LEGO party!

This year Casey wanted to have a LEGO themed birthday party.  We decided to invite family and a few friends from church to join in fun.  Below you can see the invites that Casey helped me make.

This party was so easy and fun to plan.  Of course I borrowed many ideas from Pinterest (my new favorite website).  What was so great about preparing for this party was that the boys were able to help me and we had a lot of the supplies at home. 

The party was scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 3:00pm.  At about 2:00am Caleb woke up puking.  After cleaning him and his bed up it was back to bed where I sat there thinking about what we were going to do about Casey's birthday party.  There was no way we could bring all of our friends and family into our germ infested home! 

At 7:30 I called my sister and asked her if we could have the party at her place.  She said yes with a panicked sound in her voice.  I told her I would be there right after church to help clean up the house. 

At about noon Casey and I arrived at the Reed house to clean and get set up.  The kids helped Leah clean up the basement while Nick and I tackled the main floor.  The kids headed outside while I set up for the party.  It was so fun to see everything come together. 

 Goodie bags for all the kids. 

 Place settings were just plain color plates, napkins and cups in LEGO colors.

PARTY TIME! 

While Casey and his cousins were waiting for friends to arrive they were having a little free play with the LEGOS. 

The first game we played was called LEGO creation.  There is a bag of different LEGO shapes that goes around the circle.  When it is your turn you choose one and place it on the board where you would like.  When the bag is empty you have a LEGO creation that the kids created as a team. 

Next the kids each had to find a hiding LEGO man!

The third game was a partner contest.  The kids had about 5 minutes to work with their partners to create a tower.  When time was up they had to let go of their tower.  The tower that was the tallest and stayed standing was Eli and Casey's tower. 

The last activity we did was the LEGO toss.  The object of this game is to get as many points as you can by tossing LEGO into rings.  ELI had the most points so he got to pick his prize first.  Then the person with the next highest score picked their prize next and so on until everyone got a prize. 

Time for cake.  LEGO anyone???
http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/building-blocks-cakes/ca36541e-624c-48af-ab78-68ef256e8903

After cake it was time to open presents.  Casey got some really cool gifts this year.  Lego sets, fun space things for his room, games, transformers, and even homemade finger paint!  What a lucky boy to be loved by so many. 

After Casey's friends left it was time for the adults to have some fun. 

 The adults had about 10 minutes to create a masterpiece. 

There were towers, robots, a Packer guy and a helicopter.

  

  I thought for sure judge Casey would choose a robot or the helicopter.

Nope, he picked his Aunt Leah's tower. I guess he was going for height...

The last activity was for both the adults and kids.  They had to guess how many LEGOS were in the jar.  The answer was 70. 

The closest guess was my brother's...he said 64.  He won these yummy candies. 

This party was so much fun.  I am pretty sure all the guests had a good time. 

Thanks to all who helped to make this day special for Casey!

play room

We have been really busy around here doing some fun things around the house.  The first thing we needed to do was to clean up and clear out the play room downstairs to make it safe for Joshua. 

Once we got it cleaned up we decided it would be fun to paint some fun sayings on the wall to spruce it up a bit.  I came across a fun idea on pinterest that I decided to borrow.  I thought it was a great way to display the kids art work. 

This next saying I came across on etsy.com.  I could have spent $50 to purchase the vinyl lettering, but it was a lot more fun to use the overhead projector and paint it myself! 

Knitting Projects

In my last semester of college one of my roommates taught me how to knit.  That was about 10 years ago. Boy does time fly!  I finally finished the scarf that I started all those years ago.  I am going to wear it, even if it does have a ton of flaws.

About a year ago I was in my last trimester of Joshua's pregnancy when I broke my foot.  I decided to knit him a blanket while I spent my days on the couch with my foot up.  It wasn't until recently that I finally finished it.  What can I say, life got a little busy once he was born!

 

A couple of weeks ago I decided to knit a cowl to wear around my neck to keep me warm.  This one didn't turn out quite like I had planned so I sewed the ends together to create a bulky cowl. 

This brown cowl is still in need of a button.  I will be giving this one away as a gift to my sister-in-law for her birthday(hope she doesn't read this before tomorrow!)

 

Some lessons I have learned:

1.  Don't leave your knitting projects in your children's reach.  Caleb liked to pull my knitting needles out and use them as a weapon.

2.  The bigger the needle, the easier the knitting. 

3.  Different types of yarn really make a big difference in the look of the item, even if you use the same type of stitch.

I am thinking that my next project may be a smaller cowl for myself and then a headband. These smaller projects are so easy and fun to do. 

PLAY!

Although you won't be able to tell from these pictures, Joshua has had a flu bug the past couple of days so we have hung out at home.  Here are some fun shots of the boys playing while big brother is at school.

And we're off...

I can't believe that I haven't posted since Christmas!  We have been so busy having fun that there hasn't been time to post about it!  I am going to do my best to quickly get you up to date. 

Here are a couple of shots of us having fun before bedtime.





Over Casey's break we spent a day at Betty Brinn's Children's Museum with daddy.  The boys loved exploring and learning through play. 

We celebrated Nana and Buppa's birthdays at the bowling alley.  The boys LOVED bowling.  Caleb was so into it and Casey managed to get a strike and a couple of spares. 

We finally got snow in the middle of January.  The boys were so excited to get outside and play. 

The past week we have been consumed by a house project that includes a lot of paint, time and a really excited boy.  More to come....

Christmas 2011

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