This past Saturday, our baby turned 2! We weren’t planning to have a party for him, but I changed my mind last minute thinking it’s only fair – we throw major parties for the other guys! We had a family-only party for his first birthday so it was time for a neighborhood affair. Since we have absolutely EVERY toy under the sun for a boy Brady’s age (especially since he likes the Pixar Cars and Thomas Trains), we asked everyone to skip the gifts. We did say that we would accept donations to “Brady’s Angel Tree” and use any money collected to buy toys for children less fortunate. Looks like we’ll be doing some shopping this week!! We “raised” enough money to sponsor at least 7 children. We’re going to get the tags from the Angel Tree in the building where Logan goes to preschool (update: those tags were gone so we got them from the local YMCA). I’m hoping this will be a good learning experience for the boys! I was joking to my friends that I’m going to make them pick all girls so I can buy some pink stuff…and some dolls! (update: we’re going to be searching for a doll’s house and making a run to Claire’s….fun!)

Here is the invite for the party

Of course Bear got some gifts from the family. We bought him, along with contributions from Memaw, Grandpa, Aunt Diana, Uncle David and his cousins, “Spike The Ultra Dinosaur”. It’s as big as Brady and comes with a remote that makes Spike do all sorts of things like fetch balls and walk around. All of the boys are having fun with their new “pet”! Nana and Papa sent Brady some Thomas stuff including these bath toys which he carried around all morning. This is also a good shot of the “candy land path” that we made all over the house. We have these foam tiles in the basement under our jumper and another big climbing toy. We tore them up, took them upstairs and made a giant path. It was awesome! 

GG and GGpa sent Brady his own firefighter raincoat and boots. The older boys have the same outfits and Bray always wants to play with theirs so he was SUPER excited to have his very own!!

The party craft project! These are giant gingerbread men, modeled after the candy land game pieces. The kids were split into 4 teams (red, yellow, blue and green). They had to decorate their man and then take him along the candy land path throughout the house, stopping in each boys room upstairs where we had various games set up. I made these out of packing boxes and craft wrapping paper. AJ (our buddy down the street) was my model. I had him lay down on a board, traced his body and then super enlarged his head when I cut out the final product.

Gift boxes! Again produced with stuff I had around my house! These boxes were in my crawl space…and I have about a dozen more!

Check out this awesome cake!! The wonderful people at Meijer helped me modify a Backyardigans cake in their catalog by changing the colors of the trees, making a bunch of flowers into gum drops and adding the path. I took them the little men from one of our 2 Candy Land games.

“help! we’re stuck in icing!”

The eats and drinks table

My fun centerpiece. I made this by wrapping foam shapes in tissue paper. I stuck little wooden kabob sticks through the foam and then arranged them in a flower pot full of dry black beans. I finished by scrunching yellow tissue paper around them to hide the beans underneath.

I scanned the Candy Land Game, enlarged various sections and made a sign for each room. This was Aiden’s room. Logan had Lollipop Land and Brady’s was The Candy Cane Forest. After the kids finished playing the games in each room, they got a corresponding candy as a prize. In our case gum drops equaled paper dots (remember those?) The sign on our outside front door said “Candy Land Board Game Olympics…Today at 4pm”

I think someone (Aiden) took a couple unauthorized swipes at the cake that was sitting up on the counter top!   

Here are the kids (and moms!) decorating the gingerbread men

My thought was to take a picture of each team with their man and then send prints along with the party thank you cards. Here is Team Green. They were assisted by Susan, but did the sticking and arranging all by themselves! Logan made the pom-pom hair! 

Team Red (Brady, Kate and Ashley…aka “the baby team”) was um…not as into the whole craft as the other teams (we figured). Ashley totally helped color buttons and do some sticking/gluing, but Kate and Brady were MIA during the whole process…Ashley is holding the finished project 

Ok…ah-hem…here is “the real” Team Red: Kristin, Anna and me. Kristin made the belt!

Now Team Yellow could not have loved this more! They probably would have stayed there coloring all night long! By the way, everyone wore their PJs to the party. This made me think of slumber parties yet to happen once these girls get older. Maybe they’ll commission another gingerbread man for decorating purposes in the future.

Zach joined team blue…aka: “the unfocused team” of Aiden, AJ and Jack. I couldn’t get any of them to come over for a picture. Zach represented with their creation. I could not have been more proud of him! He was such a good sport, playing along with such younger kids. He purposely let them win all the board games and helped them out along the way. What a good cousin!

Here is a close-up of just some of the art work the girls did. Sarah took tiny dots and made a little girl, plus some flowers. Ellla and Mackenzie did equally impressive stuff on other areas of the gingerbread….girl.

Team Yellow!

So…we had all the kids start at the front door and then we used the actual game cards from Candy Land to have them hop along the path in teams until they reached the various rooms upstairs. After everyone had “candy-landed” in a room, we just rotated every 15 minutes. Here, Anne (who matched her outfit to the party – go Anne!) helps Team Blue play Diggity Dog and The Duck Game (I forget what it’s actually called) in Logan’s room. She and I took these boys around and it was hysterical. They mostly just got mad at us when we made them follow the rules.

Out of order picture, but this is the candle for Brady’s cake. It was in a bag full of other party treats. I think Brady was sampling a bit of everything…including the candle (notice the tiny teeth marks in the top and a bit of the blue edging is gone!)

Team blue plays “Hullabaloo” in Aiden’s room <—awesome game by the way – fun for everyone!

As coordinator, I checked into each room during the game play. Here, Kristin and Anna, who were assigned to the yellow team, enjoy a little chat time while the older girls practically run their own show and the little girls play with ducks. Quote from Kristin, “ya…it’s been pretty sweet!”

After game time was over, everyone got a medal and then we had each child grab one of the squares out of the path and bring it down the back stairs to the basement where we played musical squares.

Pizza Time!

Cake time!  

After we sang “Happy Birthday”, Logan left his seat to give Brady a hug and say “happy birthday little brother”…aww…so sweet!!

Dude, more in the mouth…less on the face…. 

Forks just slow a guy down!

After cake, we had a little movie time. It was the perfect way to calm everyone down AND extend the party right up until bedtime! Everyone got little containers of popcorn (which Brian was genius enough to suggest we pop pre-party!)

Yeah for me!

The next morning our balloons were in that funky stage between inflated and flat. Brian was trying to convince the boys that he had the force (like in Starwars) and could move them up and down.

Clearly his powers have been questioned by someone on the couch! This face means business and obviously imparts the message “I do TO have the force!”

Brady kept losing his balloon by “forcing” it up way too high. He would push a dining room chair over to the ceiling area where it was stuck and then say, “daddy – get!”

Ah…the “balloon force” is strong with this one!