Cayden's 5th birthday...Superhero style

 

 

Last weekend was Cayden's 5th birthday...sigh!!! His first "friend" birthday...sigh!!!He was so excited for his birthday! And I was totally devestated that he is now a whole hand old!

 His "real" birthday was on Tuesday, November 6th, but Cody was not home from working out of town so we did not celebrate until that Saturday. He woke up on Saturday and informed me that his real birthday was today. LOL. I guess you don't officially have a birthday unless you have friends and presents.

The party was only 1.5 hours, but totally long enough for a bunch of 5 & 6 year boys. I was really hoping for a nice warm day and getting a bounce house. Then I was really hoping for even a 50 degree day and a bounce house. Still no such luck, so I scrambled for in- house things to do with the boys.

I found out that it does not take much for boys to get excited about anything!

When they first got to the house each of them got their very own superhero cape with their own initial on it (thanks to my wonderful mom who can sew like nobody else!) and then they decorated their own superhero cuffs (made out of toilet paper rolls).

Once they were equipped with their superhero get ups they were ready to fight off the bad guys! We went out into the garage and sprayed the bad guys with silly string. They LOVED it! I love the expressions on everybody faces. They were so excited (note to self...by tons of silly string for any party)!


















Once the bad guys were defeated we were ready for some pinata fun! Yes, I made the pinata and it is not one to brag about, but I did it in a few days time and the kids still had a great time batting that thing open!

 

 

 

Once all the candy was collected, we went back inside to open presents and have cake and ice cream.

Cayden had a great time and I think 4 other little boys did too!

Cailey's 6th birthday...Candyland Style

This years birthday day theme....Candyland.  Let me just tell you that I love throwing theme parties. I especially love throwing these parties for little girls. Face it, girls get into parties way more than boys do!

Cailey loves to play candyland and what kids does not like oobers and goober of CANDY???What a day we had planned out!

We first hand delivered the giant lollipop invites to 10 very special little girls....

Then the planning started!

I knew I wanted to have a life size game board (Now this party could have gotten really expensive or stayed very easy. I chose to stay on the cheaper, easier side). For each character spot the girls had to do an activity.  We had 10 girls and divided them up into two groups with one large dice. A little easier to manage.

One stop was the candy necklace making station. Each girl got to make there very own candy necklace to wear eat during the party.

Another stop was an ice cream cone game. Each girl had to race against each other to stack as many ice cream scoops possible before the time ran out.

Next stop, decorate sugar cookies with some yummy pink frosting and fun pink sprinkles.

Last stop was the pinata, but all the girls had to wait until everybody made it through the game board.

Of course you can't have a birthday party without presents (and one little brother who can't stand not being away from all the excitement)!

And a candyland birthday cake.  A few girls did not want any cake until they saw the surprise inside...

cake idea found on pinterest

I had my wonderful mom, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and niece there to help at all the stations so I was free to roam and take pictures.

I had a super fun time planning this party and I do believe all the little girls (and one brother) had a super fun time!

Cailey is turning 6

My sweet baby girl will be 6 tomorrow. SIX YEARS OLD! How did that happen. It just seems like yesterday I was a new mom and totally psycho about everything and anything that had to deal with her. I would lug around a huge diaper bag which had had every necessity to man kind and soaked up every little noise or whipper she made.

Then Cayden came around and we were all thrown into a mass chaotic world! Time never seemed to slow down afterwards. If he was sleeping I was trying to play with Cailey. If she was sleeping then we were all hopefully sleeping too!

Preschool started before I knew it and she was all of sudden this little girl that is learning stuff from somebody else and making friends that I had no influence over.

Preschool ends in two short years and now she is in kindergarten. KINDERGARTEN = big school. The school mommy teaches at, the school where 5th graders go to! Yikes. Now she is learning stuff from another new teacher and 500 other students. Making new friends, which once again, I have no influence over.

She is doing great. I am so proud of her everyday. I am excited for all the little accomplishments she is making. Counting to 100, creating a science experiment, clogging and performing in front of a crowd, girl scouts, swimming (actually holding her breath and swimming), earning blue ribbons at the fair, and many other little things.

She is very excited for turning 6...she has 2 loose teeth! Which is very scary and exciting for her. She will get to start 1st grade next year and be able to stay all day at school and ride the bus home every afternoon! Along with staying at school all day she will get to eat lunch in the lunchroom!

For me, turning 6 is just one more step growing up away from me :( I know is still have some time left, but I just hate every year that goes by. I miss shopping the toddler section and all the little things that go along with a little girl.

Happy Birthday baby girl....I love you!!!!

Now onto planning a Candyland birthday, with tons of colors and candy. Going to be a super fun special day! 

Elf on the Shelf

I have been waiting and waiting to get the elf on the shelf, for a couple of reasons...
1. The cost...$30.00 just seems high for a freaking looking elf and a book.
2. Cailey and Cayden's age.

However, this year was the year! I wrapped up the book the night before and placed it by the front door and forgot about it. The next morning, as I was brushing my teeth, Cailey came running into my bathroom with the package and said it had hers and Cayden's name on it. I looked more closely at the package and told her that I thought it was Santa's signature. Instant insanity!!!

The kids tore open the package and were shocked to see the box! Cailey thought it was a stuffed animal! ha! We read the book and had to come up with a name for Mr. Elf instantly...Cayden wanted to name him Blue (the name of our horse) and Cailey came up with Blink (perfect Elf name if I don't say so myself!) Cayden agreed and so it was done. So we placed Blink, still in the box, (because we cannot touch him or he will loose his magical powers) onto the window seal for the day. Every so often I would catch Cailey going into the living room and chatting with the Blink.

Last night was our first night having Blink stay in the house. Cailey went to bed that night and called me into her room 3 times for me to check to see if Blink had left yet or not. So innocent! After the kids fell asleep I decorated Cailey's little tree that goes into her room, put the tree in her room and placed Blink near the tree. She is for sure that Blink decorated the tree (which she added was a lot of work for such a little elf!). Tonight, I am going to decorate Cayden's tree and put it into his room (he does not even know I got him a tree!) and place Blink somewhere near it!

Like I said, I think this little elf is a little freaky! I kind of get freaked out when I look at him. Cailey loves it, but I think she is kind of scared of him too (who wouldn't be!), but wants to love him! Cayden....he is just not sure yet!

I look forward to many more days of hiding him around the house. I have found some really cute ideas on pinterest that I will probably do. I am also using him, whenever there is a fight going on I tell the kids Blink is listening to them and that he might have already left to go tell Santa! They instantly stop fighting and go check on Blink! Hey a mom has got to do what a moms got to do!!!!

Cayden's 4th birthday...Cars theme

We just celebrated Cayden's 4th birthday...Disney's Car theme.

Cayden loves to watch CARS and decided very early on that he wanted a CARS birthday. CARS is a very easy theme to go with! One could go very extravagant or very simple. I would like to say we went somewhere in between. The problem is, boys just don't get into parties like little girls! I even bought a game for the kids to play and did not even bring it out! Oh well, I will tuck it away for some rainy day.
I am going to leave the rest of the post with less words and more pics!

just a few videos

At the beginning of the month we went to Blackfoot to see the family. We also went to the fair and horse races while we were down there. The races are fun, but the Indian Relay Races are thrilling! I love to watch them because they are totally crazy. Well, I guess the kids fell in love with them as well because when we got home this is all Cayden does....

Cailey is still loving the dance games on the Wii and does this a  lot...

Back to School

Yes, we have been in school for a month now...CRAZY how time flies by. September is always such a busy month for us. I have to get back into the swing of things and now Cailey and Cayden both have to get into swing of things too!

Cailey is in kindergarten...KINDERGARTEN!!! How did that happen? She was very nervous for her first day, but very excited. However, the nerves took over and she did not want to go once she got there! My mom had to bring her down to the school (not only was it her first day of school, but it was also my first day back to school with 33 3rd graders). I was able to take an hour and go to her orientation and that is when tears started for her and a little for me (I had to hold it together, all the other moms were!). The kinders got to go out for recess while the moms and dads stayed inside to learn what their children were expected to do/learn (which by the way, scares the pee out of me!). Cailey did not want to leave my side and cried and cried. It was very hard for the both of us. However, once I got her fingers off of my legs she was fine! Everyday since then she has been fine!

NO smiles for her on her first day :(

Who could of ever guessed that us three girls (me, Leandra, and Kelly) that grew up together would all have daughters going into kindergarten together? I love this picture!

End of her first day and she is all smiles

I take the same picture every year by this tree.

Cayden is in preschool. He was totally not ready to go, but we sure were! Cody had to take the morning off and take him because I knew it would take longer than a half hour to take him and I could not ask for longer off than that off AND I knew there was going to be a fit and tears! So Cody took Cayden to his first day of school. We did not get any pictures because that just was not going to happen! Cayden told us all summer he was not going to go and that was it, ha!!! We had other plans for him! He cried and cried,  in fact, he was the only student crying and it made Cody feel pretty lousy (which I am glad he had to go threw it with him, because I am always the one that has to deal with it)! Cody finally had to leave and the teacher had to hold him. He threw up a little and then was fine (why my kids?) On the second day, Aunt Tawnya took him and he gave her the long eyes, but he made it through it and I am so  proud of him for doing it. He is loving school now and has made one friend he talks about; however, he does not know his name other than it is the boy with the blue jacket.