SUPERHERO BIRTHDAY

I have to admit, i had a hard time with this years theme...I'm not into superhero's, so planning and creating for something i don't know much about was hard.  I procrastinated more than i usually do. But in the end, this party turned out absolutely fantastic.  The only thing we lacked were costumes for my husband and myself.
So the weather!!!!!  it was perfect.  I may have an ulcer from stressing over it for weeks ahead of time, but in the end it was awesome.
We had the annual bouncy house...this year, a spiderman house.

Next, we had a face painter.....She was the HIT of the party.  THe kids were so excited to have their faces painted as superheros!!!  And they were very patient waiting in line!

I gave out favors at the start of the party.  I made each child a cape, and inside the bag i put their initials, and a superhero symbol with gems and stickers for them to decorate the capes themselves.

We had an obstacle course that we did as well.  It started off with potato sacks

Then they had to 'benchpress' 3x

then run in and out of some cones, hop on some lily pads, and THEN they got to use silly string (to spray a villan taped to a balloon).......once they saw the silly string, most of the obstacles were skipped just heading straight for the string!!!!!

I made a round cake with the bat symbol, and then spiderweb cupcakes.  The kids LOVED the cupcakes. The adults loved the cake. :) 

 

For decorations I made a skyline using boxes of various sizes. Spraypainted black, and painted a white square for windows.  Then we had a large blowup spiderman which i put on the buildings.

 

at the start of the obstacle course we had signs posted for superhero training

 

 

My husband and I were Supa Dad, and Bat mamma

 

It was an awesome day.  My son and his friends all had a blast!

SCOOOOOBY DOOOOBY DOOOO

Its that time of year again where I am trying to think up ideas for my sons birthday.  Last years party turned out so incredible, i'm writing this post for inspiration, as well as submitting it to Tip Junkie so others can get inspired!

My son is obsessed with Scooby Doo.  And honestly, I am too. :)  I brings me back to my childhood...I always watched it...until Scrappy came into the picture!  So when the time came to planning his party, I asked him what kind of party he'd like to have...and Scooby Doo was it.  So here it is.  

The Mystery Machine...My very artistic husband made! Steering wheel and doorbell included. :)

 

Party wouldn't be complete without the scooby doo bouncy house!!!

The favors I used dog bowls that I found at the dollar store and put each kids name on them.  Filled with scooby snacks, paw print lollipops that we made, tattoos, balls, blowers.

 

We all dressed up as the characters from the show...and we were lucy enough to have 2 friends who resembled Velma and Shaggy!!!  It was perfect!

  

and the cake!  I baked a sheet cake and just cut it into the shape of the van...and then used the Scooby colors for tinting the icing.  I thought decorating it woudl be be MUCH harder than it actually was...

This party turned out to be SO much fun!  The Mystery Machine was a huge hit with all the kids because it had doors, seats, a steering wheel...they could drive each other around etc.  Also, the bouncy house is always a big part of all of our parties, bc it gives the kids a place to burn off engery.  Not to mention when you have a crowd of 4 and under, games aren't really something they can do.

I always look forward to planning both his and sadie's parties...This year he is having a superhero party, and i'm already on the hunt for ideas and inspiration.

ooey gooey

Its been haunting me since we left my sister in laws on saturday.
Craig said to me..."you make good cookies, but you need to get Moes recipe"
it was like a knife in my heart!  Are you saying my cookies aren't up to par?  i thought they usually turned out pretty good...hmph....so the hunt began to find a good cookie recipe...and i did.
it was amazing. it was easy. my kids could help. the recipe was small which i loved...and here it is.
Thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies

follow her tips...especially the 'doubling' part. its unnecessary.  Especially after the holidays...you only need to bake 12.  I can't wait to get home and have one...YUM.

Snow day

Some snow fell yesterday..and it was the snowman making kind.  I was being lazy and promised Jackson we could do it tomorrow, and when we woke up to our suprise, even MORE snow. 
So after numerous amounts of coffee, and a little procrastinating, I got the energy up to get the kids dressed to go out. Jackson isn't really tough to get dressed, but the constant "mommy" drives me to the brink sometimes.  Its more my sweet Sadie who makes me not want to even try!  She has a hard time getting dressed in general, so i know getting her dressed for snow would be a nightmare.  With craig out snowblowing everyones driveways i was left to go it alone.  Sadie was now full blown naked, and i was 1/2 dressed and Jackson had everything on, ready to go out.  Now i'm being pulled in 2 different directions.  Which would be worse, letting my 4 year old outside alone or leaving my 2.5 year old alone in the house?!?!?!  I opted with leaving my 2 year old in the house...i can hear the BOO's!!!!!!!!  I know, i'm a horrible mother!  but i just didn't want to deal with that, and Jax was out having a ton of fun calling my name...so i left, and when i came back 30seconds later to peek in the window, Sadie was just sitting on the spare carseat naked, singing to herself.  She really cared!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????  Whose child is this?  So after peeking in on her for about 15min, she finally came to the door and said she was ready to get dressed.
So now i had to leave Jax outside while i now walked inside to get her dressed, trying my hardest not to get my floors soaked...They wound up soaked.
Now she is finally dressed.  We go outside and Jax is all pumped ot make a snowman.  O.M.G.  The new snow?  yeah, it was of the fluffy variety.  I coudln't even make a golfball sized snowball with it. I felt horrible with all the promising of making one "tomorrow".  Ah well..so we made do, and Jax was totally satisfied with what i came up with. 


but sadie, not so much.

Then I asked craig if we coudl take them sledding since we were already dressed and outside.  And in true lazy man fashion, he said "its not a good sledding day, because its fresh snow".  I don't know about you, but this was the perfect time for sledding so you weren't getting grass burns from the snow being beaten down from so many sledders!  So i said fine, maybe tomorrow.
Then i take my 2 snowmen inside, get them totally undressed, hanging up wet clothes to dry all over the house, put on yet another cup of coffee, and STOMP STOMP, sniff sniff.  Its craig at the door, "c'mon kris, lets go sledding, you're right its a great time for it"  AAAAAAAAAAAH...WTF?  I jsut pointed to the clothes strewn all over the house and boots everywhere...And said i just got them undressed!  i mean, really? 
but an hour later, i had perked back up with my coffee, and we went thru it all over again, though the kids were a little on the cranky side now since it was later in the day.  But we got to the library where they have a great hill for smaller kids, and we were the first ones down!!!!  Jackson LOVED it. thought it was awesome.  Sadie went down once with me, and that was it. She dind't cry, but she certainly didn't go again.  And our snow day turned out to be a good one!
now i'm just trying to get warm, dry the clothes and gather the engery for our next outing...forecast for tomorrow?  SNOW

UPSTRATED

I love it when my kids come up with their own words...Today was Upstrated.  Jackson said "mommy, are you upstrated with sadie this day?"  Took me a second (due to lack of sleep) and then it dawned on me.  Upset and Frustrated.  LOVE it.  and my answer was a resounding YES.  Sadie did not start her new year off well!!!

But i try to remember last night putting them to bed for their last night of 2009 and it reminds me why being upstrated isn't worth it. :)
My new years resolution is to try not to get too Upstrated with anyone. :)

Nice Things

We have a book that often read to my children..."are you grumpy Santa Claus".  I bought it to teach my son, who oftentimes is MORE than a grump, how to manage his grumpiness.  I love to read the book to my children, and they think it is hysterical when santa burns his tush, trips over a bowling ball etc.  But they think its so sweet at the end when, after all the bumps in the road, a child has left him a nice note with cookies (or tookies as sadie says) for santa.  And it ends with "when people do nice things for you, the grumpies dissapear".Are You Grumpy Santa Claus
I've been having a major case of the grumps lately.  And yesterday while at work, i was fishing thru my ridiculously crowded bag trying to find something, and came across a note...my first surprise note...and it couldn't have come at a better time.  From my husband, written on the back of an envelope late at night while i was sleeping and he put it in my bag thinking i'd find it the next day...well because my bag is a trash bin, it took a couple days...But I'll tell you, my grumps disappeared instantly. It was so sweet, and just what i needed!
I'm looking forward to 2010, especially bringing it in with my sweet husband.
Happy New Year!

What preschool is teaching my son

I'm always amazed at what my son learns at preschool....and even more so at how the TWO teachers he has are able to get 15 4yr olds to do it!!!!!!!!!!  like putting the caps back on markers, coloring within the lines (or as they say, get all the white out), kind words quiet voices (apparently only to be used at school)...but the best by far was when my son told his grandmother today "Grammy close your side doors".  huh?  what does that mean?  and he motioned for her to put her hands over her ears, so that he could tell his little sister to do something she was not supposed to do...Oh, and the front door?  i'm sure you can guess! 
How did i not think of that?  how is it that his 85yr old teacher can teach him how to open/close his ears/mouth by a cute little phrase...and to criss cross his applesauce for story time?  amazing.

Cute phrases to make them learn manners.  excellent.
How about the Word of the Day?  I do NOT understand this...It must be some cruel joke on the parents to be teaching the kids these words...It has happened on more than one occassion that I actually did NOT know the meaning to the word of the day....PRESCHOOL people!!! and mommy who is college educated didn't know the meaning.  Anyhoo, last weeks word was Preposterous.  Yes yes yes..i knew the meaning, but really, does a 4.5 year old need to know the meaning of that?  We had an electrician at the house fixing something (typical) and when my son  told me the word, the electrician said "jeez, i don't even know how to spell that".  And then Jackson went ahead and gave us the meaning.  Brilliant! 

So at school, my son is a well mannered thesaurus in the making!  At home, he is a bossy, ill tempered superhero in the making. :)  i like the home version better. :)