his party the day before.

We squeezed one more celebration in the next day at preschool, when Jack shared cupcakes with his fellow Busy Bees. Ringing in the big number four has been so much fun. Jack's two best buddies Andrew & Hudson seemed to enjoy the cupcakes too!