Saturday, February 22, 2014

Frozen Birthday Bash

First off let me say, NEVER plan a birthday around a theme from a newly released movie. When I decided to use the Disney Frozen theme for the birthday party this year all of the items needed to throw a party were in stock wherever I looked online. Wait until the first of February to order everything and you find out that not only did I have the brilliant idea for a Frozen party, but so did every other mother in America. Everything was sold out, EVERYWHERE. I got lucky last weekend when an online birthday site had napkins, cups, and balloons in stock so I ordered them right away and they arrived this past Thursday. Then I found someone on E-bay who was selling the plates. With shipping I paid almost $30 for 16 paper plates. It was highway robbery but I paid it and it was painful throwing those used plates away tonight...lol.

Fast forward to this afternoon and the scene was set. I had the cake, cupcakes, and sugar cookies made by a family baker and it saved me so much stress letting someone else take care of it for me. I made a fruit tray, vegetable tray, cheese ball, and mini cucumber appetizers and my mother-in-law made a meat and cheese tray for sandwiches.

 
 
I had two balloon bouquets done and got a few other decorations such as white Christmas snowflake ornaments and plastic table cloths and kept the decorating to our dining room and that was it. I also had t-shirts made for each of the girls off of etsy. They turned out so much better than I thought they would and the ladies loved them.



Now that Addison is in preschool this is the first time we had a party where friends from school were invited. Of the four little girls we invited, three showed up and each one of them threw a fit when it was time to go. That equals a successful party in my book!



Cadence blowing out her candle. It took her a few tries.

Addison blowing out her candle.
The girls got a few toys and lots of clothes and I'm pretty sure everyone enjoyed themselves. We're meeting with my uncle Dan and aunt Robin tomorrow at his rehab center to celebrate once again and I can honestly say that I'll be glad when it's over. We've been celebrating their birthdays since last Friday and I'm starting to worry that they are going to think birthdays are always a week long celebration...lol.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

3rd & 4th Birthdays!

Friday was Cadence's 3rd birthday and yesterday was Addison's 4th. We were scheduled to spend Thursday through Saturday at the Great Wolf Lodge but with uncle Dan's poor health and still being stuck in rehab we decided to cancel that trip with everyone and hope to reschedule sometime this summer when uncle Dan is able to go.

Daniel racks up hotel points on his business trips so we decided to take advantage of them instead of just sitting at home this past weekend. He reserved a room for us in Wilder, Kentucky for Friday night so we headed down early Friday morning.

We stopped at the Newport Aquarium and visited with all of the fish, crocodiles, alligators, and penguins. Children get in free until the end of the month but the place wasn't very crowded and we got to take our time and enjoy ourselves. We had never been before and the ladies adored it. I had several sets of friends go down the following day and it was so packed that some of them had to leave. I'm glad we went down on Friday.



We had a late lunch at Five Guys Burgers and Fries and after we stuffed ourselves silly we headed on down to Wilder to check in to our room. Daniel reserved a suite for us and it was so nice. It was separated into two rooms. The bedroom had two queen beds which is where he and I bunked with Cadence and Addison and mammaw had the living room with the pull out couch.

After settling in everyone but myself suited up and hit the swimming pool. They all swam for about an hour or so before heading back to the room to change and just relax for a little while.

We made it to our room right as a snow storm rolled into town. The snow came down quick and heavy and I'm glad we had decided to stay overnight instead of coming home because everything was a mess. By the time I left the room to pick up our drinks, an ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen and then pizza from the Mellow Mushroom cars were sliding everywhere. Thankfully everything was right by our hotel so I didn't have far to travel but let me tell you, I was glad to be done and safely back in our room.

I had never heard of Mellow Mushroom before but I had decided before heading down to look up places to eat and once I saw them I decided we had to try it. Folks, it was some of the best pizza I have ever eaten. I ordered the BBQ chicken pizza and I just drooled over it. If you have one near by and have never tried it before, you must go now and order that pizza.



One of the downfalls of being holed up in a hotel room is that you don't have the luxuries of your kitchen. Stuff like real forks and knives and even plates for that matter are hard to come by so the ladies and I ate the still frozen ice-cream cake right out of the container with plastic forks. I spent almost $25.00 for that darn cake and about 3/4 of it got thrown away since we couldn't exactly travel with it...it was a sad moment for this ice-cream loving family.

We woke up Saturday morning and decided that instead of eating the complimentary hotel breakfast that we would head to I-hop. I hadn't been to one in more years than Ican count so it was a nice treat and I loved my chocolate chip pancakes with strawberry syrup. Both girls liked being able to pick out their own flavor of syrup for their silver dollar pancakes. After we ate what we could of our huge breakfast we headed out to complete our travels...with one more important stop.

Jungle Jim's!!! I wouldn't know what to do with myself if he had a Jungle Jim's near our house. If you are hungry for something, it doesn't matter what part of the world it may be from, Jungle Jim's has it. We foodies take our time strolling down the aisles and we both selected a few, new things to try at home. Daniel got fresh oysters for forty nine cents each and I got lots of new sauces and marinades along with a homemade mozzarella roll and vegetables to make a stir-fry. One hundred and twenty five dollars later we rolled out and packed up the Yukon one last time before headed back to our home to drop off mammaw and pick up Bandit from the kennel.

It was an amazing, short trip and I can't wait until we are able to do it again.

Last night we celebrated Addison's birthday and her dinner request was chicken and pickles...lol. We got her some Lee's Famous Recipe chicken and some sides and we finished everything off with a chocolate cake. Pickles were excluded from the meal but we have plenty here at home to fulfill her request. The celebration was short and sweet because we got hit with an rain, sleet, and snow storm yesterday evening so we had to head home before the ice got to bad.

Addison's Birthday Video

Preschool was cancelled for her today so hopefully she'll get to celebrate with her classmates tomorrow with homemade cupcake's.

Stay tuned because we have the big sha-bang party coming up this Saturday!!!