Elijah's Birthday

Elijah is THREE! I can't believe my little boy is three now. This birthday was so much fun too, because this was his first time getting excited for his birthday and he knows what birthday parties are all about. It was so much fun planning everything for him.

He was so cute when he woke up. He came in our room and was complaining that his shirt was unbuttoned. Jed and I started singing Happy Birthday to him and he puts his hands over his ears, shushes us, and then tells us we need to be quiet so he can go back to sleep. Then he takes off to his room, but comes right back with a balloon in his hand. I think that's when it sunk in that it was his special day. We took him out to the living room and dining room to show him all of his decorations for his party and his entire face just lit up. It was so cute to watch him get so excited. Afterwards, Jed and I gave Elijah his birthday present. It was a little kid's camera that he could use for his party. He loved it!

(He has robot pajamas too :) )

After Jed left for school, I finished setting up for his party. This party was a lot of fun to plan and super easy. Although, I've been planning his party theme (robots) since January, but a couple of weeks before I started buying supplies for it I gave him other options just to make sure he still wanted a robot party. He still chose the robot party, until a week before his birthday when he wanted a dog party. :( He still had a robot party though, just because I bought everything on sale and couldn't return anything, and he still had a blast at his party. Here's some of the decor.

Elijah was so tired for some reason. While I was setting up, he kept asking to take a nap (which is unheard of) and he even got a blanket and started to lay down on the couch, but as soon as his friends arrived, he perked right up and started jumping on everything. It was so cute, because I tried to prep him to welcome everyone to his party and instead he would wish everyone a Happy Birthday.

The kids took turns playing with the robot cutout (note to self: make it heavier so they can't pick it up)

We enjoyed our robot lunch:

(The "Fuel" was chocolate milk and the plates and cups were sent with the kids as party favors)

And the kids had a little robot dance party. The kids were so cute to watch.

(They watched robot dance a lot and followed his dance instructions)

Then we did robot crafts.

And then it was time for cake and ice cream.

(The head is the cake)

( The inside of the cake)

(Chloe had ice cream and even tried to share her ice cream

with some of her friends)

And Elijah got to open his gifts.

Then he passed out his Thank You's. Which the kids opened right away and added to the fun and chaos. :) But Elijah had tons of fun! I asked him later if he had a good birthday party and he told me "no, because all of my friends left".

For dinner, we took Elijah to Chili's. He had a lot of fun there too, until they sang to him. He looked like he was going to cry until they handed him the ice cream.

One of my favorite quotes from Elijah on his birthday: I was telling him how much we love him and wanted him to be happy and Jesus and Heavenly Father loves him too. He said "Heavenly Father took me to the potty today, but he's gone now." (He's officially been potty trained since a week before his birthday!!! So super proud!)

Elijah's such a great kid and he had such a great day. Thank you everyone who helped us celebrate with him on his birthday!

Chloe's Birthday Party

I can't believe my baby is a year old now! We celebrated with a big party for Chloe. I had the idea of a Japanese theme since I had her (we all know I've been obsessed with Japanese cherry blossoms lol), and while we were in Japan I got a few more ideas and since then I've been collecting even more ideas for the party. But I didn't really start putting it together until the beginning of January and then actually began working on all of it until just two weeks before her party. Those two weeks before her party were a little rough too, because Jed was working 24/7 (literally he didn't come a few nights) on his senior project. I even had to go help him a few days/nights with it, so it was kind of a chaotic time and my little sister's birthday was a few days before the party so I was busy doing things for her too. Unfortunately, I had to scale back on some of the things I had planned just because I couldn't get all of it done in time. But it all worked out and I was able to do it on a small budget (which is always a great thing) because everything was borrowed and the supplies were all on sale.

I wanted to do a Japanese theme since my family has tons of decorations and outfits that I was able to use for the party and when we move I won't have access to them anymore. My friend, Tory, also had a ton of extra decorations too. Plus, we bought kimonos while we were in Japan and needed an excuse to use them. :) I decorated the apartment with cherry blossoms (Jed even bought me plug in oil scented as Japanese cherry blossoms for Christmas just so I could use it for the party). The idea I wanted for the party was a Japanese cherry blossom viewing picnic. In Japan there's a tradition of going to view the cherry blossoms and people still wear kimonos and eat some of the traditional street food. (side note: Chloe means blossoming... perfect huh?)

I made some of the traditional food (I cut out a lot of the hard core Japanese food, just because I didn't think everyone would eat it). I made labels for everything in Japanese with the English translations underneath. I made cranes to hold the labels for the food and drinks and tiny cranes for toothpicks for the food too. For drinks, I got Japanese sodas along with bottled water that I made labels for. Jed and my brother, James, did an amazing job making all of the yummy food. Tory also lent me a gorgeous wedding kimono that I used as the backdrop for the food table and I glued cherry blossoms onto branches I got from a guy who was pruning his trees up the street from us.

For the rest of the decorations, I bought some pink and white lanterns, and decorated the white lanterns with flowers. My brother, Robert, let me use his samurai helmet and my mom let me use the emperor and empress dolls. I also hung the picture Robert drew of Chloe of when she was five months old outside. It was such a beautiful picture I just had to use it as a feature. Tory also had a curtain divider that we put up as another fun decoration.

We also had some extra kimonos so some of the guests were able to dress up if they wanted to.

We had lots of family that made it to Chloe's first birthday. Most of my family was there along with Jed's sister's family. And of course, we had lots of friends and kids too. (We need a bigger place lol)

I made Chloe's cakes for her party. The big one was a chocolate cake with cherry filling and my grandma's lemon custard and was covered with a chocolate truffle frosting and fondant cherry blossoms I made. It says Happy Birthday "Chloe". The smaller cake was a chocolate cake filled with caramel and a strawberry buttercream and covered with ganash and more fondant flowers. Tory also had the miniatures of the emperor dolls so I didn't have to make those myself like I was originally planning on doing :)

Chloe was so cute when she got her piece of cake. Jed put a fork on her plate so I could feed her, but of course we wanted to see her just dig into the cake herself. So Chloe goes and it looks like she was just going to go fists in, but instead grabbed the fork and tries to cut the cake and feed herself. It was her first time using a fork too! (I guess I should let her try to feed herself more often) She was so dainty about the entire thing, but it was so precious and she was a mess.

We had a great time at her party. Thank you everyone who was able to make it such a special day and help us celebrate Chloe turning one. We missed those who weren't able to attend too. And a special thanks to Tory for everything I borrowed to make it such a fun party and to my amazing sisters in law who provided pictures so we can always remember this special event.

Halloween Week

Halloween week was so much fun! Earlier in the week, I put together a Halloween party for Elijah and his friends. They were so cute in their costumes and it seemed like everyone had fun. There was a couple of games, including a counting scavenger hunt, and tons of food. The kids seemed to like the cupcakes the best. Actually, I should say they liked the frosting the best, because everyone was covered in it. It was really cute though.

Since I somehow managed to have a blonde blue eyed girl, I decided to take advantage of it, so dressed Chloe as Tinkerbell. My friend's son's name is Peter so he was Peter Pan this year.

While the kids are young, I'm trying to keep it themed costumes, so Elijah was Peter Pan too.

Then on Friday we went to the Jelly Belly Factory with some friends. It smelled so sweet and yummy. The kids had so much fun watching all of the candy (and tasting it too). Elijah really liked watching the candy robot arms. (He even builds "jelly belly" robots with his blocks) Chloe liked all of the different colors and kept trying to eat the candy.

Elijah and his friend Sariah after the tour.

Saturday was our church stake carnival. Jed dressed up with the kids for it. (I was the party pooper and didn't dress up because I had a class right after) There were so many games and candy. Elijah even won a goldfish. That was probably his highlight of the carnival.

Then it was finally Halloween. Jed wanted to dress up this year with the kids. It makes it more fun for everyone. So we went all out. He had a lot of fun getting everything for his costume too. Since all adults in Neverland are pirates, of course that's what we were. We also wanted to dress up so Elijah wouldn't have a problem with adults in costumes, because that has been a problem in the past. He even would cry when he saw the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. But this year, he did such a great job! He ran up to every door and would say "Trick -or- Treat" and "thank you". He only got scared once, but that was because this guy jumped from a bush in a scary mask. He loved getting candy and had a blast tricker-or-treating with my brother and sister, Devin and Elena. Chloe did a great job too. She didn't seem bothered at all by everyone dressed up in costumes. Overall, it was a really fun Halloween.