Oliver & Jo's Birthday Party, 2014!

This year, I asked Oliver what kind of a birthday party he'd like. "Thomas!" he said. I later asked him if we could have a "Spooky Thomas" birthday party because I love having all of the kids come together in their costumes. Here are the kids in their costumes. Oliver is Lord Business, but his hat is falling off in the picture. It was so warm out (72 degrees!) that he ended up taking off the hat in no time, followed by the chest piece, and then he changed from his sweatshirt to a T-shirt. Joanna was going to be a monster for the party, but the costume is fleece, so we put her in a back-up costume: her Minnie Mouse dress! (She refused to wear the ears, though). So much for kids being in costume ;-)

I combined Thomas the Train AND Halloween! Not an easy feat ;-)

We turned the kids' play house into a "not-so haunted house." A sign by the front door read, "Joanna's not-so haunted house," and I hung pumpkin garland and a smiling bat inside. In the garden, where I pulled out all of the old cucumber vines, Andrew posted a sign that read, "Oliver's pumpkin patch." We filled it with 12 small pumpkins to be part of the party favors.

I found a Thomas train that pulls a "Happy Halloween!" train, and so the Halloween train is being pulled around the Halloween cake. Oliver liked the ghost! I'd also made ghost cake balls and deviled eggs (some with black olive "spiders" on top), and Andrew made mummy dogs (pigs in a blanket).

The birthday kids are ready to blow out candles!

Birthday gift time! The kids received lots of wonderful gifts from friends & family.

Happy Birthday, kids!

Happy New Year 2014!

Age four has got to be the funnest age. Oliver was able to understand what the new year is, and he got so excited to celebrate! We went to Target to pick out noise makers and hats. He told everybody, "Happy New Year!" After his daddy got home, Oliver told him that we were going to have a party. The kids helped me dip strawberries into chocolate (strawberries are Jo's favorite). We also made deviled eggs and stuffed mushrooms. I picked up a pomegranate to eat tomorrow because it's supposed to be good luck to eat pomegranate on New Year's day.

Jo's wearing a mitten and eating a strawberry, as expected. Oliver's figuring out the noisemakers.

Andrew & Joanna

We drank sparkling juice in fancy glasses. Oliver made sure we all drank juice.

Jo wasn't too sure about the hats... at first.

We waited until 7:30pm, and then we counted down the new year! Andrew pulled up a countdown from YouTube. It was from last year, but oh well! We yelled "Happy New Year!" and then Oliver banged the pots & pans.

The aftermath:

A video of Oliver's countdown:

                       

Happy New Year!

Birthday Party at Boo at the Zoo!

Every year, the Denver Zoo holds an event called "Boo at the Zoo," where kids get to go dressed up and trick-or-treat. We decided to have the kids' party at the zoo this year during "Boo at the Zoo." It was so fun (and so exhausting). I think this was my favorite birthday party that we've thrown for the kids yet! And because we weren't allowed to bring in any outside food (with the exception of birthday cake), it was also the easiest party yet.

Oliver helped me bake cakes on Saturday. We made a chocolate round cake, and we made yellow cake pops, which I formed into pumpkins. The cake pops held up better than previous ones because I used a little extra frosting in them, but they were still pretty challenging. Out of a whole box of cake mix, I think we ended up with 20 usable ones.

Here's the spider cake we made! Joanna loves spiders (and monsters and pumpkins and dinosaurs). A few months back, I spotted a spiderweb cake on Pinterest. It was just a photo, but it was enough!

I searched high and low for a pumpkin cake pop tutorial and finally found one. Mine didn't turn out as nicely as the one I found, but too bad!

And I filled little goody bags with goodies and monster hats.

The next morning, we ran around like mad trying to get everyone dressed and ready to go. Oliver dressed up in his chef explorer costume, I was Lady Justice, and Joanna was Amelia Earhart. The costumes were great for a couple of hours, but then it got too warm outside for all of the layers. We had to ditch our costumes by the end of the day.

Parking at the zoo was a total... zoo! We ended up starting the party about half an hour late because people couldn't get there. Most had to park at the nearby museum or City Park and then hoof it over to the zoo. Oliver and Jo's Grandma Colleen & Grandpa Paul came dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2. They were basically celebrities! Everyone wanted their photo.

Oliver was excited to see everyone, but he was most excited that Baby Grace came.

The kids got to meet and pet some animals at the party.

And then we ate cake! Some of these photos came from friends & family. Thanks, friends & family!

Oliver really got into presents this year! Also, he seemed to fully grasp the concept that they were given to him by his friends. He tells me that Dominic gave him Thomas the Train!

Some more photos from friends:

There was a giant, talking pumpkin at the zoo! It was operated by a lady with an iPad, so it was really interactive. It would answer the kids and comment on their costumes. Very cool! Well, it was also terrifying for some children.

The animals were celebrating Halloween, too!

Each kid at the party got a token to ride the train or carousel. I'm pretty sure everyone chose the train. Oliver and Dominic were very eager to get on the train!

It was such a full, fun, and exhausting day! We had a great time, and it was really fantastic that the zoo handled basically everything. Oh, and on our way out, Paul & Colleen (err, Thing 1 and Thing 2) were stopped by Fox 31 News and interviewed about their experience at the zoo! Jo was in the interview, too, but not in costume. Unfortunately, it didn't air because of the World Series game, but I thought it was too cool!

Tea Party!

How cute of an idea is this? One of the moms in my MOMS Club decided to host a tea party for everybody. All the kids who came dressed up. I brought some Russian tea cookies, and another mom brought some homemade scones. The host brewed teas and iced them for the kids. It was hysterical! These little kids were dressed to the nines, sipping on iced tea, and eating little sweets on top of a plastic table cloth. Best little kid party ever!

Here is the recipe at allrecipes.com for the cookies.

Here are Oliver & Jo, all dressed up for the tea party!

Jo was so happy to finally get to eat the cookies!

The tea party! (Thanks to the other moms for some of these photos)

I took a few extra photos of Jo's adorable fall dress when we got back. I'm so glad we had an excuse for her to wear it!

We're going to stay busy all week! One of the moms in MOMS Club pointed out that today is "Talk Like a Pirate Day." She has a bunch of great ideas for the day, like walking the plank (a board on the ground), eating today's catch (Goldfish), and counting treasure (pennies!). We might try to do some of those things, but today is also Lunar Festival! My friend gave me some moon cakes that I saved especially for today. In parts of Asia where they use the Lunar Festival, today is sort of a fall celebration. My friend told me they eat moon cakes and go out to look at the moon and tell stories. We're going to do that and also look at stars (one of the items on my summer bucket list).