Craiger's 10th Birthday

The month of birthdays ends with Craiger's birthday on the 28th.  This year he wanted a space themed birthday.  Someday Craiger wants to be an astronaut or an astrophysicist.  He's been planning activities to do with his friends for months now.  He was devastated when he realized he couldn't have a regular party with friends.  We had to put on our thinking caps & come up with something creative.

Craiger's birthday was Sunday, but we celebrated on Saturday since Sunday can be busy with church things.  I woke up early & decorated the house in all things SPACE.

For birthday breakfast he wanted blueberry muffins, bacon, apple slices, & a cupcake.

TEN YEARS OLD!

We let Craiger open up his presents on Saturday so that he could spend the whole weekend enjoying them.

Nancy sent him a TON of clothes & SPACE things.
He was super excited about the space bedding, space
jacket, space blanket, & rocket lamp.

The kids all got him an Iron Man mouse for his school chromebook

Mimi & Baba got him some Mario Hot Wheels & some stars for his bed.

Opa & Oma got him a Mario hot wheels track.

Trek & I got him a Bowser track for his hot wheels.

He had a blast spending all afternoon getting his bed ready
with all his new SPACE things.

His bed now glows!

For his birthday party, we came up with a really fun option for his friends.

Craiger & I came up with some activities that were spaced themed that we could do & put all the materials needed to do those activities into a shoebox for each friend.

Then I delivered the boxes to Craiger's friends so they'd have them for his online party over zoom.

Saturday night, everybody logged into Craiger's zoom call & we held the coolest space party EVER.

First we studied the 10 monthly moon phases.  Each box had 10 oreos inside that the kids made the moon phases out of.  They could bite the oreos to make the phase or they could open them up & lick off the cream to create the moon phase.

Next we created constellations using toothpicks & marshmallows.  The kids liked Orion the best.

We also made paper airplanes & had a contest to see whose would fly the furthest, as well as folded Star Wars Spaceship Origami.  The parents got involved in this one & I think they were having just as much fun as the kids were.

The highlight of the whole night was making galaxy slime out of glitter glue (1 bottle), baking soda (1/2 teaspoon), & contact solution (containing boric sulfate 1.5 Tablespoons).  Mix it up & you have beautiful glittery slime.  Each friend got to make 2 batches of slime & then we mixed them together to create a galaxy of glitter slime.

It was so fun seeing Craiger's friends on the computer.  I loved that they were having fun with us.

The last activity was an Apollo 13 problem solving activity.  Just like in what happened with Apollo 13, each of them had to find a way to get their astronauts safely home to earth by using only what was in their spaceship (the shoebox of supplies).  I put extra paper, foil, straws, cups, toothpicks, balloons, etc in their boxes to work with.  It was fun to see how creative these boys were.  They made all sorts of fun landing machines, hot air balloons, & more.

I also put a galaxy cupcakes, solar system candy packets, & treats inside to thank them for participating online with us.  They all sang happy birthday to Craiger & we enjoyed cupcakes together.

Craiger really wanted "galaxy cupcakes" so I had to be creative to make a cupcake look like a galaxy.  I made black, blue, & purple frosting & alternated them in my piping bag so they swirled like a galaxy on the cupcake.  I topped them with gold & silver stars & colorful planet sprinkles & then sprayed a little bit of gold & silver spray on them.  They turned out really pretty.

We had Craiger's birthday dinner on Sunday night.  He requested Stouffer's Macaroni & Cheese, Rosti Sticks (a german form of french fries) & bananas.

Happy 10th birthday to the cutest little guy on the planet.  Craiger is my happy little ray of sunlight.  He loves to bake, play with the chickens (seriously, he's our chicken whisperer), put puzzles together, & just has a way of making people smile.  He loves his friends & loves to play outside from sun up to sun down.  Our family wouldn't be the same without him.  We love you Craiger!  Happy Birthday!

Lorien's Surprise 16th Birthday Party

This year has been so strange with COVID & lockdowns & everything being NOT NORMAL.

My kids all started to panic when they realized they couldn't have birthday parties this year with all their friends.  Bladen & Canyon didn't have one last year for the same reason, but Taya managed to snag a small party this summer when restrictions lifted a little bit, but once we locked down again in November I just knew my February birthdays would be affected.

I was most worried about Lorien's birthday.  This year was her 16th birthday which is a big one.  I HAD to figure out a way to make this one special.

I read over rules & regulations for our area & figured out that we were allowed to have one person at our house at a time (so basically one household plus one person).  I wanted to keep things extra safe so I invited each of Lorien's friends to come to our house to wish her a happy birthday.  My rules were that only one person could come at a time (unless they belonged to the same household), they had to stay outside in our backyard or in the fields behind our house, & they had to remain 6 feet apart at all times.  I scheduled it out so each friend came every half hour for about 20 minutes so that by the time one friend left, another one would come.  Each friend came up with a creative way to spend 20 minutes with Lorien 

"at a distance."  I was amazed at how creative they got.

Lorien HAD NO IDEA this was going to happen.

She was so sad about not getting a 16th birthday, that she planned herself a pity party via zoom with her friends.  She baked banana & strawberry cupcakes & asked me if I could deliver them to the doorsteps of her friends so that when they were on the zoom call playing online games together, they could at least eat cupcakes together.  I told her that was a great idea!  So she made the cupcakes & I planned to "deliver" them on Saturday morning.  I knew all of her friends were coming over at some time or another during the day so I knew I could just give them their cupcakes during their "time" with Lorien.

Her cupcakes were delicious.  She made banana cupcakes with clove vanilla frosting & strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting.

I love that she actually planned a virtual party as well.  Even though all the friends came to the house at some point during the day, they all still joined online for the online games together Saturday night.  It ended up being a whole day celebration of Lorien.

The first surprise of the morning was that her best friend came to have birthday breakfast with us.  Since we are allowed to have one person in our house other than our own family, we chose her best friend to share in the first surprise of the day.  She was VERY excited.

Lorien's birthday breakfast consisted of gingerbread pancakes, scrambled eggs, bananas, & cupcakes.

I set out all the cupcakes & told Lorien I was going to pack them up so I could deliver them to her friends' doorsteps . . . 

I also put together a tray of candy that the kids could choose from so they could eat a treat while playing online games during her online party.

Her best friend left at 8:30 am, so Lorien got dressed & ready for the day, when at 9:00 one of her friends showed up in our backyard with a tetherball set.  Lorien was confused but happy & asked if she could play in the backyard if they remained distant.  I told her she could play for 20 minutes.

After that friend left, 5 minutes later, another friend randomly showed up to play frisbee.  At that point, Lorien started to figure out that something was going on.  They played frisbee for 25 minutes & then he left.

Five minutes later, another friend came with a craft made out of foil.  Lorien definitely knew what was going on by this point & she was in HEAVEN seeing each of her friends, if only from a distance.

One by one friends came & went.  Some chatted, some did sidewalk chalk art, the ideas were SO fun.

A lot of Lorien's guy friends (sets of brothers) came to shoot air soft guns with her.  These are her air soft friends.  Before COVID they used to meet up every weekend & would spend hours in the forest shooting.  I think they all miss that.

Another friend stopped by with a picnic lunch.

I thought doing a bikeride for 20 minutes was a great way to maintain distance, but still have fun together.

The crafts some of these kids came up with were really fun.  I loved the pineapple string art one of her friends brought to do with her.

And some friends opted for snacks & girl talk which is one of Lorien's favorite things.

Badminton was another great way to hang out without getting too close.

My favorite activity of the day was from one of the boys that did the sweet Valentine song & dance number for Valentine's Day.  (They're family is super fun & creative).  He dropped off a package, note, & map on our doorstep, rang the doorbell & ran.

Inside the box was a white sweatshirt & a pair of goggles.  Lorien started to laugh at that.

"What are we doing!?!?!?"

I especially loved the note telling her she'd been challenged to a duel, to put on her armor (the sweatshirt), & follow the map.

He was waiting for her with a white sweatshirt, water guns filled with red paint, water balloons filled with blue paint, & sponges filled with yellow paint.  Needless to say, they had a BLAST those 20 minutes.

I loved that one of her friends drew a picture of Lorien with her Hollywood crush.  Such a cute picture.

Being socially distant is SO hard!

In total, she had 17 friends stop by throughout the day.  She was literally outside from 9am to 6:30 pm.  And she loved EVERY SINGLE SECOND of it.

At 7, she did her online zoom party where all her friends got online & played Jackbox Games for 2 hours.  I think they all enjoyed that as well.

For Lorien's actual birthday (Sunday. . . the day after her surprise day), we woke up & opened presents before going to church.

Trek & I got her a tactical vest for her 
Air Soft games with her friends

Craiger made her a homemade coupon book.

Opa & Oma gave her some sunglasses, 
bike lights, & bullets for her air soft guns.

Mimi & Baba gave her a new dress.

Canyon gave her one of his favorite toys.

My dear friend Nancy always sends my girls
the most amazing clothes & shoes for their
birthdays.

For her birthday dinner, I made my homemade chicken nuggets, breadsticks, & caesar salad.

I'm so glad we found a way to make this birthday extra special!

Happy birthday to my mini me!  Lorien is my ultra loving, friend to everyone, ray of sunshine.  She goes out of her way every day to make sure everyone she knows feels important, loved, & included.  Like me, she loves to bake, plan parties & events, quote movies, & sing Broadway songs at the top of her lungs!  She is beautiful & she is mine.  I love you Lorien!