Taya's 5th Birthday Party - My Little Pony

Happy Birthday to Taya!  I can't believe it's been 5 years since that crazy 40 minute drive to the Trier hospital in Germany.  I almost didn't make it.  Taya was my first natural birth, my 3rd baby girl, my 3rd child, the spitfire of the family, & the sunshine of my soul.

Her birthday isn't until September 25th actually, but since we're moving that week I didn't want to spoil her special day so I bumped her party up a couple weeks so she could really enjoy it.  

Her favorite thing in the world right now is:

My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic

If you've never seen that show, it's adorable.  I loved ponies as a kid & I love that one of my 3 girls loves them too.  There are 6 pony friends in the show so I wanted to dedicate this party to those 6 friends.  I made 6 party stations, each devoted to a different pony.  Taya helped me get everything together for her party.

First we made 12 double dipped caramel chocolate apples for Applejack's station.  Applejack was our goody/take home station, so of course we needed SOME kind of apple there.

It was fun wrapping them up in cute pink bags.  Taya LOVES pink.  She thought they looked SO pretty.

Taya always asks for strawberry cupcakes instead of a big cake, which is a totally fine by me.  I make 6 cakes a year (for my hubby & 5 kids), so once in a while cupcakes are a nice break from the big ones.  Taya wanted different cupcakes for each of the pony friends.  I had to get creative with this one, but ended up having a BLAST matching cupcakes with the pony personalities & colors.

First we have Pinkie Pie, Taya's favorite pony.  Pinkie pie is the spunky party pony.  She throws parties for everything she can make an excuse for.  She bounces instead of walks & she's ALWAYS happy (& a little hyper too).  We actually call Taya Pinkie Pie occasionally because of the similarities between the two of them.  For Pinkie Pie's cupcakes I make pink bubble gum frosting & added pink sprinkles & a Pinkie Pie ring.  These were Taya's favorite cupcakes.

Next we made cupcakes for Rarity.  Rarity is a beautiful white pony with purple hair.  She's a fashion designer, loves sparkles & gemstones, beautiful things.  She's the prettiest of the ponies so I marbled the frosting on her cupcakes to give it a more regal feel.  I used a combination of cream cheese & white chocolate raspberry frostings for a marble effect & then added purple sprinkles & candy pearls.  They were beautiful.

Rainbow Dash is my daughter Lorien's favorite pony.  Rainbow Dash is the tomboy.  She's blue with messy rainbow hair & she can fly faster than any other pony in ponyville. (Hmm, sounds like a certain little girls I know. . .)  For Rainbow Dash I made blue cotton candy frosting with rainbow sprinkles.  Lorien LOVED these.

My eldest daughter, Cadence, LOVES Twilight Sparkle.  Twilight Sparkle is a smart pony who loves learning, reading, & being prepared for anything (a lot like Cadence).  Twilight is purple with purple & pink striped hair.  For her cupcakes I made purple white chocolate raspberry frosting & sprinkled them with pink & purple sprinkles.

Fluttershy is a cute yellow pony with pink hair.  She is extremely shy & LOVES animals, plants, & anything cute.  For Fluttershy's cupcakes I made yellow lemon frosting with pink sprinkles.  Then I added a cute pink flower ring to the top to show her love for nature.

Applejack is the hard worker of the group.  She lives on an apple farm & loves the hard work that comes along with farming.  She loves making apple treats for her pony friends.  I love Applejack's southern accent & her "I can do anything I put my mind to" attitude.  She's one of my favorites.  Her cupcake had orange cream frosting with red & yellow sprinkles.  The orange frosting was my favorite.  YUM.

Together, all the cupcakes looked gorgeous as a centerpiece on the table.

My friend Nancy sent me all sorts of fun My Little Pony table decorations.  It made decorating for the party extra fun.  Everything was SO BRIGHT & COLORFUL.

Taya was SO EXCITED for her birthday party friends to arrive.  She just couldn't stop smiling. . .

and making silly faces.

She wanted to wear a pink dress & have her hair curled in ringlets just like Pinkie Pie.

I set up the Applejack station with an Applejack poster, the caramel apples for the guests, & then I found adorable apple purses on Oriental Trading for super cheap.

I filled the apple purses with all the pony goodies Nancy sent as party favors.  They turned out really cute.

Rainbow Dash's station was easy to set up.  I found a "pin the cutie mark on Rainbow Dash" on Oriental Trading as well.

We blew up balloons with my little helium tank I use for all the kids' birthdays & we were ready to party.

I love that my girls love each other so much.

Cadence decided to make a Twilight Sparkle mask to wear to the party.  She drew it herself & everything.  It was cute.

Once all of the guests arrived, we started at the Rarity station.  We painted everyone's fingernails with sparkly glitter fingernail polish.  Rarity LOVES sparkles & apparently so do little girls.

Next we made our way into the dining area & found the Fluttershy Station.  There we made cute little butterfly & flower necklaces. . . something Fluttershy would love.

Then we went back into the living room to take a turn at Twilight Sparkle's station.  We made pony bookmarks for our favorite books.  Twilight teaches us that reading is very important so these bookmarks will help us to remember to read every single day.

Next we found Rainbow Dash & played "Pin the cutie mark on Rainbow Dash."  The girls had a BLAST with this one.

Then it was Pinkie Pie's turn. . . since Pinkie Pie LOVES parties, her station was cake & ice cream & presents.  Nothing beats cake & ice cream at a party right?

We went back into the living room to open presents.  Taya got all sorts of fun stuff from her friends.

Evelynne got her a beautiful Ariel swimming Barbie doll.

Madisyn gave her a Barbie hair set & an Applejack pony.

L.E. gave Taya a Princess Tiana Polly Pocket gift set.

Rachel gave Taya a Spongebob bubble pen.

Miyana brought Taya a cake decorating Barbie doll.

Gabby & Gretchen brought Taya a birthday Barbie doll & a Twilight Sparkle pony.

Nora gave Taya a Pinkalicious book & a Twilight Sparkle pony.

And Anne gave her some balls & an art painting set.

After the presents, we went to the Applejack station & gave each of the guests an apple & their apple bags full of goodies.  Then when everyone went home, we had our own little birthday party with family.

Craiger & Bladen (Taya's brothers) gave her a Merida dress up costume.

Mommy & Daddy gave her a Cinderella lego set.

Auntie Marc & Auntie Char gave her lots of clothes & Hello Kitty things.

Lorien saved up her own money & bought her sister a Pinkie Pie doll & a Pinkie Pie dress up costume.

Cadence saved up all her money & bought Taya the 3 little sisters from the My Little Pony TV show.

Taya was SO excited about the Pinkie Pie costume.  She wore those pony ears for the rest of the day.

My dear friend Nancy sent Taya some new outfits, shoes, & a Pinkie Pie Pony toy.

 I think Taya had a WONDERFUL birthday.  Thank you to everyone who made her day so incredibly special during this crazy time in our lives. 

I love you my little Pinkie Pie.

You are my SUNSHINE.

Digging Up Dinosaurs

So I'm a lame mom.  

Bladen got a really cool dinosaur digging set for his birthday 

BACK IN APRIL

from my brother, his wife, & their kids.  I kept telling myself to save it for a day when I wasn't quite so busy, but I'm realizing that there is no such thing as a "not busy day."

SO, I decided to be a decent mom again & I set aside some time to break open the dino pack.

Bladen was SO excited, especially when he saw the goggles & the hammer.  What kid doesn't like a good hammer to hammer things with?  There was also a big block of clay, but he wasn't sure what that was for.

I showed him how to use the pick & hammer to break apart the clay.  Once he realized he was allowed to break something, he went all out.  He was CRUSHING that thing.  He loved every second of it.

He was surprised when he found some dinosaur bones inside the clay.  Once he realized something was inside, he pounded harder & harder & harder to see what it was.

The set was really fun.  It wasn't too terribly hard to break apart the clay block, & the "bones" were nice & sturdy so they could withstand the beating of a 3 year old boy & his hammer.

He crushed the block to powder & collected all his dinosaur bones.  Next we took them in the house & washed them off really well.

He was SO EXCITED when Mommy showed him how to put the dinosaur together.  I was impressed.  It was a darling little T-Rex sculpture.  He LOVED it.

He loves to march it around making "BOOM" sounds every step his dinosaur takes.  Then he'll growl his big dinosaur growl.  I love my little dino man.

Thank you Justin, Cari, Korbyn, & Brinley for a FANTASTIC birthday gift.  Bladen loved every second of it.

Boys are a MESS

Why is it that girls can go days without making a single mess, but boys are a complete disaster after 20 minutes?

We went to a friend's birthday party at the park this week & 20 minutes in, Bladen came running up to me looking like this. . . 

What in the world do you have in your hair?  And how did it get there?  

Never mind. . . I probably DON'T want to know.

Craiger just watches & laughs at his big brother.  Together they're going to be quite the companionship when Craiger gets a little older.  They're a mess, but they're sure cute.

Allergies

Poor Cadence.  She's had problems with allergies since she was a baby.  Every time I take her to a Dr. to ask about what we can do to fix the problem they always tell me her allergies aren't bad enough to worry about.  It's SO frustrating.

Well, Tuesday night, we had a SCARY night due to Cadence's allergies & now I FINALLY have the okay for allergy testing.  We have NO IDEA what did it to her, but she was allergic to SOMETHING & she blew up like a balloon until her eyes swelled shut, she had hives all over her body, & she was having a hard time breathing.

My poor baby.  I was SO scared.  We ended up taking her to the ER so they could give her an Epi-Pen shot in the leg which she HATED, but she immediately started getting better after the shot.  They ordered allergy tests which will happen this week sometime.

Hopefully soon we'll get some answers to what exactly she's allergic to so we can do what we can to combat it.  I NEVER want to go through an experience like that again.  I love my sweet little girl & almost lost her that night.  Thank heavens for answered prayers.

I love you Cadence.