Noah's Minecraft Party

Noah turned 10 this month! Crazy! I now have two in double digits. It's been a few years since we've had a party so I told him he could have one with all his friends this year. The theme. . . MINECRAFT. I'm sure most of you are familiar with this app you can download. It's quite addictive and all of our kids love playing it.

One negative was that I couldn't find any stores that carried any party supplies Minecraft related so I was stuck. Pinterest became my best friend when looking for ideas for the party. I had a hard time knowing where to stop.

I found some neat invites that I was able to print on card stock and fill out to send to kids. I've attached an image of them below and if you click on it, you will be directed to the free printable.

THE FOOD

First things first. Food! Kids love goodies and I probably fed the boys too much sugar that day, but you only celebrate being 10 once!

I used rolos for gold, swedish fish for fish, pretzels for sticks and licorice for TNT.

Here I made finger jello and cut into cubes for water, jumbo marshmallows dipped in red candy melts and topped with white chocolate morsels to create mushrooms, and rock candy suckers for diamonds. 

Close up of marshmallows.

I found these cute Minecraft cupcake topper printables that you just print and cut out with a 2" circular punch (which I borrowed from a friend) and tape to a toothpick. So easy!

We cut up brownies in squares and stacked them (same idea as in Minecraft) to use as a birthday cake. Super easy and added candles for him to blow out.

We created Creeper Juice by buying small Sprite bottles, peeling off the wrapper and drawing creeper faces on them with a permanent marker. Even with these fun guys, the crowd favorite was Sean's homemade root beer! They couldn't get enough of it.

I also found this free Minecraft birthday banner printable that I put together. It turned out very nicely.

THE PARTY

We asked the boys that had electronic devices with Minecraft on them to bring them to the party. We had just enough extras to loan out so every boy had a device. The reason why we did this was because the boys were able to join each other's world and play in the same game. We just had to log them into our network. 

The only thing setback we came across is that after you had a certain number hooked into the same world, it wouldn't allow anymore. So we ended up having to use two different worlds. As you can see below, even Sean decided to join in for awhile.

After playing for awhile, we took a break from the game to do a few other things. Instead of doing the usual goodie bag, I surprised the boys with a Creeper t-shirt. They were pretty easy to make, just time consuming because of the number of them that I needed to have ready. From their reactions, I think they really liked them!

Then we hit the kitchen to sing happy birthday and grab food, and then back to the living room to open gifts. 

To finish off the party, we put the kids into two teams. They had to work together to build a house in Minecraft in which Madison, our daughter, would judge at the end. I wish we would've started this one sooner because they were having so much fun with it.

They all seem so intense, don't they? When time was up and it was almost time for them to go, we brought them all together in the living room and brought their worlds up on the TV through the Apple TV. This way everyone could see what was engineered by each group all at once on a big screen. It was a lot of fun!

From each team, we designated one person to be in charge of the world on the device and another to be standing by the TV to point out things and explain what they did.

I had so much fun planning this party and I think Noah was happy with it as well. You know you've done well when you're getting the final things out and ready before everyone comes over and your son says, "This is going to be the best party ever!" Just wish I had gotten a picture of me and him  before the day was through. Next time!

Christmas 2013

Christmas is my favorite holiday! The decorations, the lights, the music and, of course, the birth of Jesus Christ. It's such a beautiful time of year! Unfortunately, this year the stomach bug and flu hit our house the day after the kids started break and didn't finish up for about a week.

We were able to have a little fun Christmas Eve with everyone feeling pretty good. Sean and the kids did a lot of cleaning for me and then we went to 4pm mass. Mason fell asleep so no annual family picture in the church :(

Once we made it home, we attempted a family photo in front of the Christmas tree before everyone changed. No tripod for the camera, but we became creative :)

Then Sean and I had gotten the fun snacks out for the night while the kids changed into pajamas and we all headed to the basement to do our family gift exchange.

Marley enjoying family time with us.

Cuddling with my little man before opening gifts.

I'm pretty sure they were all happy with their gifts!

My gift from Summer. They made it at school and it was my favorite!

PJ Picture - I see Marley snuck in for the shot :)

That's about all I could handle before my aches and not feeling well set in again. I always tell Sean, "Moms are NOT supposed to get sick!" I hate feeling useless. We had fun watching a Christmas movie and Sean read the kids The Night Before Christmas again before they went to bed.

Both trees and some of our decorations.
The gold bow on the fireplace is compliments from one of the kids.
Not sure which one though.

I was laid up on the couch most of Christmas day so I don't have many pics. Sean did get some with his phone, but I don't have my usual pics. Praying that next year we don't get hit with any sicknesses over Christmas!

American Girl Trip

It was finally time for Summer and my mommy/daughter date to the American Girl Store in Chicago. She had been waiting since this past summer and we finally made time to go in mid December. All she could talk about was getting to ride the train there.

When I was getting ready to create this post, I realized that I lost all of my photos from the trip because I ruined my good iPhone that contained the pictures. And silly me, I didn't have them backed up on my computer yet :(

Fortunately, I uploaded some to my Facebook account so I was able to retrieve some to use for this! I made a collage of photos from Summer and I on the train and at the store.

We had a lot of fun taking our time as we went through the store and looked at everything. We hit the doll salon almost right away so her doll could get her hair fixed up pretty :) Then we roamed to find a new outfit for her doll. Once we did all that, it was time for lunch at the cafe.

After finishing up with our American Girl experience, we stepped next door into the Lego store. All my kids love Legos and always have to check things out. Especially when they make such cool things with them.

Lastly, we hit the streets of Chicago to check a few stores out that were close by. We had planned on stopping at the Holy Name Cathedral (like I did with Madison when we did this same trip a few years ago), but it was so cold and I didn't think Summer was up for the walk. Although it was only 5-6 blocks away, we were getting pretty cold just walking a couple blocks. And I could tell Summer was starting to get a little tired.

But that didn't stop her from wanting to get her picture taken next to different Christmas displays.

We did have a few more, but as I noted above, I lost many pictures when I ruined my iPhone. All in all, it was a great day out! Summer really enjoyed getting to hit Chicago - just her and mom!

Summer's Nutcracker Ballet

Summer has really enjoyed taking ballet lessons from my friend, Jenn. She took the fall/winter session and at their final class they performed bits from different sections of the Nutcracker Suite. It was very cute! The girls had so much fun!

They started by getting some stretching in. . .

And then we made our way into the multiple sections of the performance. 

Nutcrackers

Mice

Miss Jenn is so wonderful with these girls! If you ever want to try out a ballet class for your daughter/son, check her out at Uptown Dance!

Summer poses with her instructor, Miss Jenn!

Thanksgiving 2013

Wow! I've been MIA from my blog for quite awhile. I really want this to be a little life story I can print for the kids some day so I better get going on keeping up with this!

I'm not going all the way back to where I stopped, but thought Thanksgiving would be a great post to start with (even if it is 2 months late!).

We hadn't been going back home for Thanksgiving since we moved to Illinois because of not wanting to do a back to back 6+ hour drive (one way) with Christmas being only a month later. With so many things happening to family and friends this year, we decided that we wanted to see family a little more when we can.

We did stay in town through Thanksgiving afternoon so we could continue our Turkey Trot tradition and have our own turkey dinner. Noah has really grown to enjoy running and the little kids wanted to do the run as well :)

Turkey Trot - annual family pic

Getting ready to fill our tummies!

About mid afternoon we hopped in the van and headed to my brother's house. Sean hadn't been to his new place after he had moved from town to the country and thought it'd be nice to hang out since we don't run into them as much when we do get back.

The kiddos and cousin Max

The next day we headed to visit Sean's grandparents before landing at my mom's house. We brought pizza to share and watched the end of the Hawkeye game. It was a nice visit. That afternoon at my mom's, Jason, Max, Sean and Madison got the guns out and shot at clay pigeons. It was a first for Madison and I think she enjoyed it.

Sean and Madison after shooting practice.

One of Sean's pics on his way back from a run.

The Hinners Thanksgiving feast was the next day. It was great because the majority of the family made it over. The kids talked Sean and my brother Rodney into playing football outside with them. They had a blast!!! It reminded me of when I was a kid and we always had baseball games back there.

Below is a collage of a few snap shots of family. 

After such a wonderful time with the family on Saturday, we headed to Sean's parents in Creston early Sunday morning. We had an enjoyable time there, too. The kids always love playing with their little dogs :)

Kids decorating for Grandma & Grandpa Clark

The kids with Grandma & Grandpa Clark

It was a great weekend filled with lots of family time! A little tiring squeezing so much in and all the driving, but we loved it! And the kids never get enough of it. As soon as we get in the van, I'm always asked the question, "When are we coming back again?"