Melinda's 7th Birthday

Well, you should know by now to expect recaps of epic length. I'm sure I won't disappoint you in that regard today!

Melinda, my little girl, is 7 years old. I can hardly believe it. I'm certain that I wasn't able to imagine her being this old, this developed, this big, when she was just a brand new little baby in my arms-- when I was first learning and figuring out what being a mom is like. I've still got so much more learning and figuring out to do!! I just hope she stops growing up so fast. The years are just flying by!

This time last year, we were up to our necks in boxes, packing our apartment to get ready to move to Colorado. I didn't have the time, energy, or means to throw her a traditional party. So we had an "open house", invited all her friends, and some of mine, to come celebrate whenever they wanted, have some cake, ice cream, snacks, and say goodbye while they were here. Because in less than 2 weeks, we were heading out, and we wouldn't be able to see them again. Having an open house was a lot of fun. But I sort of felt like it was a cop-out that year, because we didn't have any games, theme, yadda yadda. So I think I went a little over-board this year, trying to make up for it. And the fact that Melinda hadn't really had a birthday party between her first party at age three, and the open house party at age six.

At first, I said that I would let her invite 10 people, which I was only going to allow because I felt fairly certain that not every one of those 10 would be able to come. But then, she mentioned her party to a couple of her first grade classmates that she hadn't invited, and of course, they wanted to come. So we upped it to 12. Then she mentioned it to one of her favorite girls from church, and of course, she wanted to come, too! So, 13 it was. In the end, 10 RSVP'd that they would come. And one mother caught me the day before the party and asked if her daughter could still come, although they had forgotten to RSVP. After some hemming and hawing, I did my best to politely say no. I had already been going nearly off-my-rocker crazy for the last few days, trying to get everything ready for all the guests who would be coming. I couldn't see a realistic way to add yet one more guest to the tally, and try to make sure she was included in everything. In the end, that was a very good decision, though I hope her feelings weren't hurt. (But hey, that's why I did my darndest to send out invitations a good 2 weeks beforehand, after all!!)

Melinda decided that she wanted a horse party. I didn't have a ton of ideas for horse-themed stuff, so I decided we'd include a lunch in her party, and take up some extra time while introducing her friends to her favorite meal. I liked it. In the end, this was our schedule:

10:30am, horse craft
10:50am, follow-the-leader with horses from craft
11:00am, pin the tail on the horse
11:15am, pop-the-balloon
11:30am, Lunch, followed by cake & ice cream
12:00pm, Piñata
12:15pm, presents
12:30pm, guest go home

You wouldn't think, looking at that list, that there was terribly much to prepare. But, as I was trying to save as much money as possible, I did as much home-made as I could. We did buy the piñata-- I didn't think I'd be able to pull off a horse-shaped one on my own! But pretty much everything else, I made.

For the horse craft, I thought we would make simple Hobby Horses. So, we bought 10 dowels (one guest was going to be late, and Jacob and Alex could survive with sticks from the yard). We traced and cut 25 horse heads out of poster board. Actually, I only drew the original horse head. Jesse, bless his heart, traced all the rest (including meticulously finding a way to fit 5 heads on one posterboard), and cut them all out by hand. Then I took rectangles of fleece, folded them in half, sewed a line down the folded edge to anchor them closed, and cut strips (like grass) to make manes. At the party, each of the kids would be able to color their own pair of horse heads, which would be sandwiched on top of a mane of their choice, and secured to a dowel. We also glued googley-eyes on the horses. Although, in the chaos of 13 kids, a few who took too long/arrived too late probably never got their eyes glued on, as we scurried them along to the next thing on the schedule. Oh, well. We tried.

This is a picture of the decorations before everyone arrived:

The table all set up for the hobby horse craft, poster-board heads all lined up around the table. Yup, it was a squeeze, with so many kids coming!

Treat bags and balloons set out on the table. They have a horse printed under their names, of course. I attempted to print directly onto the bags, but my printer protested and jammed up the process. So I was left to print on paper and cut-and-paste. Yay.

Before the party started, Aunt Breanne sat down with the kids and read them one of Grandma's books. Melinda's wearing a simple crown I made for her with fun, glitter-covered craft foam.

Before I go on further, I want to tell you what I came up with to put in the guests' take-home bags. I had gotten a few things from Oriental Trading at the same time I ordered the horse-themed plates/cups/napkins, but I didn't feel like it would be enough. (While I hate the way everyone expects elaborate gift bags when they attend a party these days, I can't seem to gain the courage to just ignore the expectation and do a party the way I grew up!) I asked my mother-in-law Nedra if she had a horse pattern I could use to sew up a small stuffed horse to put in the bags. I didn't think it would be too much work, and I would have shrunk down the pattern a bit to get something nice and small. But she came up with an even better idea: Just make horse finger puppets! And I'm so glad she did come up with that. As it was, I spent a solid 3 hours one night simply cutting out pieces of fleece for the finger puppets, and from 9am-4pm the next day sewing them all up. Can you imagine how long actual stuffed horses would have taken me?? Granted, I decided to do two finger puppets per guest, as one just seemed sort of lonely... but still. Finger puppets are so simple compared to full-blown 3D horses.

I made each finger puppet different. No two had the same fleece + mane combination. It was sort of fun. But mostly tedious. And unfortunately, I didn't have the energy to sew a few up for my own kids. I've promise them that they'll get some eventually. It might be Christmas before I make it happen, but they'll get some. All the materials I used for these horse puppets were things I already had on hand. Yay for basically free!

Melinda models her 10 favorite finger puppets.

She made them nuzzle each other. Awww.

The finger puppet on the left is Melinda's favorite. She likes the "aquamarine" horses combined with the pink manes the most.

Alex really liked them, too! :)

All 20 horses lined up for display. Hard to believe it took me so long to make them. The pile felt much bigger when I was holding it.

So, back on track, the Hobby Horse craft seemed like a general hit. Except for people coming in late and not having enough time to color a horse to their own expectations. I had the whole idea planned to do a big follow-the-leader game with Melinda in the lead, all of them riding their horses. But we ran out of time. The ones who finished earliest headed out to play in Grandma's backyard, running around, or doing sidewalk chalk on the tennis court, while the rest finished up inside. And while I'm thinking of outside, we were so blessed to have a gorgeous day. In Colorado, October 16th could well be a miserable, snowy, cold day. But we got nothing but sunshine and warmth. It was perfect. (And made me think of the day I went into labor with her, when it was warm enough in Maryland to go for a walk without worrying about a jacket!)

So after they were finally all finished with their craft, we gathered them up to play pin the tail on the horse. I drew and colored the horse poster myself. (Side note: Melinda saw it the morning after it was finished, and proclaimed me the best horse-drawer she's ever known. Aww!) It was going great, right up until the point of my brown Sharpee marker running out of ink. I scrounged around and found another marker that was nearly the same color, which worked out okay (though disappointed me in my own hopes/standards for things like that). The night before the party, I made poster-board tails. I was going to color each of them as part of my preparation, but ultimately decided to let Melinda do that part in the morning before the party. I'm happy for that decision- not only was I already up until 11:45pm (completely exhausted and out of steam since about 8:30) doing last-minute prep, but she colored them differently than I would have, and was thoughtful about what colors each of her guests liked. They all "ooh'ed" and "ahh'ed" over their different horse tails, saying they were perfect and that they loved them. And the actual game was fun for them, too! They laughed so hard when someone put a tail in the wrong spot. By the time we got to the last several people, attention spans were running thin, though. 7 kids would have been much better than 13. Lesson learned for next time: There is much validity in the idea of only inviting as many kids as the age you're celebrating.

A blindfolded Melinda tries to find the horse poster so she can place her tail.

Close! And yet so far away...

Jacob was one of the last kids to "pin" his tail on the poster. You can see that there were plenty of silly tail placements for the kids to laugh at. :)

After our pinning-the-tails game was done, we gathered on the back lawn to play an old Wilcox-family favorite (at least, in my memory it was!): Pop the Balloon. We had 20-some-odd balloons blown up and tied off, with a rolled-up piece of paper tucked inside them. The kids had to pop the balloon (which was generally easy, with large balloons on blades of grass), read the paper that had been inside, and follow the instructions. We had some pretty basic things, like tell a funny joke, spin around, do jumping jacks, tickle your neighbor, etc. But they loved popping the balloons (and can you imagine a 6/7 year old not enjoying that?). And, I have to take a moment to brag about Jacob. When it was his turn to pop a balloon, he picked up his paper to read it. I thought he would need help, but he took just a couple seconds to process it, and then read easily: Do 10 Jumping Jacks. Some of the first graders there couldn't read easier instructions than that without help, and Jacob had no trouble at all. What a smarty-pants!

Beanie (in pink) sits on a balloon and pops it. Ooh, look! You can see one of the hobby horses in this picture!

After that game was cleaned up, everyone headed inside for lunch. We made Melinda's favorite- what she calls "Mackadacky" (but is actually Cheeseburger Macaroni) - that morning, and kept it warmed in the crock pot until lunch time. We also served grapes and cantaloupe. And I was going to serve carrot sticks and ranch dip as well, but forgot it at home. D'oh! Actually, we forgot the ice cream, too. Jesse ran home to get that, but by the time I remembered the carrot sticks, it was really too late to do anything about it. Most of the kids seemed to enjoy their food, but a couple didn't even try it, and a couple others took a few bites and decided they didn't like it. I hope the parents weren't utterly confused about why some of their kids might be hungry so soon after the party!

A few of Melinda's guests at the table eating lunch.

After lunch, we were still waiting for Jesse to get back with the ice cream. I didn't want to let them all back outside (because then we'd have to wait for 13 kids to wash their hands in 2 bathrooms before we could eat again), so we played a few quick rounds of "Penny Penny, Who Has The Penny". It was blissfully quiet at that point. All those kids were really loud!!! It was a bit overwhelming. Especially when they were inside. But trying to pay close attention to see who was given a penny among the whole group of them, well... that kept them calm for a short while. Poor Jacob... he's a slow eater. When everyone decided they were done, excused themselves from the table, and we started the Penny game, Jacob was in melt-down mode because he was left alone at the table. Just a big ol' heap of tears. Thank goodness Aunt Rachel was there to help calm him down. I didn't even realize he was having trouble for a good long while.

Once Jesse got back, we all headed back into the dining room for cake and ice cream. And okay, so I let Melinda have a choice for cake: Either a typical round cake that I would decorate with a horse of some sort, or a fancy cupcake from the Hello, Cupcake book that I got for Christmas last year. She picked the cupcakes. I thought it looked like work, but I seriously, seriously underestimated just how much work it would be. I decided, sort of last-minute, that it would be good to make them over at Grandma's house and avoid any issues of transportation. Thus, we went over in the afternoon so I could work on them then, instead of waiting until the evening to make them at home like I had originally planned. I worked on these things from noon until 5:30, with only a break long enough to pick up the kids from school. It was sort of a nightmare!! And the cupcakes were too spongy, and wouldn't hold up some of the candy heads. They were so delicate, too-sweet (not only for me, but plenty of the kids only had a few bites, too), and soooo much work. But, they were cute. Not nearly as cute as the pictures in the book, but they turned out fine. But I think I'll just stick to regular ol' cake next time.

All the horses gathered up. Some of them have some "hay" to munch on. Melinda's choice for herself was the one at the top, the only horse I added a bridle to.

Close-up of the horse cupcakes. Be afraid, be very afraid!

Melinda and a few of her guests enjoying their cupcakes and ice cream.

Alex thought the horses were *hilarious*. He giggled insanely, informing us "I killed the horse's tail! I eat it!", and so on, each time he chomped a new body part.

And finally, after all that eating, the big piñata event! I found this horse piñata online at toysRus. It turned out to be an extremely durable piñata! We started out letting every guest have 2 swings, blindfolded, whether or not they hit. We were remembering our family reunion this summer, where we went youngest to oldest, and Melinda didn't even get a turn! We wanted everyone to have at least one turn. But on the second round, when we went to no-blindfold and still 2 swings, there were plenty of good hits made, but nothing but a few stray pieces of candy flying out of the piñata's opening! So we made it three hits, no special maneuvering from the Piñata Master, Jesse. Then, with still no breakage in sight, and time running short, we hunted down a harder stick. Still no luck. Finally, Jesse took the stick, took one solid swing over his shoulder and directly onto the horse's back. Finally the sucker kicked the bucket, and the mad rush for candy was made. I was mean (aka "fair"), and made them all put the candy in one bucket, and I took it inside to distribute as equally as possible into their take-home bags. About half of the parents had arrived just before this point. Eek! No time!!

Melinda happily takes a swing at the horse Piñata.

They're really getting into it now!! (See the Hobby Horses??)

Still no luck! They're all so full of anticipation!

I didn't get any pictures of Melinda opening presents at the end of her party. It was very chaotic, with 13 kids, the adults who were there helping, and now most of the adults there to pick up their children. And some siblings of the party-goers, too. I barely had the time to scribble down Melinda's gifts so we could get Thank-You notes right. But she seemed thoroughly thrilled with everything she was given, from teeny-tiny horses, to Silly Bandz, to various craft supplies.

And once everyone was gone, (Phew! Breathe a sigh of relief! We survived!!), we let her open a few more gifts from Grandma Wilcox, and from Jesse and myself.

Grandpa really loves to play their traditional "Heavy Heavy Hangover Thy Poor Head" guessing game. He got a little more enthusiastic than usual with this one, threatening quite a vigorous bonk on the head!

Grandma Wilcox sent this lovely umbrella! Melinda loves it. She insisted on using it on a potentially-rainy walk to school this week, even though the promised clouds were nowhere to be seen.

Grandma Wilcox also sent a lovely kid's Timex watch. Melinda was a bit disappointed that it wasn't digital (meaning, she can't tell time with it yet), but it's very pretty and has some good time-learning features. The hour and minute hands are labeled, it glows in the dark with a push of a button, and every 5 minutes are also labeled. Hopefully she'll figure it out soon, so she can wear it as more than a pretty accessory. :)

We told Melinda, when she asked for a new bike several times over the past month or so, that we probably wouldn't be able to get her a new bike until Daddy got a new job. Well, I scoured craigslist, and finally found someone parting with a 20" girls bike, just like we needed. Ready for the surprise?? She had no idea what to expect when we told her there was something special outside....

Okay Melinda, you can come out now!!! (Look at that huge grin!!)

You can definitely tell the bike is used (for instance, the seat has tape covering some cracks), but it's in good working condition, and she loooooves it. And it only cost us $20. Hooray!!

After the party, Melinda did something I've never seen from her before: She acted completely drained. She played with her new things a bit, yes. But after that, she curled up in a ball, got really quiet, and just held still for the longest time. She was exhausted. All that partying! Who would have guessed Melinda would feel as tired as I did??

It was a fun party. Way, way too much work, but fun. I think I definitely made up for years past. But I also think we're going to institute the every-other-year party rule, from now on, too. And make the parties slightly more low-key in the future. ;) But I could tell the kids enjoyed it, too. One boy's mom told me today when she saw me at school that he had *so* much fun that he decided his next birthday will be a Star Wars/Horse theme. LOL!!

And of course, that wasn't the end of birthday festivities, either. As Newson tradition goes, we had a birthday dinner for her. The next day, for everyone's sanity. She never did pick what she wanted, so she got a super-easy dinner of chicken nuggets, french fries, salad, veggies, and dessert was brownies and whipped cream (that part, she did pick). Afterwards, she eagerly ran off to the front room to sit on the couch and await her gifts from Grandma and Aunt Rachel. It took us a few minutes to realize she was waiting for us all to join her. ;) Grandma made her exactly what she requested: A stuffed elephant made from pink plaid fleece and a pink underbelly. I have no idea where she got the idea in her head that that was what she wanted, but she made it known months ago, and stuck to it like glue. And Rachel made her a lovely name banner, which is already hanging on her wall above her bed. Just what she wanted! I'll add some pictures of those sometime soon, I hope!

Jacob's Birthday Party

So Jacob's birthday party was Monday, August 16th.  We invited everyone he knew from church, since he really hadn't met anyone his age otherwise, yet, and invited their siblings to come along too, if they wanted to.  We had a pretty good turnout, especially for how busy people were getting ready for school.  I'm so glad!  This was Jacob's first birthday party ever, and I wanted it to be fun for him.

We went with a "bug" theme that my sister Melissa shared with me recently, and it was great.  We started the day off by doing some mini "ice treasures".  We made them inside the nice little IKEA children's bowls, and it seemed like a perfect size.  Inside each of them was an assortment of plastic bugs and pennies and nickles.  Everything they freed from the ice was put inside a gift bag to take home.  They had fun pouring, squirting, spraying, and chopping the ice for a good 15-20 minutes.  Perfect for a summer birthday!

After ice treasures, we played a little bug-themed game called Spider and Fly.  Everyone paired up, and took turns being the spider or fly.  The "spider" had to try to wrap toilet paper around the "fly" as fast as they could.  First one to finish a roll was the winner!  This was actually very tricky, because too much pressure made the toilet paper squares separate, and that meant it didn't want to wrap around very well.  But they had fun, at least!

We had one friend who had to leave after just an hour, so we went ahead and did snacks and cake/ice cream next.  I had spent a few hours the day before getting some "bug" treats ready:  Spiders made from round crackers, peanut butter, and pieces of pretzel for legs, and raisins for eyes; ants on a log (celery sticks); ladybugs on crackers made with tomatoes and prunes (I wish I would have thought to do black grapes instead, as the kids mostly avoided the prunes); caterpillar grapes with slices of carrot for antennae; and bees on crackers made from circles of cheese and prunes (again, grapes would have been better.  Or maybe olives?).  The spiders were gone in a heartbeat, and caterpillars came next.  We had a lot of leftover ladybugs and bees, lol. 

Here's Jacob and his "dirt" birthday cake!  It's a devil's food cake (boxed, I got lazy) topped with chocolate frosting and crushed Oreos over the frosting.  Then we put extra bugs all around it and stuck the candles in.  :)

And here's a video of the birthday song and blowing out the candles!



After everyone had eaten, we played pin the spider on the spider web.  I wish Jesse had taken a picture of the board near the end!  All the spiders were grouped in the same general area, in the left half of the web, mostly in the upper quadrant.  Melinda actually got closest to the middle.  And even though Jacob looks reeeeally close to center here, he changed it at the last second and got pretty far away.  I was pleased with how eager the kids were to take their turns!

After Pin the Spider on the Spider Web, we headed back down to the grass and played a quick little bug-crawl relay race (otherwise known as a crab crawl).  Jacob was a stinker and wouldn't even give it a try, just laid down and watched everyone else.




And finally, we played "Buzz Buzz Sting"... a bee version of Duck Duck Goose.  Alex was super adorable when he had his turn.  ;)

Time was about over at this point, so we headed inside to let Jacob open his presents.  He loved *everything* that he received, and has had fun leaving them all over the floor for me to trip over this past week.  ;)

Jacob's 5th Birthday

Four months since I last updated.  I'm so lame.  If you're actually reading this, hats off to you!  I'm surprised anyone checks back anymore, these days.  ;)


My little guy Jacob actually turned five last week.  How did the years go by so fast?  And why do they just keep on getting faster?  It's not exactly fair.

We went to Idaho to visit my sisters Melissa and Jacy (Jacy came from Eastern WA to meet us in the middle), and while I was there, I realized that once we got back home, I'd have all of about 2 weeks before Jacob's birthday.  Therefore, I needed to plan things quickly.  And throw together a party somehow.  Lucky for me, Melissa had recently done a birthday party for her son, and it seemed really simple to pull off.  So I copied her, grateful for an easy idea.

I was originally going to have his birthday party on his actual birthday, since it was a Saturday.  But before I actually managed to send out any invitations, I learned that our ward camp-out for church was to be held from the 13th to the 14th... making it so that if I had actually invited all his classmates from church, I'd be darn lucky for anyone to show up, since they'd still be camping if their family attended.  So at the last minute, I decided to have his party the following Monday... the day before school started.  Also not an ideal time, but more likely to have party-goers show up and attend.  ;)

On his birthday, actually, we attended the funeral of a friend's baby.  What a hard combination of emotions to process -- grief for the loss of such a very young life, sorrow for the family... and yet, gratitude for the birthday I was allowed to celebrate, joy for the boy who was getting so big and looking forward to new, exciting things.  It did make me appreciate his birthday so much more.  Though I still had a very hard time fitting that in between all the sad emotions.

After the funeral and back at home, we let Jacob open up a few family presents- one from me, one from Jesse, and a couple sent in the mail from Grandma Wilcox.

Following Jesse's family tradition, we play a little game of "Heavy Heavy Hangover Thy Poor Head.... What are you going to do with it?"  Then the person getting the gift has to guess, and if they're wrong, they get a bonk on the head.

Jacob opens the first gift from Grandma Wilcox.... and it's... an UMBRELLA!  He was thrilled.  :) 

Next up, he opened a gift I worked very hard on.  I wanted to get him a t-shirt with a picture of Link from the Legend of Zelda, but I absolutely could not find one.  Every store online that sold video game shirts either only had adult-sized shirts, or all their child sizes were sold out.  Well, that just wouldn't do.  So I decided to get my hands on some t-shirt transfer paper.  I looked around online and found a supply store that seemed to sell very nice quality transfer paper (based on reviews, it seems like the stuff I could walk out and buy at a craft store wouldn't work well or last long).  I ordered a sample size of 3 sheets, and it got to me just a couple days before his birthday.  I found some images, arranged them in Photoshop to my liking, and printed it on the paper.  Then I had to cut out the paper by hand (ugggggh, it took so long!!), and then iron it on.  I was very happy with the result!  I've already washed this shirt three times and it's holding up awesomely.  And Jacob loves it!!  That's what I was going for, of course.  :)  (And now, I have extra sheets of transfer paper, and I can't stop thinking about what else I could do with it!!)

We also got another package in the mail while we were out, which we opened once we got back home- it was a package full of Disney Car socks from Grandma Wilcox.  He put a pair on right away!  Despite the insanely hot weather.

The worst part about this day was that Jacob started throwing an absolute fit over not having more presents to open.  We wanted him to have something special on his birthday, which is why we opened any presents at all.  But he also already knew that we'd be having a birthday dinner at Grandma's house the next day, and get some more presents from Aunt Rachel and Grandma Newson then.  And beyond that, he also knew that he was going to be having a party with all of his friends coming over the day after that.  So THREE days of fun and gifts, and he decided to throw a fit on the very first day because he wanted more presents.  It made me feel so bad.  I felt like Jacob had transformed into Dudley Dursley or something.  I have no idea where the attitude came from - I don't remember any of my children ever doing that before.   Eventually, he stopped, and I could tell he really liked all his gifts, but it was still a shocking attitude.

So, on Sunday, the usual Sunday Dinner with family was now Jacob's Birthday Dinner.  He wanted spaghetti, but we had just had a lot of spaghetti recently, and nobody else really wanted it again, so we talked him into chicken drumsticks and various sides (like fancy green jello with pineapple), instead.  He ended up really happy with that (phew!), and we had a lovely meal. 

After dinner Rachel and Grandma presented their gifts to Jacob.  (And poor Rachel, don't mind her.  She was doing some dishes and got wet at the sink!)  Another round of Heavy Heavy Hangover....

And Rachel made him a lovely name banner, which we have now hung up on the underside of the bunk bed, where he sleeps.  :)  We also used it as decoration at his party!  Wonderful.  :)

Grandpa gets excited to do Heavy Heavy Hangover....

Grandma Newson made him an awesome Link (Legend of Zelda) costume!  A nice green tunic styled just like the character, with belt and sword harness trappings made from some perfect vinyl, which was leftover from her's and Rachel's re-upholstering of my dining chairs for my birthday.  It looks awesome!  And he's always wanted a Link costume. 

Rachel went the extra distance and made a dessert for Jacob's birthday dinner - homemade brownies with mini M&M's scattered on top, then topped with ice cream, whipped cream, and a few more M&M's.  It was a hit!!

Tomorrow I'll blog about the birthday party.  I think it was a lot of fun and I want to share!

Alex's 2nd Birthday

Can you believe my little baby is already 2 years old? Time goes too quickly. This age has some of the most fun and most frustrating aspects to it... Alex is just constantly exploding with new words and new skills. Simultaneously, he's asserting himself more and more. And while I certainly want an assertive adult, sometimes it's just really difficult to absolutely NEED to get out the door and have a child refuse to get dressed with every scrap of his energy, you know? When it takes two adults and still a good 5-10 minutes of forcing clothes onto a wriggling, screaming toddler, who, for whatever reason, simply does not want to get dressed... ugh. It's not fun.

That said, there are so many fun things. I wish I could capture it all on camera. But he's a smart cookie. As soon as he catches glimpse of the camera, he stops everything to give a toothy grin. And then wants to see the results of his posing on the LCD screen.

Anyway. We celebrated his birthday on April 1st. The first ever of any of our children that we got to celebrate with family. Actually, that's not entirely true. My youngest sister Kaija was present for Alex's first birthday! Lucky little guy!

After Melinda got home from school that day, and after we ate some lunch, we headed over to Grandma Newson's house, with bags and bags full of supplies. We took over birthday presents, cake, and all the makings for his birthday dinner.

Alex got a very short nap after we got there, and I quickly wrapped his presents. By 3pm we started dinner preparations, and we ate at about 6pm. I tried really hard to think of things that Alex would really enjoy for dinner: Meatballs with sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted carrots and sweet potatoes, homemade rolls, and assorted fresh fruits. As it turned out, he mostly just ate the fruits. I can't blame him- they were really yummy! But I was surprised he didn't gobble the rest of it down, too.

Obviously, Rachel decided that by sneaking in as photographer, she'd make sure she wasn't included in the picture. Poor Rachel caught the cold that my kids have had for the last week. Except, worse, since she got a bit of a fever along with it. Sorry, Rachel. Well, at least we know and will always remember that you were there, whether or not you allow us to show off the proof. ;)

We actually had waaay too much fruit. Blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, mango, kiwi fruit, and green grapes. So delicious, though.

After dinner we played a few simple games. Penny, Penny, Who Has the Penny was a lot of fun. Alex had a great time trying to figure out who was holding the penny after someone tried to pass it on in secret, and he even started to understand how to pass it on himself after a few rounds. Here's a little video from that game:


After that we moved onto another goody from my childhood: Pop the balloon. Okay, well, I don't know if it really has a name or not, but it's always fun. You write a bunch of silly instructions on paper, fold each individual slip of paper up into a small tube, stuff it into a balloon, then blow up and tie the balloon. Each person has to take a turn popping the balloon and doing what their instructions tell them to. This is a great one for younger kids, who just *love* popping balloons. Alex was a little to small for following the directions, but had a great time with popping, anyway. Also, a funny little note: Out of 20 slips of paper, I only wrote 4 name-specific instructions: Give Grandma a hug, Tickle Jacob, Tickle Alex, and Sit on Jesse's Lap. Alex got "Tickle Alex", and Jesse got "Sit on Jesse's Lap." How's that for funny coincidence? Jesse, true to his character, made a hilarious attempt to sit on his own lap. Which I unfortunately did not record. Alas. Also, Rachel got "Sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", which she sang in her lovely operatic voice. Despite her cold! I also didn't get that recorded. Not that she would have allowed me to publish it anyway, since she's sick. ;) Sigh. Still, enjoy this video clip of the balloon game:


I was going to play drop the clothespin into a jar, too... but nobody seemed especially interested. The kids each took a short turn dropping in clothespins, but we left it at that and jumped into opening presents, instead.

First thing he opened was my unfinished city map. I bought some white vinyl and had been planning on coloring a city playmat for him with my nice set of permanent markers. The first night I worked on it, I got all the roads and traffic lines and signs colored in. The next night, I got a nice little section of houses done. I was laying on top of the vinyl while I worked on it, and when I got up to stretch, I saw that all of the yellow lines were almost completely smudged off. Further investigating showed that just a simple finger-rub would take off almost all the ink from any of the sections I colored with my Bic brand markers. The black road lines themselves were done with a regular Sharpie brand marker, and they didn't have any problem. But that was the easiest part! I was aghast!! Yes, that's the best word to describe it, I think. It was only a couple nights away from his birthday, and it would have been a stretch to finish it in time, anyway. With this little problem thrown in, there was no way I could have it ready in time. We decided, though, to go out and buy a set of colored Sharpie markers, and see if that would work. Well, it did, but I simply didn't have enough time to do much with it. I gave it to him on his birthday, anyway. And I think it'll look really nice once it's done... but in the meantime, I was pretty bummed. I hate it when good ideas fail.

Of course, to go with the city playmat, I got him a bunch of Matchbook-type cars to play with, since we had very few.

And Rachel made him this gorgeous little wall banner with his name. Which, for the time being, has made its home in my bedroom, since that's where Alex's bed is. Hopefully in the not-too-far-distant future, we'll live in a house and he'll have his own space to display his name banner.

In this video, you can see my favorite part! First, he opens a gift from Grandma Newson: a spaceship made from polar fleece, with little finger puppet aliens. It's so cute! I don't think he really knows what aliens are yet, but we've taught him how to make alien-speech babble, which he thinks is pretty funny. He likes it a lot. And of course, the part I was really looking forward to- opening up the backpack I sewed for him. I was slightly annoyed with Melinda chanting "backpack, backpack!" while he opened it... I really wanted to see him figure out for himself what it was... but his reaction was absolutely, 110% perfect! He was so excited, and so proud to have his own backpack! Which I didn't think he wouldn't be - he'd spent the last several days trying to steal Melinda's backpack and pretending to go off to school, claiming it was his - but sometimes even when you know it's something they'll love, the reaction is not what you expect. But he definitely didn't disappoint!


Ben and Brea gave him a perfect simple little gift - a sparkly pinwheel!! He still needs to figure out just how to blow on it to make it work, but he'll get there soon. Melinda was playing with it in my bedroom last night with the evening sun streaming in through the window, and it made a gorgeous little rainbow on the wall, and a brilliant blue streak along with it. Alex was thrilled: "Ooooooh, PRETTY!! Rainbow!!!" he exclaimed!

And then, after all the presents were done, we finally got around to the birthday cake. I made a white chocolate lemon cake for his birthday, complete with homemade lemon curd between the layers. I decorated it with an owl (because I just seem to be on a cute owl kick!) that says, "Look whoooo's 2!" When I was decorating it, he was watching, and when it finally became apparent that it was an owl on his cake, he said, "Mommy, owl?" And I replied, "Yes, I'm putting an owl on your birthday cake." And Alex said, "Oh! NICE!!" And I wish I had a recording for you to hear the voice inflections when he says that phrase, because every time he says it, I about die of cuteness overload.

And here's a video of the birthday singing and him blowing out the candles. I think it's hilarious how hesitant he is about blowing - he doesn't even lean forward! He's always so eager to blow out any candles we have around the house, but it's been since Melinda's birthday that we've done any candles on cake, and maybe he just didn't remember how it worked! But he blew them out without any effort at all, and then was so excited about it that he kept talking about it! Of course, he didn't eat any cake at all, not even after weeks of talking about birthday cake. All he touched was the ice cream!! Oh, well. It was a yummy cake anyway!


And of course, I had to throw in a few little party-favor blowers. They were a little upset that they weren't the noisemaker kind. And Jacob was very upset that his didn't seem to flatten completely out, even after Uncle Ben insisted and insisted that it was working exactly like everyone else's. Still, I thought it was fun. And I think this picture, despite its poor quality, is cute!

We survived his second birthday! And I'm experiencing a 2-year-old for the first time ever without being simultaneously pregnant! Isn't it fun?? Well, most of the time, anyway. ;)

Happy Birthday, Alex. We're so glad and thankful to have you in our lives! I look forward to the amazing boy you're going to grow up to be.