Angry Bird Birthday

 

Owen is very into Angry Birds right now, he LOVES them.  So on his birthday we had a family party and then we had a friend party for him and they were both all Angry Birds.  I didn't do much, but he was excited and enthusiastically thanked me for the best birthday ever! What a sweetheart!

This was the family party we had, we invited our really good friends that have 4 boys over and the missionaries happened by :)!

 

Then we had a little party with 4 of Owen's friends.  Brooke took it upon herself to make the invitations and I thought they were awesome! 

 

 

 

We had a big angry bird game set up in the garage.

 

Then I let the boys play with all of our different Angry Bird toys, then we had Angry Bird pizza, opened presents and had cupcakes and were done.  It was really a fun party!

The Angry Bird stuff was really fun to do, because there are so many ideas on line and Owen is so in to it that he was so excited about everything. 

Brooke's Birthday Stuff / Things I'd Been Wanting To Try

So for Brooke's birthday this year I decided to take the opportunity to try a few things I'd been wanting to do out.  Luckily Brooke was a pretty good sport about it.

Tie-Dye Cupcakes

We made tie-dye cupcakes to take to school.  They were super easy and fun to make together.  Although I always tend to get a little heavy handed with the food coloring on things like that and the colors looked a little dull when they were baked.  I forgot to take a picture of them at the end, but they were cute- we just did white frosting with sprinkles.

Fondant

I've been wanting to try fondant forever, but it made me nervous and seemed like a big deal.  Brooke picked out a cherry cake from the May issue of Better Homes and Gardens that also had a recipe for a candy clay.  So while I techniquely didn't use fondant I think the candy clay was close.  I decided not to frost the whole cake in the candy clay/fondant because the buttercream was so delicious.  So I just made the flowers and swirls out of it, it was super easy to work with and kind of fun to try something new.  Also don't mind the finger swipes through the cake, I apparently have no control whatsoever over my son.

Brooke loves her new scooter!

Did I mention my little girl is a bookworm.  We had to wait for her to finish her book, so that we could blow out candles and eat cake.

We didn't have a party this year which I thought I might miss, but which I must say was so wonderful.  But we did let Brooke invite two friends over for a little playdate.  They had a lot of fun and Brooke really didn't seem to mind the lack of party.

I'd been wanting to make a fruit bouquet for a while and figured that would be a perfect snack for my little girl that LOVES fruit.  It was really fun and easy to make and Brooke thought it was super fancy! So that was our birthday celebrations, I really like having a reason to try some of the cool ideas out there!

Happy Birthday Brooke!

Happy Birthday Sweetie!


Brooke is such a sweet girl.  I love that her birthday is so close to Mother's Day, because I think it helps me to treasure this sweet little girl that made me a mom, a little bit more.  I am just so grateful I get to be her mom.  Here are a few things I love about her.

1.  She is thoughtful.  She is always thinking about nice things that she can do for people.  For mother's day she gave me a stack of pictures about 3 in. thick that she'd been working on for weeks.

2.  She loves to read. I often find her up, long after bedtime snuggled in her blankets reading.

3.  She is creative.  She is always thinking up new games or writing stories or working on some project or another.

4.  She is funny.  She has a great sense of humor, and she even tolerates her dad's incessant teasing pretty well.

5.  She is a great big sister.  The other night she asked Owen if he wanted her to read stories and tuck him in and he said yes so she went and put him to bed for us.

6.  She is pretty easy going.  For the most part this little girl can deal with things when they don't go her way and still be the happy girl she usually is.

I love you Brookie! Thanks for making me a momma!

Stuff

Here are some things we've been up to. 

In January, we had a snow day.  Which in Tennessee means there was a heavy dusting and school was canceled. 

Reid had a birthday.  Brooke wanted to make a candygram poster for him.  She was pretty creative at figuring out what to say with the candy bars, it was fun!

We've been going hiking a lot.  Reid has taken the kids a few times when I've been especially tired and/or grouchy.  But we've gone all together a few times lately and it is so much fun to get outside and do something together.  One time Brooke was ahead of us and she found this tree and hid in it to surprise us.

For Valentine's Day breakfast we had pancake puffs with berries and whipped cream, if you can't tell Owen really enjoyed his.



 I found these pictures, and I couldn't help but put them on here.  We told the kids I was pregnant on Christmas Eve and these are some pictures Reid took of me telling them.  They were both so excited, it was so special.

Happy Birthday Owen!

We had a birthday/ new year's eve party.  It was pretty fun.  We played some crazy games. 

Like Cheetoh Face.

And cookie face race.

We had some Spiderman cake.

 Hung out with friends.

We sure had fun.  We sure do love that boy and just love celebrating with him!

Brooke is 5!

My little girl is 5! I love that girl so much and I am so grateful to have in her in my life. Here are some things about Brookie!

Favorite color: Light blue
Favorite book: Magic Tree House Books
Favorite movie: Tangled
Favorite Food: Maccarroni and cheese with peas
Favorite treat: Chocolate Peppermint marshmallow cookies
Favorite thing to do: Read and play video games
What do you want to do when you grow up: An author, a swimmer, and a mom

Bookworm Birthday Party

I know you're wondering what in the world a bookworm birthday party is. We're nerdy, what can we say? We saw some book party ideas in the family fun magazine and decided to try it out. Brooke was really excited about it and it seemed fitting for our little bookworm so this is what we did:

Invites
I printed off the invites and library cards from familyfun.com. Super Easy!

Book Bags

I bought the plain book bags from Hobby Lobby and then had the kids decorate them with Sharpies.

Library



I gave each child their own library card. Each time they checked out a book their card would be stamped by the librarian. When they had 5 stamps they received a special prize. They loved taking turns as the librarians and looking through all of the books we had.

Hide the Book
We just played hot and cold with a small board book.

Bookworm Cake





Pinata


The plan was just to make a book looking pinata from a cereal box, but then I asked Brooke what book she wanted the pinata to be (I don't know why I did that). So I ended up drawing a picture of the cover of the 1st Magic Tree House book, Dinosaurs Before Dark. It was kind of a sad artistic attempt, but when I was drawing it, Brooke leaned over to me and said "Wow mom you should be an artist". So that made me less embarrased over my lack of art skills and they were just hitting it to smitherines anyways so I guess it didn't need to be amazing!
I think all the kids had a great time. Brooke for sure loved it and with all the reading it was one of the quietest 5th birthday parties I've ever been to, which is an endorsement from me :).