Let’s Get This Party Started!

Malia has been celebrating her birthday for over a week and honestly, she has been loving it. The party started ten days ago when I took her to get her first pedicure. I had my annual patriotic pedicure with my sisters in June and she has had a hankering to have one of her very own ever since then. She absolutely loved the foot soak and massage chair part and chose nail polish is two very glittery colors. My choices were a bit more sedate, but she was thrilled with her selection and that’s all that matters!

On her actual b-day, we had a little celebration here at home. She was (not unexpectedly) overly eager for her presents. We made her wait until after dinner and it almost killed her. She managed to pull through, however, and received Hot Wheels from Matthew, colored pencils and crayons from Daniel and Nathan, and a nice sketch pad, colored pencils and a great dot to dot book from Kevin’s folks. When she opened her first package from Kevin and I, she was mightily confused. I can understand why. It was command hooks and drapery rings.

She was not any less confused when she opened up the rest of the present.

It wasn’t until we took it into her room and got it all hung up that she realized that she had become the proud owner of her very own under-the-loft-bed playhouse. And then she was excited!

Her friend party was on Saturday. She wanted white tiger cupcakes and cake so we went with a zoo themed party. We played pin the tail on the tiger, made toilet paper roll binoculars and did a zoo themed scavenger hunt. Malia helped make the cupcakes and they turned out super cute. We had a really great time.

On Sunday we celebrated with my family. I am totally proud of how her cake turned out! Not only did it look super cute, but it was tiger striped on the inside as well as the outside. Malia wanted raspberry filling with a vanilla cake and while it was super tasty, once it was cut it looked like the tiger was bleeding. That was definitely an unplanned visual!

The official end of Malia’s celebration was today’s Birthday Table celebration at the school. The PTA had extra tables and decorations like always and (of course) Malia asked me to pick up lunch from Carl’s Jr. Acie, her best school friend since Renee moved, had a birthday this month as well so they got to enjoy their lunch together.

Malia is such a fun, crazy, creative kid. She is not afraid to jump right in with all the boys and has definitely taught them a few new things (Barbie, My Little Pony, princesses, etc.). We are so glad to have her in our family!

Party Animal

The yearly Pioneer Day block party has become one of those things Malia really looks forward to. It is like one last big blow out before the new school year starts. She was super excited this year. I mean, what’s not to love? The road is closed so she can ride her bike right down the middle of the street. She can run around with all her friends and eat her dessert first. There are games, fireworks, and an entire section of road set aside for sidewalk chalk. She gets to stay up past bedtime. And there is face painting, which she loves. 

This is another of those events I don’t love because of the heat, but I’m really glad my kids enjoy it. I have fond memories of the many ward parties I attended in my youth and hopefully Malia is creating wonderful memories.

Hip Hip Hooray! Matthew’s Had a Birthday!

Matthew has turned seven. He still gets mistaken for five since he is so small, but he has actually grown quite a bit in the past year. He is no longer the shortest one in his class at school, although he is still on the short side. And his huge personality makes up for his lack of stature. This is one opinionated kid!

His actual birthday was on Sunday so sitting through church, choir practice and lunch before he could open his presents just about killed him. But somehow he managed to survive and was thrilled to receive some Transformers from Daniel and Nathan and a baseball tee/ball pitcher from Kevin and I. He couldn’t take it outside and try it since it was Sunday, but he was appeased by the clip on lamp he received. In our family, receiving a light to clip to your bed signals the fact that you are old enough to read in bed for a few minutes before going to sleep. It is kind of a big deal for our family of bookworms.

Because it was Sunday, we got to celebrate with my family on his actual b-day. Matthew’s favorite animal right now is a tiger, so he decided he wanted a tiger cake. I found a fabulous zebra cake on pinterest, swapped out the colors, and voila! Tiger cake! Matthew chose pumpkin cake because it is orange so it actually didn’t even take that much food coloring to make black. The finished product was so cool looking that for a while Matthew didn’t even want me to frost it.

In the end he decided to go with the frosting and that turned out pretty cool to. And of course when we cut the cake, it was groovy looking inside.

On Friday he invited some of his friends to a tiger party. We played pin the tail on the tiger, lion-lion-tiger (think duck-duck-goose but with a tiger tail), and musical paw prints (we played “Eye of the Tiger,” of course). We also colored tiger masks and ate some cool looking tiger cupcakes. I forgot to take a picture of those, but they were basically the same as his big cake. Daniel, Nathan and Matthew spent the week before the party making rubber band bracelets in black and orange so we sent each guest home with some tiger bracelets, a glowing tiger ring, and a few treats. It was a pretty simple party, but it turned out super fun.

So Matthew is now officially one year away from cub scouts and baptism…and he’s already counting down.