Anna's Fourth Birthday

For Anna's fourth birthday, she decided she wanted to have a Dora the Explorer cake. Before her birthday, I think she mostly watched Dora at Grandma's house because we didn't watch it at our house. We actually had to watch an episode so that I could familiarize myself with the characters and plan a party around that theme. This was our first friends' party, so it was an adventure for both of us.

If you ask me the night that I decorate a cake, I will tell you that it takes too much work and I'm never doing it again, but secretly, I really do enjoy it even if it always takes me so much longer than I expect. I learned my lesson after the Princess Cake disaster and now I frost all cakes the night before. I think I started working on this one around nine and finished around midnight.

Saturday, March 3

All the party books suggest a craft and it seemed like a good gathering activity. So for we started Anna's birthday party by making birds with folded paper plates and pieces of tissue for the feathers. I thought they looked like parrots or something that might be found in Dora's world. The kids mostly just enjoyed gluing tissue paper to the plates, and most of them didn't look too much like birds, but no biggie.

Then Dan lead the kids on a treasure hunt. Dan wrote the clues up and hid the treasure (chocolate coins).

the bounty

We also played "what's in the backpack?" The kids had to stick their hands in and without looking, guess what was inside. It's not a Dora party without a backpack, right? They had a hard time with the not looking, but most of them were able to guess what was in the backpack.

Then the presents! These kids were so great about giving their presents to Anna, instead of thinking that the present they brought was theirs to open. They were all so eager to hand their present over.

Seth really wanted to be in the picture with Anna. 

I had Anna practice blowing out a candle a week before her birthday. I think it was about this time that Anna liked having "Dark Vader night," which meant we would turn off all the lights in the house and eat dinner by candle light. So we had lots of opportunities to blow out candles, but for some reason, Anna forgot how to do it. I think she was blowing up instead of down. At any rate, Dad had to help Anna blow out her four candles.

We ended with my favorite game of all: Monkey Tails. The game involves tying a marker to a piece of yarn and then around a child's waist, so that it looks like a monkey's tail. Then they race to see who can put the marker in a jar or cup first without using their hands. It was really hard for the kids to avoid using their hands and a little challenging to get it in the cup. But it made for some funny moments.

Anna's friend Hazel gave her this princess floor puzzle and after the party, Anna put it together almost all by herself.

Monday, March 5

Opening family presents

Anna decided that rather than have a big family party, she wanted one-on-one time with grandmas and grandpas. So on her birthday, my parents took her out for ice cream. Then a few weeks later, we met up with Heather's parents at McDonald's.

My Birthday

 For my birthday, my in-town family came over for cake and my girls dressed up in their princess costumes. I love their style.

 On my actual birthday I was treated to LOTS of cupcakes and I loved it. For my birthday cake, I chose to have a dozen cupcakes from The Sweet Tooth Fairy and then we cut them up into little pieces so I could try them all. My visiting teacher, Misti, also brought me some yummy red and white cupcakes and my friend, Dawn, gave me a giant cupcake from Flour Girls and Dough Boys. Yum yum!

 My kids loved the red frosting the most.

Officially, it wasn't part of my birthday, but later that week, my mom watched my kids and I got to go skiing with my dad, Katie, and Jack. It started out foggy and hard to see, but eventually the sky cleared up, and we skied hard. We managed to time our runs so that we made it on to the lift just before it closed at 4:30. We were pretty proud of ourselves since we had to ski pretty quickly down what was a more difficult run for us in order to make it to the lift in time. No one crashed, so we made it. It was a lot of fun.

Evie June's 2nd Birthday

We planned Evie's big party for Saturday morning to make it easier for family to be there, so on her actual birthday, I made cupcakes and let the girls decorate a few. Of course, for them, more is always better--more frosting, more sprinkles, etc.

 We also opened presents from Mom and Dad and from Grandma and Grandpa Brough since they couldn't be there for the family party.

Then after the girls went to bed, I worked on decorating Evie's cake. She had asked for a Zoe cake, so I took the Elmo pan I had and then frosted it to look like Zoe. With all those different colors of frosting, it took forever. Plus I had a hard time because I tried a new recipe for the frosting and it was a little too stiff, but I admit that even though I whine about how long it took and how late I was up, I really do like decorating cakes--but not so much that I want to do it more than twice a year.

 It was a chilly day, so Evie snuggled with Grandma.

 My mom brought Anna a present too, so that she wouldn't feel too left out. She got her a cool rocket launcher. Evie had a hard time jumping on the puffer button with enough pressure to launch the rocket, but then Aunt Christa helped.

Anna's Birthday

We met Heather at the aquarium a week before Anna's birthday party, so she sent us home with some presents for Anna's birthday from her parents and Heather. Since Anna knew about the presents and didn't want to wait, I decided to let her open them that night right before bed.

 The card they gave her had a Princess crown in it. Anna loved it. For some reason, it made Dan and I think of the Pope.

About this time Anna also fell in love with the Toy Story movies. The first two were on the Disney channel, and DVR-ed them and watched them over and over again. Bill and Sandy arrived on Wednesday to help us celebrate and while they were here they bought Anna a Toy Story cookie.

 I thought about giving Anna a friends' birthday party but then decided to wait to start those another year, but we did invite Anna's friends over to decorate cookies. Anna loves making and decorating sugar cookies and she likes having friends over. I didn't have to plan a big birthday party, but Anna still got to play with her friends and decorate cookies. I didn't tell anyone that it was for Anna's birthday, but her friend, Avery, brought Anna this dress up out fit as a gift anyway.

On Saturday, March 5 (Anna's actual birthday), we had a birthday party with our family. I made Anna a princess cake. I found a recipe on the internet and it seemed like a piece of cake (ha ha). But I made the mistake of assembling it Saturday morning right before everyone was supposed to arrive. I didn't start frosting it until sometime after noon and the party was supposed to start at one. So the poor cake had some issues, mostly sagging and leaning issues, but Anna loved it anyway. I think the little princess dolls that Heather recommended to me were all that Anna really saw.

Grandma brought Evie a present too--this cute little book.

We gave Anna wooden blocks and a soccer ball. She also got an Angelina Ballerina doll from Dan's parents, a Cinderella dress up outfit from mine, and some Toy Story books among other things.

After we'd eaten half the cake, I decided it looked like a monster with horns.

Playing with the Dora Coloforms set that Grandpa and Sandy gave Anna.