Happy Birthday Little Reader

Yesterday was Little Reader's actual birthday. We don't do anything special in the morning as my husband leaves for work before the rest of us get up. Although Little Man was constantly giving her hugs and saying Happy Birthday :)

Little Man "helped" me wrap all her presents while she was at school. My husband got home early so we were able to have her open all her presents before dinner (lots of Lego friends stuff, American Girl stuff, some books and games).

Dinner at her request was hamburgers and mashed potato casserole and brownies for dessert. Since it also happened to be Pi Day, she asked me to cut them into a Pi shape.

Once we've had a chance to go through her spring/summer clothes and see what fits, I'll probably take her shopping for some new clothes. I used to buy her stuff for her birthday but as she gets older it's harder. She's outgrown Carter's and Oshkosh and I'm not ready for her to be wearing stuff from Justice and some of the other places her friends shop.

She had really wanted a pair of silver Uggs but I refused to pay $140 for a pair of kids shoes. Even I don't have a pair of shoes that cost that much. I know she was a little disappointed about not getting them as so many of her friends have them, but I told her when we go shopping we'll find something else for her, and next fall maybe she can get some Fuggs.

Little Reader Turns 9

This weekend we hosted our first slumber party. It was Little Reader's 9th birthday and she has been to two sleepovers at another friend's house, but this was the first time any of her friends spent the night at our house. She invited her 3 BFFs and they all came. The party started at 5PM and one of her friend's showed up on the dot. The other two didn't show up until 6 as their parents had misread the evite.

Once they had all arrived and finished the initial fits of giggles, I set them up to make T-shirts with fabric paint. I gave them the supplies and left them alone. One of their friends is known as the creative one, in no time we overheard comments praising how her shirt looked so nice, and better than theirs. I checked in periodically but the funny part was that by the time they were done each shirt represented their personalities perfectly.

I set up a seperate table for the foursome for dinner - pizza followed by ice cream cake and Nutella fudge. To drink - "cocktails" My daughters love the Welchs juices - especially mixing the white grape peach mango and the orange pineapple apple. I think it's overly sweet but I'm putting off allowing sodas as long as possible.

After dinner Little Reader opened her presents - a lava lamp, Apples to Apples game and a color your own messenger bag and panda bear. She loved them all. Once we got the little ones to bed, Little Reader and her friends played her new game and talked for a while. Finally they wanted to watch a movie and we hit the first glitch of the night. Little Reader had picked Princess Bride as her movie and despite the fact that we just bought the movie I couldn't find it. We have one of those turntable 400 disc players, but unfortunately you have to load the info yourself and for some reason this one never got labeled.  As hard as I tried I couldn't find it. We checked Netflix and found Princess Protection Program (or something like that) for them. One of them had seen it before and they all agreed on it. Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez instead of Robin Wright and Cary Elwes - no contest to me, but it was getting late and I wasn't going to fight this bunch. But in my passive aggressive way I will make sure to find it before the next sleepover ;)

The movie ended around midnight and Little Reader asked that we set up their beds.When I was a kid we slept on the floor in our sleeping bags. Little Reader had told me that their prior sleepover they had slept on sofas and beds but I assumed they all had sleeping bags. I got our pull out couch set up while my husband blewup the air mattress and told them to get their sleeping bags out and they all looked at me dumbfounded. They didn't have any. ????? Not sure why, but luckily we have a few extras due to Indian Princess. My husband and I left them and hoped that they would sleep in in the morning, especially given the time change.

No such luck, 3 of them never slept, and Little Reader came in asking for breakfast around 730 - no chance kid, see you later. 830, she and 2 of her friends were in my room. That was inappropriate (and I'll talk to her about that later). I sent them away, got up and started on homemade pancakes and bacon. 930 we had breakfast and they were all gone by 1030. Little Reader swore she wasn't tired after staying up all night, but dozed off by 1130 for 3 hours, got up had a late lunch, dozed off again, and then woke up for dinner, watched the Hawks game - they lost :( and then off to bed.

Bottom line - she had a great time and it was a very easy party.  Two years ago we had 10 kids at our house for a science party for two hours and were exhausted, this time it was 4 kids, 17 hours and pretty easy - aside from a little badgering to get breakfast started.

The Big 4-0

My husband turned 40 this weekend. I asked him a while back if he wanted a big party with friends and he said no. Still I wanted to do something more than our usual dinner out.

He was on call on his actual birthday so we just gave him his presents and had ice cream cake at home with the kids on Friday night and watched the Hawks game.

Saturday night he and I went out for dinner and downtown to see Book of Mormon. It's the story of elders in Uganda trying to convert the locals. One of the elders makes a connection with a local girl and tries to convert her. The problem is that he's not as well versed in the Book of Mormon as he should be and makes up a lot of it. It was totally irreverent and hysterical. I highly recommend it. Unless of course you are Mormon - then you will most likely find it insulting. This is not one of those shows where you come out singing the big number though, the music is good because the songs are funny but don't have the big notes of Les Mis or Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Sunday was a lazy day spent watching another intense Hawks game. They beat the Wings in an intense game to keep the streak going.

Birthday Party at JumpZone

We held my daughter's birthday party at Jump Zone this past weekend. It was great. There were 17 kids and a couple of parents stayed. While at first I wasn't super excited to have it there, it ended up being great. We've had parties at Pump It Up before and I would recommend that for younger kids, as you get the jumping room to yourself, but it does cost more.

At JumpZone, they have one big room filled with huge inflatables with 4 party rooms off to the side. Our party happened to be at the same time as one other and also during free play time. This can make it hard to keep an eye on your guests when there are so many other kids running around. While kids as young as 3 are allowed to go on the equipment, I was a little nervous that they could get trampled by big kids. Then I learned that they actually try to schedule birthday parties of similar age kids at the same time, so it's not an issue.  Since my daughter and her friends were 7-8 years old, they were fine. My younger daughter (almost 6) was fine too. My little guy had a tough time climbing some of the bigger inflatables but still had fun. They also had a small area for younger kids with Duplo Legos and other things to play with.

The kids were given an hour and 15 minutes to play before heading into the party room. I went in a little early to check out the party room and to my pleasant surprise, the room was already set. Plates and drinks were set, kids coats were hung up and shoes lined up on the floor. As soon as the pizza was delivered, the kids were asked to come to the party room, and the coordinator served. I helped, but really she did most of the work. She was great about giving seconds of pizza and juice to whoever wanted it.  She handled the cake so my husband and I could take pictures and video.

After all the kids were done eating she handed out the balloons and cleaned up. While I did help with some of the serving and cleaning up, she did most of the work. I've hosted quite a few kid birthday parties at this point and this was the first time the assigned party coordinator actually worked, and therefore the first time I actually tipped. I also told the manager I was impressed with her staff and setup.

Funny moment of the party - as the big kids were all eating the pizza, my son was just wandering around the party room. He saw the cake, studied it for a minute then swiped some frosting off the corner with his finger and licked it off. He even got a small sprinkle but didn't freak out, just swallowed it. Progress :)

My younger daughter's birthday is coming up in May and originally she wanted her party at Pump it Up but has now changed her mind and wants it at Jump Zone, I'm all for it.

All in all a good party. 17 kids was a bit much as she didn't get to play with everyone in that short time span. I felt a little bad as one of her friends from preschool (her BFFWL) no longer goes to the same school as her, but was the first name on the invite list. She doesn't know any if my daughters other friends and is pretty shy. I encouraged my daughter to include her, which she did, and introduced her to her new besties, but the old friend definitely looked left out. Sad as it is, they're probably just growing apart and there is no reason to force the friendship. As Gordie said in Stand By Me, friends come in and out if your life like busboys in a restaurant.

We went home and opened presents and she got some nice gifts. One nice thing about kids getting older, the presents get better.  She got 2 Lego sets, some crafty things, a gift card to Barnes & Noble and a couple of other things.