Party #2

We had our first party with friends from school. It was a bit stressful getting ready to have strangers come over! I managed to get the house & yard fairly respectable and just let 'er rip.

The kids had a great time of course. Our girls were so excited for their birthday and drew up charts to help them count down the days. One morning last week Sweetie crawled into our bed after Murray had gone for his run and she fell back asleep (thank goodness!). When the alarm went off, her little eyes popped open and she looked at me, smiling, and said "four more days til my birthday!!!!). It was their first waking thought every day!

I cleaned and baked and decorated cakes so I put Murray in charge of planning the games. Other years it's been a free for all and they just ran around and played til it was time for presents and cake. This year they decided we should have real games & I couldn't think of anything and was up to my ears in icing and cake anyway and couldn't focus on entertainment!
Luckily we had the trampoline to occupy some of the time and everyone loved that! Murray did some searching online and found a couple ideas to take care of the rest.


We were very fortunate to have Nanny & Auntie KK on hand that weekend! They helped me re-attach all the smarties that had fallen off when the pillars fell over in the box I'd carefully stored them in a few days ahead of time. They sugared up all the turrets for the cakes too! looked after party guests and did tonnes of laundry while they were here. No wonder they needed a rest!

The kids did a water relay which was a great game on a hot day! After the winning team had filled their bucket, they went wild with the sponges on Murray but didn't care for throwing them at each other. Lucky for him, he's a fast runner!

and here are my cakes for this year! The girls picked the design off the box the castle kit came in. I thought it would be faster/easier but it turned out to be about the same as the other castles with flowers.
Honey's cake, purple of course! The poor doll's skirt is going to look like swiss cheese one of these years soon if they don't get off this princess kick!

Lovey wanted a yellow cake but I found out afterwards that she wasn't too crazy about the purple trim. It should have been white. Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me! LOL

Sweetie's princess is sporting a very fashionable orange frock!






At the end of the party there was a treasure hunt to find the loot bags for the guests. Unfortunately it took longer to open presents than I'd expected and we were running behind. People were arriving to pick up the kids before we'd finished. Since all the loot bags were hidden, I didn't want anyone going home without theirs. Finally the last gift was opened and they started opening the clues.
It didn't take them long to race from each spot to the next clue. The only one that slowed them down was buried in the sandbox and Murray helped them find the right spot.
and voila! there they are in the trees. A great party and the girls were so happy with their day!

Party #1

On the official birthday we had family over for supper but we missed Shirley so we're giving her a rain cheque! Shirley, the girls brought your invitation to church last week but we realized you were out of town when they got your cards in the mail. I saw you this morning though so I know you're back!

The girls had two sets of grandparents waiting when they got home from school and were happy to see everyone! I was still working on dinner prep, cake decorating and who knows what else so I'm glad someone remembered to get my kids off the bus!
I spent all of Thursday & Friday getting ready, cleaning house and made remarkable progress. My mum walked in and immediately said "hey! where's all your junk???"

We gave the girls a heads up. I told them there was good news and bad news. The bad news was that we'd only bought one present for all 3 of them. The good news was that it was so big, it couldn't fit in the house. Then we let them take some guesses. Honey wondered if getting the deck fixed was it. I told her she'd guessed it and they thought that was ok. not awesome but ok. (if only we'd known!!!!!!) Then we told them we were kidding, the deck repairs weren't their present. They couldn't think of much else so we took them outside so they could see for themselves. Their faces were full of smiles when they saw the trampoline in the yard!

They all bounced around for awhile and for the initial run, we let them all go in together. It was too hard to decide who could be first so we took a chance on the concussions. It was quite a hot day so they didn't last long before needing a break and a drink so they came back in and we started supper. Honey was verrrrrrrrrrry anxious to get down to business and came into the kitchen every 5 minutes asking "is it present time YET???????????" Finally I told her she'd missed it. ;P

and then it was time to dig in and boy they didn't waste any time getting at the goods!

I thought I'd make it easy on myself for this party & pre-made all the flowers ahead of time so all I had to do was frost & plunk. Pretty slick huh?

Lucky for us, Lady Gaga's mother was in town and came to the party!
They all got some Zhu Zhu pets and are now ZZ crazy! They're pretty cute little things and make all sorts of adorable squeals and gurgles and zip around on their own. If you're in need of a gift for a little girl, these are the way to their heart!
or a Nintendo DS wouldn't be a bad move either! They've had their little eyes trained on a screen or a pet since this party!
More zz accessories!

Thank you to all our special guests for making their birthday so much fun. These girls are loved and spoiled but it's not all our fault, at least we can hold you guys equally responsible!

6th Birthday!

The girls turned 6 yesterday! We had a family party last night & then had their friends over today. A great time at both events and everyone's tired now! Couple of pics before I turn in and more tomorrow (assuming I recover.....)

Another Year Gone!?!?!?!

Yes, it's true. It's birthday time again. The 5 year olds have slipped through our fingers and suddenly we have six year olds to celebrate. And we will!

I've been working on siding things up around here, whipping up batches of icing, baking cakes tonight and cleaning like a fiend and shopping for party supplies.

The birthday gift was easy. We just got them one thing to share. One present for 3 girls, that's ok isn't it??? Let's hope so! Murray and I got it started the other night and put the frame together. Then tonight Teena, Dale & Boo came for supper as we all have soccer nearby. Dale stayed behind with Murray and my brother came over to help out too. We left a little early so they could get started undetected and by the time we got home it was all done! I had envisioned a repeat of the previous nightmare experiences with the swingset and playhouse. All those late night construction projects! This was a breeze in comparison and we've already tested it out to make sure it's ok for the kids! They have no idea what they're getting and haven't really asked us for anything.

Murray's leaving work early tomorrow so he can be home when they get off the bus and then we'll surprise them!

Good long day!

This past weekend was a doozy! Quite likely our busiest day ever but the girls were troopers and all went well.

We were up a little after 6 on Saturday morning, earlier than a school day. That just isn't right on a weekend is it????

Murray was doing a race and needed to be dropped off for 8am so we piled into the car that he'd gotten up even earlier to finish loading.

We got him to his race starting point and we got to do a bit of visiting but then we started to get hungry since we'd skipped breakfast in the rush to get out on time.

I decided it would be fun to go to the market and eat there! We bought all sorts of things to try but the first few didn't go over well and although I could have killed myself eating them, I had to let it go. It is also very wrong to throw away perfectly good cream filled pastries!! We ran into lots of people we knew and then found a friend from the gym who was there with her kids so we all went around together for awhile. After we were done shopping, we all went down by the water to go walking there for a bit.

The girls found some caterpillars and wanted to bring them home. It was a bit tricky getting seat belts buckled with someone crawling around your hand! We managed to get everyone home alive, grab some pb sandwiches and then zip back out for Lovey's violin lesson. She went in with the teacher alone while I sat in the waiting area with the other two and looked at books. They were incredibly good and quiet while she had her lesson.

We got home from that and then got changed and cleaned up and wrapped some presents to go off to Tulip's birthday party. They looooooooooooove parties! They had cool games and lots of fruit to snack on and a scavenger hunt at the end to find the birthday cake. (it had been stolen by a nasty witch!) Luckily they were able to do the proper magic spell to make the cake reappear and we got to eat it. Afterwards, they went on a witch hunt all over the yard, searching for clues. The folks from CSI want to keep a watch on these up and coming sleuths. They were finding traces & evidence like you wouldn't believe. Even on the walk home they were still finding clues!

We had a few minutes to relax when we got home but not too many. Why? Because we had another birthday party at 6! and a pool party at that. Soooooooo off with the dresses and into bathing suits, pack a bag with towels etc and head down to the pool to meet the next party crowd.

Another great birthday and the girls put on life jackets and swam the length of the pool into the deep end! They'd never been in deep water like that before and they were very impressed with themselves. All the kids started jumping off the diving board so they gave that a go too and fell in love!

Once cake & presents were finished, we jumped in the car and raced out to pick up Murray whose race had finished at supper time. He was all by his lonesome and it had started to rain. He'd been able to get under a picnic shelter and read some of his book and enjoyed the R&R.

His race went well, they came in 5th, right after his little brother. His partner was experienced and good with the map so they did well. There were 30ish teams participating.

He was glad to see us and just as we loaded the canoe, it started to pour so he finished up the bike and then we hit a McDonald's as we were hungry from snacking all day but not really eating a meal anywhere along the line! Oops! Mother of the year again! :)))

By the time we got home and everyone tucked in, it was almost 10pm but they slept well and suffered no ill effects and neither did we!

Mr Bojangles came to town!

We had a chance to hang out with Mandy & Mr Bojangles today! They were in town to pick up Andrew from a race he was doing nearby. They were here when we got home from church and we all had lunch together. :)))

The girls were pleased to show Mr B around and let him play with their toys and Sweetie took him outside and they toured around the yard together for awhile too.

Everyone enjoyed the time up in the trees and it was a difficult extraction when it was time to go!

Thanks for coming to see us guys!!! We miss you and were so glad to have you all to ourselves. Muah!

A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far Far Away....

Guess what they're into NOW??? Star Wars!!!!!!!! We think they heard about it at school from other kids. Honey was playing with some boys one day and she got to be Princess Leia. They started asking about the movie and Murray showed them some clips on YouTube. I was worried that the Darth Vader mask would give them nightmares (remember, they had them from playing Princes Wii the first time!) but they didn't seem too bothered by the images. That night, Lovey woke up to go to the bathroom and Murray went to check on her. He came back down chuckling. I asked what was so funny and he told me that although Lovey was barely awake, she still mumbled "I hope Mummy finds Star Wars, I reaaaaaaaaaallllllllly want to see it!" and then fell back into bed asleep instantly.

Since the movie is so old, I didn't think the local convenience store would have a copy and wasn't sure where to get it! On Saturday I took Lovey to her violin lesson and we stopped at a bigger movie place in town and were able to get a copy. The whole way home, she kept saying "I can't wait to tell Daddy & my sisters that we got Star Wars!!!!!!!!!!"

Murray & Dad were working on the deck when we started the movie but came in for the last few minutes. It was a loooooooooooong movie but it held the girls' interest the whole way through. Some parts led to a lot of questions as they had trouble following some of the action but they really enjoyed the whole thing. Their favourite parts were when the Princess was on the scene of course! Any time the story shifted away from her they'd instantly start asking "when's Princess Leia coming back on?!?!??!"

The best part is that there were NO nightmares that night! Woohoo! Now I just have to track down the sequels because they want more!