Corbin's Construction Party

Because I love to do parties, and birthdays are such a fun event, I told the kids they could have a big friends party every four years.  Truth be told, it started with Audrey when she turned four and I went all out.  I was exhausted and decided I couldn't do that every year for every child.  I decided to make them momentous events...Age 4 or 5, 8, 12, and 16.  Now if you asked the kids, they would be happy going to Chuck E. Cheese EVERY YEAR!!!  So I figure the party deal is a win-win. I can only handle so much of the mouse.

I didn't even go all out...we bought the invitations and did minimal effort on the decor.  (Ah-hah, I am learning to simplify!)  We even combined parties with his friend across the street, Will Heaps.  They were both turning 5 and have birthdays 5 days apart with practically the same friends.  We opted for a Construction Theme.

For the intro activity as everyone arrived, we had them decorate their yellow hard hats and tool belts (little nail Aprons from Home Depot.)  They each got their own construction pencil and then went to work in the construction zone (set-up and mess was in the garage.)  At Home Depot I had them cut a bunch of scrap pieces of wood, bought some glue, sandpaper, and had some twine, tools, tape measures, popsicle sticks, and pen paints.  The dads supervised any hammering with nails.  Apparently Will loves to build on a daily basis and has his own stockpile of wood and his very own bottle of glue.  That's where I got the idea for the construction zone.  The boys loved creating and building masterpieces and it took 45 minutes!  They would have gone longer had we not convinced them to play games.

My friend Diane (Will's Mom) had creatively come up with some construction games...toss the bean bag in the back of the dump truck (self-explanatory), Wrecking Ball (Stack a bunch of boxes and number them, hang a tennis ball over the banister and let the kids try and knock the boxes down in order), and then Construction Bingo that she made on the computer.  We also bought a game - Pin the stop sign on the Construction Zone.  :)  Other fun ones that we had in our back pockets as time fillers...Dump Truck Relay (Race filling up dump truck with rocks or dirt and running across yard and dumping them in a bucket, and Tower Building (who can build the highest tower with blocks.)

We fed the kids lunch and then sang Happy Birthday and served Dirt Cupcakes with these cute hard-hat picks. I found a great party website...way better prices than Oriental Trading and fast shipping! (birthdaydirect.com)  For cupcakes we used Girl Scout Thin Mints (it is that season you know) and crushed them to sprinkle on top.  We gave out cute construction sign goodie bags with random treats and truck stickers.  Plus they got to take home their hats, belts, and wood creations!  

Corbin had a good time.  Yeah!!!  And so did I.  Wasn't too hard or expensive. Of course, it was nice that some parents stayed and helped, and the party was at Will's house - that definitely cuts down the energy expenditure on my part!  Now it's time to think of Audrey's #8 coming up this summer.  Yikes, are we already there?

Drew's 2nd Birthday

Drew is finally 2-years old!  I say "finally" because he's been acting like a 2-year old for six months now.  We had a family party with Thomas the Train.  He loved the "Choo-Choo Happy" cake - completely sugar-free I might add.  (Sugar-Free Sidenote - For the last 12 months he has had molescum and I'm tired of dealing with it.  It is a toddler virus that is contagious through contact - I think.  All I know is I didn't let Corbin and Drew bathe together for the first year of Drew's life because Corbin had it at the time.  (He got it from Audrey when she was about 4 1/2 and he was 2.  Corbin just barely grew out of it.)  Well, I don't want the new baby to have it so we have tried to figure out why Drew has it.  The latest theory aside from being susceptible because he has eczema, is that it is a food allergy.  His "allergic" reaction happens to be to SUGAR!!!  Shoot me now.  Do you know how limited your diet is if you take away sugar, fruit, fruit juice, honey, pure maple syrup, and limit your carbohydrates.  FOR A TWO-YEAR OLD nonetheless.  But, in my best efforts I have found recipes that accommodate his diet.)  I was pretty proud of the cake considering the strawberry sauce (berries have minimal sugar) was leaking out the sides when I tried to frost the flat cake with BLUE  lemon cream-cheese frosting.  And then I pulled apart a Thomas the Train set and used it as decor.  :)  Way easier than trying to create a cake and find stuff to decorate with that is sugar free.

Anyway, we had pizza, which is Drew's new favorite, and sang happy birthday.  He loved re-lighting the candles to blow them out again and again.  Each time he got a little better.  The first go he probably spit on that cake 10 times before he had any results!  Drew loved his new tricycle. Now we'll work on pedaling!

In all the pictures, Drew is wearing pretend safety eye-goggles. He found them a day or two ago and loves to wear them around. It's hilarious, but makes for a good looking party hat! Now Corbin on the other hand needs a party hat. A week ago his hair was "bugging" him so he cut it. Very proudly, he came and showed me his new do in which he said he was very careful to use hair scissors. Haha...we had a talk about who is allowed to cut his hair.

We also sang Happy Birthday to Corbin and let him open his presents since Brandon will be gone fishing on his Birthday. For months Brandon has been telling me he needs a hobby to share with Corbin. SOOOOOOO, welcome to the world of dirt-bikes. Corbin got his very own motorcycle.

At the "nudging" of friends and family, I'm making another attempt at this blogging world.  I've been keeping up on Facebook a little too much, so why not divide my time.  :)  Here are some pictures of the family we took for Christmas cards last November - that is, if I can figure out how to post pictures.

Baby Blogger

Apparently the blogger bug has finally bit.  I have not done such a hot job to keep up on my journaling and more than that, my pictures, so why not give this outlet a try?  Besides, I like to read everyone else's.  I don't even have to limit my time I spend in front of the computer screen,  my kids do that for me.  :)  Anyway, maybe in the next couple days I will figure out how to create something that is more my style, post pictures, and figure out layout.  Until then...consider this my start.  Hope the address is easy enough.  If I did Brandonanddixie, there were double D's and I wanted to avoid confusion.  dixieandbrandon splits it up I guess.