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!