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!

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!

Not in my 20's anymore....

It is hard for me to believe that I am not in my twenties anymore...Not sure if I should feel any different because I don't. It really does not seem like a big deal. I am very content with my life right now. I have a wonderful husband that works his butt off to provide for me and the kids (and his hobbies!), two wonderful (most of the time) and healthy kids, a beautiful house, two dogs, a cat, and a perfect job! All I am missing is a little picket fence! ha! But seriously, I dont' know what else I really want out of life! Yes, of course being debt free and not having any care in the world about money, but that is not realistic for my age!

For now I am okay turning 30. My life right now is EASY manageable!!! The kids are not as demanding as they were a couple of years ago. I am beginning to get sleep again! This is HUGE!!! A friend of mine once told me that I would really enjoy my early thirties because my kids will be old enough to sleep throughout the night, get up in the mornings and watch Saturday cartoons while I slept in and that they would not be old enough to stay up hours into the night and me staying up all hours of the night wondering what they are doing! I think she knew what she was talking about!

Last weekend we had a birthday bbq with my friends and family. It was great! An 18ft. water slide for the adults and for some daring kids and a bounce house for the not so daring kids! It was so much fun celebrating with my friends and their kids.

When the bounce house showed up and the kids sat on the patio waiting anxiously, the guy asked the kids if there was a birthday and they shook their heads and he asked whose birthday and they giggled and looked at me and I rose my hand and said mine! He laughed, but I am okay with that! This is where I am at with my life and so are my friends...with small kids. I really don't think there was any better way of celebrating...

Here are a few things I want to accomplish before I turn 40 (Oh my...Cailey will be 15 years old and Cayden 13...I don't like to think ten years from now...excuse me while I go have a good cry!)

1. Get back into a little better shape
2. Go somewhere on a vacation, without kids and outside of Idaho!!!!
3. Take the kids to Disney World Land....let' s be practical....CA is probably a little cheapier than Florida!

Okay as of now, I can only think of 3...Like I said, I am a very content kind of person!

So here is to being 30!!! It has started off being great :)

The super water slide

My water slide partner and best friend (she knows too much about me to be called anything else!)...Becky Brown 

My dear friend, Amber . No matter how much time goes by Amber and I can start right where we left off!  

Athena's mommy, Jill. Super fun friend to be around and my sunbathing buddy at the Emmett City Pool.

The bounce house for the kids

My little dare devil...I love this little girl!!!

Hello Kitty part 2

So we had the little girl party in the afternoon and then the family party that evening. 

Cailey and her Aunt Alisha

We had a potato bar...cheap and easy, my two favorite words!!!

Cailey got totally spoiled all day long.

Her hello kitty stash

She was so excited for the grand finale...

A HELLO KITTY big girl bike....

(She was playing dress up all night and then put on her jammies...The overbearing mom from two years ago would have insisted on her putting on some really clothes, but the now more practical mom (ha!) really did not care at this point!

I love how she gets to celebrate her party at school. I always had a summer birthday and never got to wear a cool birthday hat like this!

Hello Kitty Birthday Party

This year for Cailey's 5th birthday we had a Hello Kitty themed party...Cailey chose the theme and away I went with it!

I worked on the party planning for a good three weeks on and off. I tried to include Cailey as much as possible.

Ready for the details??? (beware...tons of pictures)

I started off with making the Invitations...Hello Kitty heads of course. Inside of the invites I had "Come for Cake..Come to Play...Come and Celebrate...Cailey's 5th birthday. I wanted to attach a Hello Kitty bow (over the paper bow) for all the girls to wear to the party. But I came to my last nerve senses and realized that I was not made to be a bow maker!

We hand delivered all the invites. Cailey was very excited to give them out.

Throughout the weeks I made different games for the kids to play...

Musical Hello Kitty's

Pin the bow flower on Hello Kitty

When the girls all arrived to the house they found a cardboard hanger with a pink dress to be bedazzled. Boy did they bedazzle them! (My mom is such a wonderful mom. She sewed all the dresses for these Kitty's. She went way over and beyond my great idea!!!)

When they finished bedazzling the dresses, my sister-in-law painted noses and whiskers onto all the girls.

While the dresses dried, we played the two games.

After the games, we opened up presents...I love how Cayden (my son) could not resist hanging out with the girls and getting excited over some of the gifts that Cailey got. One day he is going to die of embarrassment!

Onto free time and then some cake and ice cream..

Before the girls went home they got to dress their very own Hello Kitty...Once again, courtesy of my wonderful mom! I cut the kitty's and she sewed them all up for me...what would I ever do without her? and dig into the pink candy jars for some yummy candy to take home with them.

It was a fabulous party. Many memories were made....Can I go back and be a little girl again?????