2 birthday parties, 1 day, EXHAUSTED

We may be a little crazy, okay a lot. But in the end We still feel that it was worth it. We decided to have 2 parties on the same day, 1 in the morning for Jace, 1 in the afternoon for Levi. We figured that for the most part is was about the same amount of work. We made the decorations interchangeable, rented a bounce house, made a bunch of cupcakes, a cake and a ton of frosting.

Jace wanted a Pirate Party so his invitations were a message in a bottle (forgot to take a picture of course, but they turned out super cute). I found pirate costumes for $1.00 at littletikes.com (1.50 with shipping) figured I couldn't put together a treat bag for that price.

Invited about 16 kids (not all were able to make it). Some kids weren't too thrilled about dressing up as they are a little shy. We even had cousins that were able to come down from Garden City to be here.

Levi showing his sword skills. I decided to do cupcakes for Jace's party, that was probably the way to go and should have done the same for Levi's party. Oh well, live and learn.

   

Levi wanted a transformer birthday and it was very important that there be a transformer on his cake, thus, I made a cake instead of cupcakes. The invitations were a shirt that had a silver autobot symbol on the front and a black decepticon symbol on the back (again cheaper than a goodie bag) The invitation read:

Are You an Autobot or a decepticon?

Choose your side and join us for the ultimate Battle to celebrate Levi’s 5^th Birthday

Yes, in this picture there are 23 kids (and a few weren't able to come), and a couple had already left to go home. This was definitely the more lively of the 2 parties as they are a little older and had a blast on the bounce house/slide.

Of note, Levi received 13 transformers and has be busy ever since. We grabbed a couple to the side in order to space the transformer mania out. This Friday is Levi's actual birthday and Rick has 2 more transformers for him and his Grandma Cook has another one. So it looks like we'll be getting a bigger bucket to keep them in.

All in all it was a super fun day, we even had pizza for all the cousins (who came to both parties) aunts and uncle for lunch in between the 2 parties. We tried to have some "quiet time" as well but the kids wanted to get back to the bounce house as soon as possible. My sis-in-law was able to get her younger ones down but the rest were too excited to be with each other and play.

But by the end of the day, Rick and I were EXHAUSTED. At 8:00 the boys had crashed with very little of the bedtime stalling. I felt like it was after midnight and I had been out partying (oh, the college days), boy, we're getting old.

Canning

Last week I spent a whole day canning. 9 quarts of pears, 34 pints of tomatoes. Still planning on apples, apple juice and hopefully grape juice. My sister-in-law just gave me peaches...and I got called in to work for tomorrow. Guess I'll be canning when I get home. It shouldn't be too many peaches, maybe 7 quarts.

Building

About a month ago I quit one of my jobs and am able to spend a little more time at home with the boys now. I'm still adjusting to having more "down" time. Actually I now get to pursue some of my interests.
So far I've done about 3 builds. I get most of my ideas from ana-white.com. It's a fanastic website that has tons of free intructions for building furniture and things. The first was a pantry shelving that attaches to the pantry door. It's definitely not perfect, but it gave me a ton more space for spices, etc. In fact, I now have an empty shelf in a cabinet. Of course I don't have a picture of it. The next build was this closet organization. before it was just a clothing rod with 1 long shelf over it and about 3 feet of unused space above it. So instead I built some shelves, moved the bar and added another one. So much more space, my clothes are no longer crammed in. Last build was a silverware drawer organizer, need to make a few adjustments to it still.

Little Helpers

The boys love "helping" out in the kitchen. On game day they were making the infamous Cook cream cheese dip. And yes, Rick is standing on a chair.

First day of School

Levi's first day of preschool was September 6th. He is attending the same one as last year and has really looked forward to seeing Miss Mindy again. About 1/2 the class is the same as last year. He's been sounding out words trying to spell them. It's crazy how much bigger he is than last year.

Jace's birthday

Jace had his 3rd birthday this month. I've been slacking a lot on blogging our happenings, but Jace wanted a Pirate Party. This was the birthday cake for our family party with the grandparents. A treasure chest, he was pretty excited to dig into it all day. I had to hide it for awhile.

Jace loved opening the gifts from his grandparents and has had a lot of fun playing with them since. His favorite present was from Levi, a gumball machine (Levi picked it out himself), this kid loves gum.

Tip-Toe

About a month ago we took the boys to Lagoon. As we were leaving Levi saw a group of Lagoon security officers and wanted to talk to them. He told them how old he was, his name, blah, blah, blah. One of them asked him what his favorite ride was and he replied "The one I had to stand on my tippy toes for" They replied "we didn't hear that"

That ride would be the roller coaster which he is just a bit too short for.

The Backpack

Since Levi got a backpack for preschool (of course he needed a new one, the one that he used 2 hrs/day, 3 days/week just wouldn't do) Jace inherited the one from last year. Since then he has been toting it everywhere.

Today we went with my sister-in-law and her daughter to scout out photo locations in Logan for her upcoming shoots. Jace got his back pack ready to go. The contents:

3 sippy cups (which actually came in handy)

1 flip flop (the one I've been searching for the last 2 days)

fish crackers in a baggy (a treat of course, not sure how he got those, maybe left from Sunday)

1 coloring book

1 colored pencil-blue

and a spindle of DVDs (no idea