Baby B turn FOUR!

B has been booking forward to this day since about mid-March of last year.  She loved her Mickey Mouse birthday party last year, but ever since then has been saying "At my next party, I'm having a Jake party."  The girl goes through phases like you wouldn't believe.  Just in the last year, she's had seasons obsessed with Sleeping Beauty.  Then Peter Pan.  Then Sophia the First.  Then Rapunzel.  Then Doc McStuffins.  Jack Frost (Rise of the Guardians).  Bruno Mars.  Elsa.  Jake and the Neverland pirates fit in there somewhere, but I kept expecting her to change her mind and suddenly declare that she wanted a princess party or a Michael Jackson party.  But, without fail, everytime. . . "Jake".  I felt the pressure to make it good!  

 Ok, YES I realize I cater to her alot.  If I can make her happy, I will.  So when I [kinda made the mistake and] asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she very specifically told me, "I want the cake to have sand.  And a ship.  And I want it to have Jake, and Cubby, and Izzy, and Captain Hook."  She went on to tell me the specific POSTURES she wanted the characters to be in, which included Cubby standing with his hands on the ground, one leg in the air, balancing on one foot.  I DID draw the line there.  I had designed one cake that was the typical layered cake with a "shipish" bottom, red and white striped middle, and "island" topper.  But as I talked to her more, I realized she really just wanted a SHIP ship.  So. . . grudgingly I searching pinterest and made it.  A good 4 hours later. . . I had my masterpiece.  Lee comes home and says, "Holy crap, is that a CAKE?!  You realize we are just doing to EAT IT, right?"  Yes. . . thank you, dear.

 I really don't care for party favors.  Because, let's be honest, they're pretty expensive and are probably going to get tossed in a matter on minutes, days at most.  But we went to the party store and there along with the plates and napkins (what we really were going in for) were magnifying glasses.  As a mommy fail, a magnifying glass was one of the things she kept asking for at Christmas but didn't get. :(  Her main request was binoculars -- and she got those -- but apparently still wanted a magnifing glass.  So for $0.39 each, I had to get them.  And then I can't put JUST that in a bag, so I got some pixie sticks (PIXIE sticks. . . get it?  Pixie. . . Tinker Bell. . . ) and gold doubloons.  Brown paper bags from WalMart -- 50 for $1.00, Photoshopped some pictures of characters and had themprinted at Walgreens for $1.00 (5-4x6's at $0.20 each). . . and there ya go.

 . . . and then that glorious f***ing ship.  Since I built it 5 days before the party, my girls were over it by the time the party started. . . but I think the other kids enjoyed it.  Or I assume they did, since it was completely destroyed by the end of the night!

 Isabelle's yearly books on display

 Strung up Disney pics (Jake and the Neverland pirates is Disney, incase you weren't already aware!)

 That's my favorite -- with Snow White.  <3

 B dressed up as "Izzy" from the show -- I dressed up as Wendy (although B explained Wendy actually is never in JakeNLP) -- Sopha was supposed to be Tinker Bell but of course the costume was M.I.A, and Lee put on 1/6 of his "Jake" costume.  And then Landon tried on her Elsa wig :)

 We ran the party 3-6 to try and miss lunch and dinner -- usually we serve a "meal", but it's so hard to find something everyone likes and so expensive!  So we did appetizers -- pasta salad, vegetable pizza, popcorn, taco dip, BBQ cocktail weenies, cheese ball, and chips.

 I made popcorn cones with old scrapbook paper, the brown paper bags I had from the party favors, and extra pictures I had left over from the favors, as well.

 Play time!

 Birthday girl, ready to blow out her candles!

 Hello Kitty from Great Uncle Steve

 New Tutu!!

 We love this hat!!

B's cousin, Truly

Overall, it was a great success.  Because any big event in my children's life always seems to involve some sort of major snow/ice/hail/rain/illness, some of our family didn't make it because of the weather.  Either literally or by being under it -- as in under the weather.   But regardless, B had a great time, things turned out great, and we are truly, truly TRULY ^^ blessed :)

Cardboard Pirate Ship

B is SOMEHOW turning 4 tomorrow!  I'm in denial.  Sometimes, it feels like she was just born yesterday.  And then I think about when she was a baby. . . how different life was back then. . . and it seems like it was such a long time ago.  We're prepping for her 4th birthday party, which she decided she wanted to be "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" about 11 months ago just shortly after her LAST birthday party. . . The anticipation for this day has been a long-time coming!

Yesterday I started the construction on her Buckey ship for the kids to play in at the party.  Ohhhh my was my house a disaster yesterday!  Between all of the scraps of cardboard plus the chaos I created trying to keep the girls occupied while I works (coloring, play-doh, dress-up, books, and so on) my house looked like a battle zone.  It's almost done -- stay tuned for pictures from the party!

 Buckey is (basically) complete!  spy glass, slide, anchor, steering wheel and all!

 The rope runs into the inside where the kids can raise and lower the anchor

Magnet Madness

Interesting fact that might surprise a few; I'm co-teaching Sunday school now.  You should ask the story of how that came to be, it's pretty comical.  :)

But it's been fun and something good for me and B to do together on Sundays.  This Sunday we learned about helping friends and the story of Jesus helping Peter fish.  For an activity, the lead teacher had some fishing poles made out of a wooden rod, string, and a magnet.  She cut out fishes, attached a paper clip to them, and the kids when "fishing".  They loved it.

She mentioned that the fishing rod used to be the craft and how parents said they played with it all day; B played w/ it for the entire playtime after the lesson and craft was over.  So I shouldn't have been surprised when she found a wooden rod at home and asked me to make a fishing pole.

So, crafty mom hunted down some string, a magnet from our fridge door, and hair pins for the fish.  We already had the fish colored from the Sunday School craft that day, so it only took about 5 min to cut them out and prep everything.  The game of fishing quickly turned into a lesson about magnets, and so then we started hunting around the house for things that were metal and might work with our fishing rod (along w/ a few odd balls to let her experiment).  Science/Jesus/Craft/PlayTime all in one; SCORE!!!  You may notice a costume change in there, too. . . Peter Pan (NOT Tinker Bell because [obviously] Tinker Bell has short sleeves, wings, and no leggings.  She had ditched her Peter Pan hat for the time being) decided that Sofia the first needed to make an appearance so she could sing her song.  Singing Sofia in a Pan costume is a BIG toddler No-No, apparently. :P

 "Look, Mom!! It hold a fork!"

 B's rainbow fish :)

 Plastic ring doesn't work!