Nathan had a birthday!

Nathan waited all year for this day (or so it seemed)! He was so looking forward to taking treats to school and then a scout activity (his first one as a Webelos) after school. The day dawned and he was sick! So he had to stay home. :(

But as you should already know, we are used to such birthday illnesses and made some adaptations. We postponed going out to dinner, but we carried on with presents and cake! (We are quite stalwart, I know.)

Here is the newly turned ten-year-old, surrounded by eager siblings. What was Nathan going to get?!?

Among his presents were his scout book and Webelos colors. He also got a real CTR ring (meaning it won't turn his finger green and cost a few pennies) and socks. I spared you the pictures of that!

Chad and I were excited to give him this present. It's a series of pieces that snap together to form electrical circuits and includes things like magnets, motors, light bulbs, etc. It's call Snaptricity. Learn more about it here.


But even that gift was upstaged by the pocket knife/key chain that Daniel passed on to him. Boys!


Don't forget the cake! I wanted to make a cake that would be something interesting to Nathan. I decided to make him a Hexbug cake, but was dismayed to not find any examples on the internet. What? I can't have that original of an idea. My first thought was to cut out the hexes and tracks from the cake but decided that would be too difficult and resorted to "drawing" everything on. The actual Hexbugs still vexed me and I took another easy road...I used real ones!


It's not to scale, but it still tasted good.

Nathan blew out the candles and served up the cake.

The girls liked it. (Sarah is always climbing on the table...it drives me nuts!)
The boys liked it, too. I did learn an interesting lesson about serving sizes. This was just one cake mix, baked in a 1/2 sheet pan. We got skinny, but wide pieces of cake and tricked ourselves into eating only half the cake. In past experiences, we have polished of the entire thing! It's a small stroke of genius...that I'll probably not do again just for the sake of eating less.


After cake, the kids "helped" Nathan assemble some circuits. The kit comes with a booklet that gives a diagram and instructions and explains what is happening. The kids were really just intrigued by the fan that they could make fly straight up into the air. Boys!

Happy Birthday, Nathan! We hope you know how much we love you!

Sarah has been practicing her smile. It's getting better (less "bull dog")!

Leah turned 8!

It was a much anticipated day, but it finally arrived and Leah celebrated her 8th birthday!

As required, there was a birthday cake. I worked much of the night before on a cake top, only to ruin it and throw it out. So the next day I scrambled for plan B. Plan B ended up with me buying a new cake pan. It resulted in this horse cake. Leah is a little horse crazy, as you may know.

I used my favorite crafting tool and made a birthday shirt for Leah (and Rebekah and Sarah). Leah is really into "piggie tails" lately.

The highlight of a birthday is the presents. Don't we all know it? Leah got her share. One present came indirectly from Leah's great-grandpa Russell. She received a small metal horse that he had played with as a boy. We're convinced it's a bank, but we've yet to get it open. It has a broken leg, but still stands. We figure the toy is around 90 years old. :)

And while there were other presents...

the other horse was another favorite.

After presents is CAKE! Eight candles? That's going to take a lot of breath to blow them out.

Happy Birthday, Leah! We love you!

Joseph's 4th Birthday

Somehow it happened, I'm still not sure how, that Joseph turned 4 years old on Sunday! I tell you, I sure love that kid. He is so much fun to have in our family. He is Sarah's best friend and is so stinkin' smart! He also talks constantly. (I could use a break from that.)

As his birthday approached, starting in about July, Joseph would want to know if his birthday was before Halloween or after. I have no idea how many times I answered that question!

Thankfully, his birthday finally arrived. He had been looking forward to getting called up to the front in Primary to pick his scripture pencil and bookmark. Chad and I were in there that morning because Leah had a talk, so I got to see the huge smile on his face. He was so excited, that he started inching out of his seat as he anticipated them formally calling him to the front. And then he stood there stoically while we all sang. I loved it.

I had started the cake two nights before when I made the top of the decorations. I baked the cake Saturday night and slapped all the frosting on during a quiet time Sunday afternoon. I don't think it turned out too badly. In fact, it's my best Butter Cream Transfer to date! (I still have room for improvement.)


I bought some Toy Story sugar decorations to put on the cake. I made sure there were exactly 6...for obvious reasons.


I also picked up a game for everyone to play. I am just not a birthday party kind of mom. Daniel had the most parties, Nathan's had one and Leah is looking forward to her first one in January. So we had a party game for our family time. It seemed to work. :)

The kids were sticking on shields or sheriff stars, depending on their height. Here is Joseph, trying to get Buzz Lightyear's shield on his arm.


Sarah's blindfold slipped off, but we didn't force the rules on her. It's a good thing she's such a favorite around here!


Leah did NOT want to do a shield, but she consented to help us keep the peace (Rebekah did not want to do a shield, either). Leah is usually the one that helps us work things out. I am so thankful for her! But does it look like she's cheating??!?


Here is Rebekah putting on the first star. It looks like poor Woody is about to be
gagged.


Nathan's turn was next. He got it a little closer to the target.


Knowing Daniel, I'm pretty sure he felt his way to the right place. I would suspect him of peeking, but it doesn't look like the blindfold was cooperating.


Next it was time to open the presents. There are always a lot of helpful suggestions when it comes to opening birthday presents in this family! Sarah is trying to get Joseph to take the next gift from her before he finishes checking out the one he just opened. (I guess the dining room light was off. I promise there were some lights on somewhere when I took these pictures!)


I made Joseph a shirt with my Silhouette. He wore it the next day. :) The vinyl was fuzzy, so he spent the whole day feeling his shirt.


I think Joseph's favorite present was a backpack full of tools. He still claims that he knew he was getting tools. He didn't but he's so smitten, that he can't stop talking about them. I think that means I chose well.



Daniel and Joseph found some of their things that they could wrap up for Joseph. I love it when the kids made that kind of effort to celebrate each other. Leah didn't have anything to give Joseph, so she decided to give him a hug. It brought the biggest smile to his face!


After presents comes cake. I don't know when we got out of the habit of having ice cream with the cake. It would be delicious, but I guess the extra sugar isn't really needed.

OK. The lights were out for this shot. We wanted to see the candles! Joseph got the candles out in 2 breaths. The first breath got the candle the farthest away and the second got the closest three. Such talent! ;)


As I've said before, the birthday person gets to cut the cake. That often means we get some creative cuts on our plates. Thankfully, Joseph let me cut the rest of the cake once he dished up his own piece.


Leah was our videographer for the cake this night. It seems a little abuse of power was going on here!


It gets quiet around here when the kids start eating something they like.


Sarah really got into her piece of cake! Hmm...it looks like there was a bit of black frosting on her plate.


Joseph's eyes were bigger than his stomach. Once he'd had his fill of cake, he was gone to the living room to play with his tool set. I wish I could walk away from food like that! (Sadly, I found the best, untouched piece of cake from his plate and ate it. I can't stick to my own food!)


Joseph wasn't the only one who wanted to play with his tools some more!

At the end of the celebration, this was what was left. Joseph, Sarah and I had a little for lunch on Monday and then Chad and I finished it off (before it got stale)!


Happy Birthday, Joseph! We hope you felt special on your special day. We sure love you tons!

Rebekah is SIX!

Rebekah's 6th birthday was last week. She is in First Grade (I think she's the youngest in her grade) and finally turned the age of many of her friends. :) We also celebrated her birthday a day early because of some scheduling nightmares. We can be flexible!

Rebekah really loved the little figure stuck into Sarah's birthday cake, so I made one for her. Unfortunately, it was a day of running around and not accomplishing much, so Rebekah got to decorate her own cake. She enjoyed that so much, I wonder if it shouldn't become a new tradition?

Here is the finish product. It's got a lot of personality! (And frosting.)

We opened presents before cake. With Sarah's birthday having only been 3 days earlier, it was hard to convince the two-year-old that it was the six-year-old's turn.

Rebekah hadn't planned on opening her second present so quickly, but while she was admiring her first gift, Sarah got started on her second, so they both worked on it together.

I think she ended up happy enough with what she got.

And then it was time for cake.

Here is the master cake decorator with her masterpiece.

One more picture so you can really appreciate it's unique properties...totally awesome!

I also made a matching party hat. (Sarah had one on her birthday, but the only picture is on my phone. Rebekah wanted a hat, too.)

Six candles are hard to blow out. She didn't get them all at once, but at least Sarah helped (since she was so recently experienced).

Time to dish up that cake for everyone! Rebekah did a fine job of cutting and serving. It can be a little confusing when everyone is making specific requests. She handled it well.

After an overload of cake last August (and again this past June), I decided to make one cake last for both birthdays. That was so much nicer (and healthier).

For her actual birthday the next day, Rebekah brought these little treats for her class. I had some fun making the tags. Do you notice a theme? :) The kids now know just how yummy Star Crunches are!

Happy 6th Birthday, Rebekah! We are so glad you joined our family and keep us laughing! We love you!

Sarah is TWO!

Sarah celebrated her second birthday two Saturdays ago and we all celebrated with her!

My cake decorating ambitions have suffered a bit and I'm almost embarrassed to show this one at all, but sometimes a gal just has to swallow her pride (and a bit of frosting). I give my thanks to Silhouette for helping me with this creation.


We actually celebrated a day early because we were spending Sarah's birthday on the road and at a family reunion in Utah. I didn't want to mess with cake and presents with a bunch of strangers that are related in some obscure way.


We found a park and whipped out the birthday cake. Sarah tried really hard to blow out her candles by herself. She had some help from behind.

It wasn't that help that she minded, but the help taking her candles out of the cake offended her a bit. Some things should be sacred!

As tradition dictates, our family gives the honor of cutting and giving out the cake to the birthday person. I'm not sure Sarah really understood this, but she wasted no time getting down to business! And then we took that cake mutilating tool away from her and got cake passed around the table.

Things quieted down a bit when everyone had their cake. We all got busy enjoying our treat. (I love taking pictures of Chad when he's making a strange face!)

Come on, Joseph! Don't get distracted!

Daniel is focused on his task and makes that cake disappear with little effort.

Here is a close-up of one of our resident jack-o-lanterns.

Once the cake was eaten, the party moved on to the entertainment: watching Sarah open her presents. She didn't take too long to figure out that there was a real reward for ripping off the wrapping paper. She was also motivated to get the job done before all the others who were sneaking in to try to help.

Sarah got two presents. One was a name blanket. It's yellow and white and has her name on it...hence the reason we call it a name blanket. Every one has one now. ;)

Here's the 2nd present. It's a baby that makes sucking sounds when the bottle gets near her mouth and then coos and giggles. There's something wrong with the fact that your three older brothers are trying to steal the very baby you're trying to bond with!

I got a lot of really cute pictures of Sarah with her new baby. I'll spare you and only share two.

Happy Birthday, Sarah! We love you so much!!