Fourteen

A's (and E's) birthday was last Friday night. For their birthday, the girls took a bunch of friends to the ballpark.






We celebrated with our family on Saturday. It was a typical Saturday for us. We squeezed a Mexican lunch between a baseball meeting, dance recital rehearsal, church & dinner with friends in from out of town. Amazingly, we had not sporting events.

After our quick lunch, we ran home for cake.




Poor A has to suffer with those brothers. At least the cake was good.

birthday at TCU

Saturday was B's real birthday. TCU had a game that afternoon. DH & the boys joined S#2 & family for a day of tailgating and football. They had to leave early, so we got up to give B his presents.




My one handed wrapping consisted of amazon boxes folded close and bags left over from the party the day before. He didn't seem to care and there wasn't a big mess.















B had a great birthday day at the game.

8th Birthday Party

We had planned B's birthday party for Friday afternoon. We were very lucky and had beautiful weather, especially since the party was a flag football game. I ordered a cake from Sam's Club with green icing. i was delusional and thought I could decorate with a broken left wrist. I was close to losing it and was definitely frustrated, so DH stepped in to help. Who knew he had it in him??


He did the straight lines. I couldn't keep the bag steady all the way across the cake. I added the hash marks and line numbers. A did the letters. it was a family effort.


They walked over to the park to play football. The boys played two games of flag football, switching up teams so everything was fair. DH and J served as coaches/refs.






B again conducted while the boys screamed Happy Birthday at him


It was such an easy party. I would definitely do this one again.

Sunday Baseball Game

After the trip to the Aquarium, B & I met the rest of the family at the ball park. It was BIL#2's birthday.  It was also the first day of hot in Texas. I'm not complaining that the first day of hot was June 2nd, but it was hot. S#2 & I suffered through in our seats in the sun. Several of the others found seats in the shade.

DH's childhood baseball hero, George Brett, was at the game with the Royals. He and Nolan Ryan were on the field for something.



I took a picture of DH taking a picture.


The kids tried to get a free t-shirts from the girls with the t-shirt slingshot. No luck despite their enthusiasm.


It was dollar ice cream day. The Rangers came back to win the game. It was a good afternoon for all.

May, so far

Lots going on. Cold spells & tornado sirens, but the tomatoes (& the rest of the garden) seem to have survived. Lots of birthday celebrations. Bad photos of the band concert. And I lost the video of them playing too! Some knitting going on. Finally, that ice cream man is very happy that I went back to work. He's there all the time again!

Thirteen

I've been juggling everything lately. The full time job takes up most of my time. DH is doing double duty with all of the after school kid stuff and working around their schedules. When I get home it is time to make dinner, check homework, and pick up from practice. It seems like we're always running around to get stuff done. There is no down time until 9 or 10 at night.

Today was Pinterest Challenge day. Since I  have no time in general, I  had no time for Pinterest Challenge. I thought about it for a half of a second and immediately dropped the thought.

However busy I am, tomorrow is A's thirteenth birthday and I had to make time to make her a cake. Yes, she's have a birthday party with her twin cousin tomorrow and they will have a cake at that party, but I've always made her a cake for her birthday and I couldn't skip this one. Especially thirteen. It seems like such an important number.

I sat down at my computer and started looking for ideas for decorating the cake, and voila, I had a Pinterest Challenge project and a birthday cake all in one.



I found this pin from This Little Life of Mine.


And this pin from Cupcake Diaries.

Easy simple decorations. Just what I needed for my busy life.


Birthday cake and Pinterest Challenge done.

Check out the other hosts of the Pinterest Challenge.

Young House Love, RedBirdBlue, Sparkle Meets Pop, Bower Power. Here's to having more time for the next one.

Double Digits

J turned 10 on Sunday. We had scheduled a slumber party over break but the flu canceled it. Since his party was canceled, he requested green egg pizza for this birthday. No way I could say no to that.

I got up early to get started in the kitchen.

First up, pizza dough for 14. I wasn't sure how much I had made the last time we made pizza for a crowd. I ended up with 3 double batches of dough.


It ended up that SIL & family were sick so we only made pizza for 11. I had 13 individual balls of dough left over. Two double batches would have been fine either way. I need to remember that for next time.

After dough was left to rise, I churned a batch of chocolate almond ice cream. I made the vanilla ice cream the night before.

Finally, I started on the vanilla-vanilla cake he requested. I picked a recipe that I tore out of the December Southern Living magazine, mostly because it called for whipped egg whites and I would get to use my copper bowl.






I put some thought into the pizza making process. I used a couple of cookie sheets that have no lip plus some parchment paper so I could have 5-6 piece of dough pre-rolled. I bought more corn meal and used it liberally to stop the dough from sticking. DH got a wooden pizza peel for Christmas that greatly improved the process of getting the pizza off the grill.


Over all, it was much less hectic than our last pizza party.

J got cash for his birthday. We went to the Apple store on New Year's Eve and he purchased a new iPod touch. He's hardly put it down since he got it.

Messy, Messy, Party!

Friday was B's 7th birthday. We took a long time figuring out what to do for his party. Last year I spent a lot of money on laser tag. I didn't want to do that this year. First we tried the "You and Daddy will go to a Cowboys game in Cowboys Stadium" bribe. He hemmed and hawed and actually cried over the decision but decided he really wanted a party. Next we tried, "We'll take 5 of your friends to a movie and yogurt" idea. He thought about it but couldn't narrow the list down to 5 boys. He wanted a party, a real party with lots of boys and a video game truck party. I wasn't going for the video game truck so I had to come up with something good.

I had a few backyard party ideas, but I was afraid after the very bad, cold, sleety weather we had last year. I almost rented the indoor soccer place for a nerf gun war. I was going to make the call the next day but I stayed up long enough to watch the news and the long forecast was in my favor.

Luckily, the forecast held true and it was sunny and in the 70s on Friday afternoon. Perfect for B and 23 or so of his favorite friends to come over for a very messy party.

First on deck, Mentos and Diet Coke explosions.








The boys have been begging to do this for several years and was the inspiration for the rest of the party.

Next, a Texas Style Snowball fight. In actuality, it was old socks filled with cornstarch. I attempted to color the cornstarch like in a "color run" but it wasn't very effective. It was very messy to make the snowballs. The table and ground and I were covered in cornstarch.




The boys had great fun. The snowball fight lasted longer than I expected and only 3 boys cried.










The last messy event was picking gummy bears out of whipped cream using only your mouth. Hands were allowed only if the bowl stuck to your face.








I was going to make a dirt cake but decided to save myself the time and trouble. I bought chocolate cupcakes from Sam's, stuck in a gummy worm and drizzled on ground up oreo. Very easy dirt cupcakes.


After cupcakes we had a good half an hour of just running around the backyard playing. I think that was a let down after the first three activities. The boys kept asking what was next. Maybe I can come up with something new for next year.

It was a very, very, messy, messy party and the best part, B enjoyed every minute of it.