Cian and Isla's "Spend-Over" Birthday Party

Cian has been really into spending the night with his cousins and grandparents lately.  His love for "spend-overs" as he calls it has been spreading and he pretty much asks anyone if he can spend the night at their house.  I mean everyone and has no shame in asking.

We promised him that he could have friends over after we moved into our new house so a "spend-over" birthday party was a perfect opportunity.  We had a joint party for Cian and Isla (their birthdays are 13 days apart) in the evening and invited everyone and then invited his friends and cousins to spend the night.

I had seen this amazing party where the family made a blanket fort and I really wanted to do that to have the party in and for the kids to sleep in overnight.  We served breakfast food and had yummy cupcakes and cookies for dessert.  I decided the cupcakes didn't have to match the theme and let Cian and Isla pick out what type of cupcakes they wanted.

Favors and Halloween Candy

 The party was the day after Halloween.  The weather was especially crappy on Halloween night so we knew we would have Trick or Treaters.  The favors also doubled as breakfast in the morning!

 I used an old doll bunk-bed for the favors and a doll bed that had been my cousin's for the cupcakes/desserts.

 We did a build your own pankcake station for dessert with cool whip, nutella, syrup, and berries.  I also made an egg white and kale breakfast casserole and had fresh fruit. 

 The kids ran around like wild animals and had a blast!!

Most of the kids minus Finley, Caleb and Maggie

This was the popular gift, Cian got four of them!!

The loft area in the family room is a popular spot to hang out

Grandma and the little girls

Breakfast on Saturday Morning

Invites: Designs In Paper
Cupcakes: Cedar City Cakes
Cookies: Signal Mountain Cookie Lady

Halloween Decorations

Do you ever find yourself thinking Pinterest can suck it?  Yes, I love it. Yes, I am obsessed with pinning many beautiful things but sometimes I just look at those crafts and think, "ain't nobody got time for dat." Well, I pulled our (very small amount) of Halloween decorations out on Halloween morning and decided to decorate with them. They are left over from a couple years ago when I was feeling all Martha Stewarty. (In actuality, I made them for a photo shoot and they have come in handy.)

In preparation for Halloween we did at least carve pumpkins ahead of time. Well, the week of Halloween...

 Steve is the designated pumpkin carver. He came up with the designs and had them drawn on the pumpkins when we got home.

 Cian saw a photo of a minion pumpkin and had to have one!

 Isla chose her little pumpkin because the bigger ones were too "heaby".  We couldn't carve it but hers is the only one still living.

 I imagine to myself she is saying "expecto patronum". 

 Steve's Oogie Boogie pumpkin.

Here are our last minute decorations for Halloween:

 Maybe I will be a little earlier for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year?

Halloween Festivities

I am a candy-aholic.  What does that have to do with Halloween you ask?  I think Halloween is like putting a crack addict in a crack house, I am one binge away from a sugar coma.  Pair that with trying to switch to *mostly* clean eating and you have one cranky little girl.  (Not Isla, me.)  The clean eating is a post for another day but Halloween festivities and ridiculously cute photos of Minnie and Ninja await.

Sunday we attended our Hoedown at our church along with 20,000 of our closest friends.  The traffic is kinda crappy but the day is amazingly awesome.  It is a child's paradise: bouncy houses, pony rides, cotton candy, popcorn, cupcakes, music, face painting and Jesus.  Well, they may not include that last part but I sure am glad Jesus was there.

My kids were no exception, we walked in and I think Isla was in complete awe of all the towering slides and the enormity of the campus.  (Speaking of enormity, it totally felt like we parked in Christina and walked there.  I somewhat justified the popcorn right?)  Isla was minnie mouse and Cian was a "white ninja".  He is in a Ninjago phase.  It turns out the white one's name is Zane.  Learn something new every day.

We meandered for about 20 minutes before we settled on the port-o-potties as our first activity. This is quite fun with a toddler and preschooler. Ever tried to wrangle two children and a giant purse in a small box while simultaneously trying to tell said two children not to touch anything?  Ummm, not an easy feat.

 We did finally settle on popcorn, cupcake walk and then pony rides!  The kids sat down in the chairs for the cupcake walk, which was for ages 8 and under.  They let Cian draw a number and he drew a 7. They were calling out number 7 and I was looking around like an idiot when someone pointed out that Isla was number 7, oops.  I promise it wasn't rigged!  We went to pick out a cupcake while Cian finished the game and they choose his number!  Again, not rigged!

Cian was excited and keep insisting that the ponies were horses.  Isla says there are "honies".  I wasn't sure what Isla would do but she got right up on the pony.

 Cookie decorating in the preschool tent was a must.  I only took one bite of their cookie as well.  (Stealing just one bite and not the entire cookie was big for me people, big.)  We took a small pit stop to sing but by then we were in full on sugar-high mode so we were off to look for adventure.

We hit up a big slide, which Cian started flying up. Isla was quick to follow.  They sent someone up to help her, turns out parents should be worried about their kids climbing steep steps on a giant balloon filled with air.  Mom of the year award here people  The lady told me once they got to the top Isla said she wanted to go by herself and down she went. Both kid's went twice in a row.  The second time I got to go up with Isla. She still had to go down by herself.

 

 I am pretty sure the photo above is not my child just a stock photo from a frame.  I love it!

 We took the easy road back to the car and rode the shuttle. We still had to walk 15 miles to our car.  (This may or may not be a slight exaggeration.)

We had such a fun day!  What a blessing to spend the day playing and filling up on junk food.