happy birthday daddy

This was by far the easiest photo shoot I've done for Dan's birthday in the last 6 years.  We sure do love that guy!

Eric's family party

We celebrated Eric's birthday with our extended family a few days after his birthday.  They joined us for dinner, gift opening and cake.

Sylvia did some videotaping at the party :)

We enjoyed the leftover robot cake.  Sylvia and Eric each ate most of one of the robots feet.  They were very big pieces of cake.

Before heading to bed, Eric tried out his new batman pajamas from Bill & Becky.

Eric's Robot Party

Eric celebrated his 4th birthday with a robot themed party.  I had little bit of trouble settling on a theme because he's not really into one specific thing.  Then I realized that he loves our roomba vacuum.  I decided to translate that into robots rather than having a roomba themed party.

The kids colored and created things out of foil before building robots on the wall with their team.

When our robots were complete, we headed downstairs to pick up lots and lots of balls with our robot arms.

Hayden, Macy, Ryan, Tony, Drake, Eric, Maya, Sylvia

I peeked around pinterest and settled on this cake.  It was so much fun to make and Eric loved it.

Eric enjoyed opening his presents.  He has such a good group of friends.

Friday Fun (3/7/2014)

I took the kids to HyVee for Friday fun day.  Eric picked out his free birthday cupcakes and a HyVee employee also gave the kids free cookies (that we saved for later).  Drake slept through the cupcake eating so he got to have a cookie while we did our grocery shopping.

Eric's Birthday Share Day

Erickson enjoyed getting ready to celebrate his birthday at preschool.  He put the sprinkles on the popcorn after I coated it with almond bark.

Eric's birthday share day was also Red, White and Blue day preschool.

Eric had a little trouble deciding what to take for share time.  He finally decided on the Wedgits after we talked about what toys he likes to play with at home.  He also took along his new "robot arm" that we bought for his birthday party.

Drake's Airplane Party

When he turned two, Drake knew the names of two other kids (Malcom and Leah) so that's who we invited to his party.  Only one family was able to join us but we had a great time.  Drake is into airplanes so we took a few airplane pictures and then had cupcakes with marshmallow "clouds" on them.  It wasn't much but it was fun to celebrate our big guy.  I can't believe he is already 2.

Drake's 2nd Birthday

Drake William turned 2 on December 9th.  We celebrated his birthday with cousin Katie at Bill and Becky's house.  I enjoyed making cakes for the birthday boy and girl.

Nana and Papa gave Drake a new drum which all of the kids enjoy.  He got a fire truck from Grandma and Grandpa.  Drake also got new paints from Ginny and Stephen, a new outfit from Bill and Becky, $2 from Great Nana and the book, On the Day You Were Born from Mike and Joyce.

Sylvia's Birthday Present

One benefit of having your birthday near Thanksgiving is you sometimes have the day off from school.  Sylvia and I headed out for a birthday date on the 27th.  We got a free cupcake at Barnes and Noble, got our picture taken in a photo booth and most importantly, got her ears pierced at Claire's.  She's been asking for this throughout the year so I was excited to take her for her birthday present.  Sylvia looked through all the earring choices and picked the gold crosses "because of Jesus" she said.  She was brave and a little nervous but her new stuffed friend, Pip Squeak, helped.

Celebrating Sylvia at School

Sylvia's class has a guest reader each Monday.  So, I headed in a couple of days before her birthday to read to the class and celebrate her birthday.  I had the boys with me which complicated the reading aloud part a bit, but Ms. Jensen stepped in to help.  We continued Sylvia's birthday theme with with mini cupcakes and carnival toppers.

Sylvia's Carnival Party

Sylvia knew long before her birthday that she wanted a carnival party so I got to work planning.  Thanks to Oriental Trading Company's previous VBS themes I was able to get a lot of inexpensive decorations.  The kids colored bookmarks and completed sticker pages while I did some very simple face painting.  Then we headed downstairs for carnival games.  We played basket toss, duck pond, sucker pull, frog hopper, can can and ring toss.  Each friend got a bag filled with tokens for playing the games and won tickets as they played.  When our tokens were gone, we headed upstairs to the carnival store.  I think everybody had a fun time all around.  Snacks and cake followed the games and then Sylvia opened her presents.  We're so thankful for such good friends in her life.  We tried to limit our guest list to 6 kids but it was too hard to do.  After opening gifts, Sylvia wanted her friends to share a talent if they wanted.  She chose to do a headstand.  We finished the party off with balloon animals (made ahead of time).  One of my new talents as a mommy.

sucker pull and frog hop

duck pond and basket toss

friends on the stairs is becoming a tradition

I so enjoy our kiddos birthday parties

yummy popcorn, licorice, grapes and cake

happy 6th birthday Sylvia

Sylvia's special talent

passing out balloon animals and saying goodbye

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Eric's Maisy Birthday

One of Eric's favorite TV shows is Maisy.  According to the QUBO (the channel Maisy is on), "Maisy is a cute little mouse that lives in a cute little house."

We did some coloring of Maisy and all of her friends and then watched Maisy's birthday episode.

On Maisy's birthday, her friends enjoy some sandwiches and potato chips.

The kids played a freeze game, played with a parachute and painted.  It got a little crazy with the paint but the kids had fun.  Plus, Maisy paints on each of her shows so we had to do some painting.  You can see all the hard work Eric and Sylvia did to decorate for the party.

I decorated Eric's birthday cake to look as much like Maisy's as possible.  He counted his candles after blowing them out.

Maya watched intently as Eric opened the doll camping set she picked out for him.

Saying "thank you" to Macy for the big truck and cars.

Eric giving Hayden a high five to say thank you for the new markers, play doh, sidewalk chalk and paper.

On Maisy's birthday, her friends give her a watch, a trumpet and some crayons so that's what we put in our party gift bags.  I wasn't able to find little trumpets so these party blowers had to do.

Happy 3rd Birthday Erickson!