Five years ago today, I became a mom. Five years ago today, our firstborn and Bennett's brother, Oliver, came into the world. So, today, we celebrated. "Say 'Five!'" Oliver is crazy about tornadoes...and has been for almost two years now. We own about every tornado toy or tornado book that exists. And Oliver is adamant that he wants to be a stormchaser and move to Oklahoma when he grows up (he believes tornadoes are constantly roaming the state of Oklahoma). So, it just makes sense that Oliver would choose a tornado theme for his fifth birthday. The invitation. I found this image on the internet. Believe me, there are no tornado invitations out there. Ok, there is one. But I thought this was cuter. :) The table. We hung white pom-poms from the chandelier with little blue rain drops hanging from them. On the window, we hung different blue-shaded rain drops coming down like rain, with tiny lightening rods sprinkled throughout. It was hard to come up with different types of tornado-related foods. But we found a few... The cake, tornado and destruction, a gift from a friend. Isn't this just the cutest tornado cake!? It was made by our friend Joy, who has made many of the boys birthday cakes over the last few years (see here and here). I love how Joy took the side of the house off and covered it with dirt and debris. Super creative. I wish I had a picture of Oliver with the tornado. I do but it's backlit and washed out. But he LOVED his birthday cake. It was so exciting to him. When it was cake-time, he was insistent that he wanted to eat the tornado, not the house. Oliver's favorite part was his name rotated on top of the tornado. Getting ready to sing 'Happy Birthday'... We gave the kids "rain water" (blue kool-aid) to drink. What better than to drink out of tornado glasses (plastic martini glasses)? The great thing is Bugels they make awesome "baby tornadoes". Chocolate "baby tornadoes" are delicious!! And don't look for Bugels at your local supermarket. I could find them only at the gas station, interesting, eh? Cotton candy "storm clouds." All of the guests to this year's party were four and five year olds. So, our activities were age appropriate. The first we did was the activity was making a tornado out of 2 liter bottles and a plastic tube properly called a "tornado tube." I was too busy with litte hands who needed help to get pictures of our finished products but here is what one looks like when you're done. Each child was given a tornado tube as a party favor (I found a great bulk price here). The other activity that we did was we played a game of "tornado tag" (aka a version of "tag" where everyone must rotate while playing) and "tornado races" (aka a version of "baseball bat spin race" without the baseball bat) No tornado party could be complete without a large tornado decoration. So, I figured out a way to make a tornado hang from our fan using black paper and black streamers. The coolest thing was it turned out that it actually rotated when we turned the fan on. Oliver LOVED it! He kept telling me, "mom, you did a really good job," which made my heart melt. The best thing is so did the other kids. All of the children sat in awe as we turned the fan from low, to medium to high and pretended it was moving from an F-1 to an F-5 tornado. Here is a video of the tornado after the party was over and before we tore it down. A family picture with our new 5-year-old. Aunt Brooklyn stayed in town to join us for Oliver's birthday. She was SO helpful during the party and with decorating. We love our Aunt Brook and could not have had a successful birthday without her! Aunt Brooklyn gave Oliver a special tornado shirt for his birthday. He was so very proud. Let's be honest, tornado shirts are hard to come by. But, thankfully, this website had a cute one here. Oliver had a fabulous time with his friends at the party. Oliver received several science kits, a weather station and a solar system model thing that lights up and rotates its planets. It was fun to see Oliver's little inquisitive personality come out, even in the gifts he received at this five year birthday party. Along with the tornado tube, our little guests were provided chocolate lollipops in the shape of lightening rods (I couldn't locate anybody who made chocolate lollipops in the shapes of tornadoes). The tags we placed on the chocolate lollipop party favors stated, "Thanks for weathering this storm with me!" Unbelievable. Five. Truly a little boy. And I have no doubt this guy may very well become a storm chaser or meteorologist when he grows up. But, whatever he becomes, I hope he doesn't get there too fast!! These last five years have just flown by. We love you, Ollie-bear!
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Little M&M chose Pokémon for his birthday party theme this year. Although this is not something I am terribly familiar with, I still had a ton of fun putting this party together for him. Take a look at some of our party details below: FOOD Here is our beverage table (the free printable water bottle labels came from here): Our party began at 2pm, so we just served snack foods at the beginning of the party, cake at the end of the party and then ordered pizza for whomever was still around at night. This was a family-only party so that was basically everyone! Here are the foods we served as people arrived: And here are our three homemade cookie cakes. We wanted to use primarily chocolate/vanilla frosting so we only made one Pokéball cake out of pre-packaged, colored frosting. PARTY ACTIVITIES and GAMES We love putting together fun games for our parties! Here is what we did today: GAME #1: This game was for the kids and the adults. We simply placed gummy worms in a jar and asked our guests to guess how many "caterpie" were in the jar. At the end of the party we peeked at the guesses, and the person who guessed the right amount (or came the closest) was able to take the jar home with them! GAME #2: Our first hands-on activity of the day was to design a pokéball. We purchased smooth foam balls from the craft store, and offered crayons for them to use to draw on them. I found a perfect chart on Google with some of the most popular pokéballs to serve as inspiration (though the link is faulty so I cannot credit the original maker of this awesome chart). Some of the kids decorated a specific pokéball from the chart: and others designed their very own: GAME #3: Our next game was a scavenger hunt! I created this pokédex in Photoshop Elements and hid each Pokémon image featured on it around the main level of the house. This was surprisingly a super engaging and well-loved activity! The kids were so excited to run around looking high and low for these Pokémon. Later when asked what his favorite part of the party was, the scavenger hunt was definitely mentioned! GAME #4: One thing I know about Pokémon is that you've "Gotta catch 'em all!" So that was the main idea behind this next game. I purchased red and white bowls from the Dollar Tree, and added one Pokémon image to each, with increasing point values. The kids had to use their own pokéball (which they decorated earlier in the party) to toss into the bowls. After five throws, the person with the highest sum of points was the winner. They stood behind a masking tape line just a few feet away from the first bowl. Each kid threw the ball five times, and I was so pleased that everyone got at least a couple shots into the bowls. Some sharp throwers even "caught" the 100-point MewTwo! GAME #5: I discovered this fun science activity on this website. It was such a great addition to the party! We purchased a bag of miniature Pokémon from Amazon. Using a 2:1 mixture of baking soda and water, we hid them inside little eggs. Then, using pipettes and vinegar, the kids were able to "hatch" some Pokémon eggs! We were lucky in that our bag of assorted Pokémon contained 6 Pikachus! So we were sure to include those (distinguishing them with yellow food coloring dots on the eggs) to ensure each guest could hatch a Pikachu (only my two kids had to share one). We had each of the 7 kids hatch a total of three eggs, and then they could take them home with them! For the kids this was a big hit, but note that the vinegar smell was strong at this moment, and the adults definitely noticed! Perhaps open a window or do this activity outside if you are able! GAME #6: Our final game was a Beedrill Balloon Pop! We always like to have some kind of balloon game at our parties, but I wanted something different than the usual. So we blew up about 50-60 yellow and black balloons, filling some of them with images of Weedles and Kakunas (these are lesser evolved Beedrills). The object of the game was for the kids to pop all the balloons to find the one balloon containing the Mega Beedrill (the highest evolved Beedrill). They had SO much fun doing this. And...if you could believe it...the Mega Beedrill was discovered in the very LAST balloon! PRIZES Obviously the winner of the first game, guessing the number of Caterpies in the jar, received the jar of Caterpies. But for the other games that yielded a winner (Gotta Catch 'Em All and Beedrill Balloon Pop) we gave away these chocolate bar "medals." I quickly printed a little image to put on each of them. PARTY FAVORS I turned white favor bags into pokéballs using construction paper. Inside each was a Pokémon cup (Party City), Pokémon pencils and tattoos (Amazon) and some miniature chocolate bars with Pokémon face labels (free labels from here). Obviously, each guest also brought home their decorated pokéballs and the three figurines they each hatched from eggs. It was a tremendous success, and Little M&M was so happy! WE LOVE THROWING PARTIES! If you enjoyed looking at these party details, please take a look back at some of our other exciting themes: Mary Poppins (Honey Pot's 6th birthday party) The Good Dinosaur (Little M&M's 4th birthday party) Aristocats / Kittens (Honey Pot's 5th birthday party) Cars / Race Cars (Little M&M's 3rd birthday party) Peter Pan (Honey Pot's 4th birthday party)* Paw Patrol /Puppies (Little M&M's 2nd birthday party)* The Little Mermaid (Honey Pot's 3rd birthday party)* Hot Air Balloons (Little M&M's 1st birthday party) Elmo / Sesame Street (Honey Pot's 2nd birthday party) * Some of our most popular posts!
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[ground shaking footfalls] [sudden silence] [sounds of heavy struggle] "Ehhhhh" "HOOOOOOO" "NYAH-HA-HAAA!" Yes, friends, Mr. Stay Puft has climbed the building. Orlando weather has been extra annoying lately, so John and I had to dash out on the only rain-free day out of the last 10 to do a trial run of our Ghostbusters setup. Even then it was still quite windy, so we had a stress-filled two hours of first puffing up Mr. Puft, and then watching him rock back and forth and knock around/over his support structures multiple times. Poor John got a work out scrambling up the ladder every 20 minutes to re-attach a line or drag him back into position. And yet, STAY PUFT SURVIVED! We're honestly shocked. These tissue-thin plastic tablecloths are earning their keep. With all the panic and running around I didn't get as many beauty shots as I'd like, but I did take as many phone photos and videos as I could to show you the transition from daytime to night. We still have a few more things we're going to add for the big night, but it's mostly all here. So c'mon, let me give you the tour! Here's the view from the sidewalk during the day. We used yard stakes and this caution tape to mark a clear path to the front door, since our driveway is too narrow to walk when the car's there. (Which it will be.) That embarrassing dead patch in the middle of our yard should be getting a few plastic bones stuck in soon. I realized while taking these photos that we might as well make it look like an intentional dug-up grave! This walkway will also keep folks clear of the extension cords and lights that they could trip on. Tim the Thestral (aka "Ghost Horse" to fit the GB theme) looks rather magnificent even in broad daylight: Every year I have to patch up his rib cage where the old putty cracked off or through, but his actual bones and head are holding up beautifully well. If I could do it again I'd cover his whole torso with Apoxy Sculpt instead; then he'd be indestructible. Our front door: I love the way our orange door looks with a coating of slime and caution tape! There's a planter under that giant vine bush where I usually set my pumpkin, but it's so overgrown it looks like Stay Puft-kin is just floating in a sea of foliage, ha. Oooh, maybe I should add some giant googly eyes in there! Instead of a wreath I bought this plastic "No Ghost" wall decoration, then taped a strand of LED lights inside it. The plastic is so thin that it glows really well. Here we are at dusk, when all our pretty colored lights are starting to show: This is John with our Slimer photo op the first time we set it up: You can see how we did the proton pack here: it's attached to an adjustable stand, and a steel bar is holding the wand in place. I wrapped the legs of the stand in caution tape, so hopefully folks won't trip getting into position. And here's how it is now, with Stay Puft looming overhead! This is another one of our neighborhood kids, since we again drew curious neighbors while we were setting up. I will say that the pack illusion is more convincing when you put your arm *over* the metal support bar, like this: We're thinking we'll probably end being outside the whole time to help coordinate the photos - and because I'm busy making a cute little throwing game kids can play for an extra prize. (Halloween better get here soon, because I'm just going to keep adding projects to this 'til it does!) Full dark here, when the Thestral Ghost Horse & Dog House really start to shine: We hooked up a fog machine to Zuul's dog house, which of course looks amazing with the colored spots. The fog comes from inside the doghouse, and almost completely obscures the head sometimes. Again, looks super cool. (And that's a flickering green light on it - the same green lights we used to make our Floo Portal at last year's Harry Potter party.) Here's some video of all the lights in action: That last snippet was taken while we were deflating Stay Puft. Gozer vanquished, for at least another night. Oh, and obviously I can't include music for copyright reasons, but we'll be blasting the Ghostbusters soundtracks all night, and I fully expect to perform the On Our Own rap multiple times in my Tully costume. I've been waiting my whole life for this. More majestic Tim photos: I'm so happy his eyes still work! You never know what will happen when you store things in a baking hot shed all year. Stay Puft has a white spotlight AND a flicking orange flame light on him. We kept the flame effect subtle since I still want Puft to look mostly white, but it does show up more than you can tell in photos & video. If I amp up the color you can sort of see how it looks IRL: Also the proton stream on Slimer looks SO GOOD here. We added a battery spot light under the eaves to light Slimer's face, plus there's a ground spot to light the whole scene when someone stands at the pack. We're in the process of deflating Stay Puft in that picture, so here's one last look at his smirk as he shrinks back into his other dimension: I hope you enjoyed the tour! The only other thing I'm adding is a giant "No Ghost" symbol throwing game, where kids can chuck a marshmallow through the ghost's mouth to win a prize. I'll set that up to the right of the proton pack on the driveway. This is just a sheet of blue insulation foam: we projected the logo for me to trace and paint in. We'll add an easel back and probably tape it to the driveway, since it's so light. It took me 15 tries to throw a marshmallow in his mouth, sooooo yeah. We're gonna make the mouth hole bigger. The prizes will be these tiny little slime putties: ... which I'm hoping to put "Ghost Goo" stickers on. (These are not edible, so I'll be stressing that while handing them to the parents, not the kids.) I got 48 of these little jars for only $15 on Amazon! In addition to all that, there will be at least three of us around in costume. John will be his own Ghostbuster in a faux khaki jumpsuit, I'll be a gender-swapped "Louise Tully", and our friend Karen will be Dana. We've invited all our local friends to come by, too, so if we're extra lucky we may have more fun characters goofing around with us. We'll see. We've been anxiously watching the forecast here, since it looks like this rain is going to continue all week, arg. Cross your finger for us: as of today the forecast says Thursday will be clear, and I REALLY hope it stays that way. Not gonna lie, I'll be pretty devastated if we get rained out. Stay tuned for the full report! ***** UPDATE: Dang, y'all. DANG. Here's the full report, I promise you don't want to miss this! :D
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Seeing as how Logan’s FOURTH birthday party is TODAY, maybe I should go ahead and post about his THIRD birthday party! I actually have a really good reason for taking so long to post. You see, literally seconds after I uploaded all of the party photos, my computer crashed before I had a chance to […]
