Jabber Jaw Celebrates a Birthday!

Gosh, it seems like we have been celebrating a birthday every other day here… but it’s just my lack of blogging in between birthdays that makes it seem like they are so close.  Regardless, our family celebrated Jabber Jaws 12th birthday.  It’s hard to believe that next year we’ll have TWO teenagers in the house! 
It’s always a busy time of year anyway, and then add to the fact that our family is still sick, we had a football tournament…. and well…. we were lucky to catch a free day to celebrate!  But we did! Here are some photos to mark the occasion…. Jabber Jaw’s last year of the kid menus and 12 and under prices.  (Okay, I’m just being a smart aleck).  :-)

Presents and a football for the football theme

 Balloons!

Brothers…. today they are friends… Little did either one know they would both have 101 degree fevers the next day.

 The cake!  I did not make this one.  This used to be his favorite from a local bakery, but Jabber Jaw informed me that the cake I made for the King Fish was much better than this one…. Next year, I will make his cake.  I love these candles!

 Opening his “fake” present.  We thought he saw one of his presents, that he was dying to get.  So we wrapped up a DVD of Barbie Swan Lake and had him open it…. just what ever 12 year old boy wants for his birthday!

Opening his real present…. Star Wars Battlefront I, II and Republic Commando.

Obviously he is in shock!  He was just hoping for one of those, but Amazon had it in a 3 disc set for the PC.  (Much better than Barbie!)

Lovin’ his new Dolphins Sweatshirt…

Always the ham…. but he had a great day!

Munchkin Turns 2!!

Okay, it was LAST month, that this event happened…. but better late than never!  Actually, what’s motivating me is that this month we are celebrating Jabber Jaw’s birthday.  I couldn’t put photos up of that, without having posted about our littlest guys celebration.  No way!  Besides, Tiger Shark’s tooth photos have been up here for way to long.  Seriously.
SO our little munchkin loves Elmo.  He loves to sing/say “Elmo” at different times throughout the day.  He is actually just getting into Sesame Street.  For awhile there, no TV show was of any interest to him…(only the cords BEHIND the TV).
Naturally, I wanted to do some kind of Sesame Street themed celebration.  I was originally going to do Cake Pops, that I saw HERE.  But everyone got sick with the flu, and so we were lucky to find a day that everyone felt well for Munchkin’s party.  (We celebrated it a week and a half late…. shhhhh……  he doesn’t know.)  Anyway, those cake pops were sooo not happening.  I really wish I had time to make them, but I chose instead a simple 3 tiered cake.  I made a white icing, and decorated the heck out of it with sprinkles, candy and fondant.  It was my first 3 tiered cake.  Here are some photos of the day. 

Sesame Street Pinata

 

Elmo and the presents

Pin the Nose on Elmo 

Pinata

 Blowing out the candles!!  Looks like he had a little help…..

Presents- One more Goodnight Moon book.  (We now own three- but you can never have too many of his favorite book!)

 Cookie Monster who actually eats cookies….

 Tentatively feeding him a cookie…. (still holding his favorite book though)

 The best shot I could get of all the crew….. 

At the end of the day…. Munchkin had a BLAST!

Small Fry Celebrates a Birthday!

Small Fry had a birthday recently.  He wanted a Thomas the Train birthday theme…. so, I began to think of a few Thomas the Train ideas, like a cake, etc.  Here’s the thing about Small Fry, he isn’t in preschool like my other boys were, and so we aren’t having the big preschool birthday parties.  Our birthdays are pretty much our family.  Maybe every other year we have a few friends over for birthdays, but typically it’s just us.  And by “us” I mean, just our little family unit, as The King Fish and I don’t have family that live in the area. 

Birthdays are a big deal for us.  We want to make them very special for our kids.  So we almost always have streamers.  The dining room table must be “dressed” for the event.  



The birthday child always gets to chose what they would like for dinner.  Small Fry’s choice was interesting…. chicken divan, and corn on the cob.  Hmmmmm.  He wanted a Thomas cake, and since we have a Thomas Cake pan, that was one easy thing that I could provide for him.  Except that a few days before his birthday, The King Fish and I could NOT find the Thomas Cake Pan anywhere.  And we looked everywhere, in the cabinets, pantry, all  the usual places.  Then we started to look in unusual places…. the garage, the attic, the master closet in our bedroom…..  No Cake Pan ANYWHERE.  Plus they are not sold in any stores around here.  Ordering it was not an option, as we didn’t have time for it to be shipped.  Enter Plan B….. make my own Thomas Cake.  I found one online where Thomas was actually carved out like the train. Holy Cabooses!  (What movie is that phrase from?)  It was a very difficult cake to make,  especially for this novice cake maker.  I was up until 4am working on that cake!  A whole lotta love went into it…. but it was worth it! 

I also found several ideas for games we could play as a family for when we had our little family party.  Tiger Shark made this awesome poster.  It’s called Pin the Nose on James, and he drew it all freehand.  That was such a fun game that everyone enjoyed. 


Jabber Jaw was tied up with football, but was able to come back and help me laminate some of the cutest Thomas the Train Bingo cards that I found online for free!  Awesome! 
      

Finally we had a Thomas Piñata and everyone enjoyed whacking away at that! 





Here is the birthday boy at the beginning next to all his presents and some of the games….  I forgot to get a photo of the birthday boy and all his brothers.  Darn!  Next year I must remember!

So much work went into this little party, but it was one of the sweetest birthdays we celebrated!  We certainly made some lasting memories. 
This is a photo of Munchkin sometime during dinner. 

He was certainly zoned into something, but I have no idea what it was.  His birthday is next, and I’m thinking of some sort of Sesame Street cake/theme.  Stay tuned!
~Jackie

A little mischief….

Our munchkin has such a mischievous smile.  It reaches up all the way into his eyes.  Sometimes he knows he shouldn’t be doing something, and he certainly knows the word “no” by now… and yet he’ll do it anyway.  Oftentimes it requires correction, especially when he is directly disobeying us.  But other times he will grab the TV remote, or the diaper wipes,or one of the kids school books, and take off running. He has such a look of glee on his face, like it’s one of the funniest things for him to do.  He’s too cute!

Here are a few photos of our Munchkin in action…. 

First I have to show you our entryway shelves that the King Fish built.  It’s this little niche in the wall right by the door that was empty. So I thought it would be a good space to store shoes, and the occasional floral arrangement and family photo. 

There are three levels of shoes, (the wood floor is not shown in the photo).  The plan is to add a pretty fabric (black and white toile) to the lower half to hide the shoes.  That has been the plan for well over a year, and I even have the fabric.  I just haven’t done it yet!  It will look so much better when that is up there!

 

Anyway, here is what I find every day, maybe several times a day on the floor in the entryway.  Hmmmm…

 

Oh, I know the culprit, and have seen him with my own eyes!  But I just haven’t been able to catch him red-handed and have the evidence to prove it….   Until now…..

See what I mean????  Too cute!

Valentine’s Day Heads Up!

Hi Everyone! Last year I made Valentine’s Day Fortune Cookies for each of my boys. Each day, for the fourteen days leading up to Valentine’s Day, I would spend a few minutes with each boy as the would pull a Valentine cookie from their individual mason jar. It was so special for each of them to read encouraging words from their mom and dad. Some cookies had encouraging words and some had appropriate Scripture verses in them. I can’t say enough about what a special bonding time this was for all of us!

Here are some photos:

So, this is a heads up to let you know that Valentine’s Day is coming up! There are two weeks until February 1st, so now is the time to start gathering the materials you will need.

To make your own felt fortune cookies for Valentine’s Day click on the link below: It will take you to the original instructions from Andrea at Babe of My Heart. She will show you step by step what to do, and has wonderful photos too! Have fun blessing your children this holiday! ~Jackie

Valentine’s Cookies

Tap. Tap. Tap…. Is this thing on??

Small Fry got a dual microphone, Child’s CD Player for Christmas…..

 

The child loves to sing…  I mean he was in heaven!

 

Can you tell??? 

Our little munchkin was not so sure what to do with his microphone…

 

Hey, do I wrap it around my neck? 

Hmmm…. what’s my big brother doing with it???

  I see a musical career in their future… Don’t you???