Thought this was funny. Santa Logan does his reading homework ;)

Brady had his 4th birthday party at our house last, last weekend on Saturday, December 3rd. He first wanted a dog party, then a spy party, then a spy-dog party then a rock star party…which had the specification of “rock star dance party”. I stopped him at rock star and went to work!! Per usual, I had several activities set up and divided the group of kids into smaller groups to go through all the different stuff. Brian and I had a hard time throughout the party planning really narrowing the whole concept down. Rock star sounds like…you know, rock stars who sing and play music…but there was the whole “dance party” element that was specifically requested. We ended with this:

Each group of kids was going to form a band. First, we planned to use the Lego Rock Band name generator to help them pick a band name (most of them used that name…the big girls made up their own). Then, they would make groupies (pet “rock stars”), go through hair and make up, make tour posters, and then have a dress rehearsal, all earning their way to perform in a concert. After the concerts, there would be an “after party” in the basement – all dancing!

When the kids arrived, they all made a necklace with 4 guitar pics on it. I made the pics from plastic cards and this super cool “pic punch” I got through uncommongoods.com (it was going to be a gift for Brian for Christmas….so he got it a little early). The story on WHY we did the guitar pic necklaces is as convoluted as our entire party planning process….but I turned it into a fun way for the groups to “earn” their concert. Each time they went through one of the 4 activities, they got an “X” in permanent marker on the back of one of the pics. Oh and by the way, I got obsessed before the party collecting gift cards. Target has such cute ones, but you can’t just take them, and the minimum you can put on each one is $5. One day, I went in and put $5 on each of about 20 cards, grabbed some gifts for 2 upcoming birthday parties, groceries…whatever I needed…and then paid for everything with the gift cards. I thought for sure the people at Target would think I was a crazy lady…but no one even batted an eye!!

After the activities, photo sessions with Brian, concert performances and dancing in the basement (which I set up to be “Club 554”), everyone had cupcakes and watched Brady open his gifts. I think everyone had a really fun time…and really colorful hair for at least the rest of that day…maybe the next :)

 

My cupcakes

Red velvet with black icing & red sprinkles. All the stars and decorations are made out of that moldable chocolate.

Here, the big girls work on their pet rock starts (aka: Groupies)

I actually had all these rocks in a bag from a flower thing that I used to have in our downtown Condo…6 years ago! I cut stars out of heavy glitter paper, bought some pom-poms, googly eyes and glitter pens. My friend Jen ran the pet rock star station.

Here is a picture of our friend Connor after he got out of hair and makeup (run by Susan)

These are the left over (left over!!) guitar pics that I made….most of the cute ones were taken before this picture. I thought I would only get 2 pics out of each card, but ended up getting up to 5….so that’s why I have so many left over (anyone need a pic?!)

The big boys, all decked out after hair and makeup doing their craft

A glimpse into the hair and makeup room (the bathroom that runs between the playroom and the boys’ room)

Dress rehersal! We had each group chose a song on Lego Rock Band. My friend Heather then helped them dance around, sing and “practice” before the big show to their song.

Here is Anna and the little boys making their tour poster. I had her leave a paper-sized blank spot at the bottom of each poster for later….

Band pics!! Here are: The Rockin’ Meap Girls

The Snakes!

Exploding Desks!

Front man for the King of Letters, Jackson

…and his crazy hair!

Best album cover picture ever – King of Letters!

Each group had a turn playing “real” instruments for their Lego Rockband song. Everyone else stood up on the balcony and watched / cheered them on

Well, Aiden didn’t stand in the viewing zone…I guess he chose to sit in the action and double-fist mini bagel dogs

Ella and Sarah rock it out to Mylie Cyrus

The Snakes chose Free Falling by Tom Petty. I don’t have pics, but the Exploding Desks did Kung Fu Fighting and King of Letters did the theme from Ghost Busters

 

Time for the dance portion of our party! While the kids were doing the “concert”, I lined the walls down the basement stairs with their tour posters, complete with group pictures I printed off real quick and taped on.

 

Rocking out in Club 554. It’s hard to see, but off to the left of this picture is the banner I made that says “CLUB 554”. I  taped up 2 plastic table cloths (dollar store, thank you) and then sprayed the letters on in black spray paint (that I had laying around the house).

Brady really, really wanted a globe for his birthday! I put it on his list and our friends got it for him (Farm and Fleet $18 – not bad!)

> Eating at our new favorite fast food place, Naf Naf Grill...yummy pitas, hummus and other Mediterranean delights :)
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Logan has recently undergone a slew of missing teeth. They are literally falling out of his mouth left and right! His smile is currently quite the site!

 

The scratches under his eye are courtesy of Aiden and…apparently mom, who hasn’t trimmed Aiden’s nails in a while. Typical wrestling match gone wrong. Check out all those  blanks in Logan’s mouth!!

 

 

oh and p.s. did I tell the one about how Logan lost his tooth last week while brushing? It went right down the drain! Here is what I posted on facebook:

“While brushing his teeth tonight, Logan literally lost a tooth down the drain. It was an epic melt down that ended in a note asking the tooth fairy to find the tooth and put it under his pillow. I guess it's good I actually saved the other, exact same bottom tooth, that he already lost. Who knew gross mom habits would pay off. Now I worry he'll believe in the tooth fairy until he's like 20 after he finds it under his pillow in the morning.”

and an update: the tooth fairy “returned” the missing tooth. It was placed under Logan’s pillow Friday night and he got some $$ the next morning.  Another tooth was lost Saturday at Memaw and Grandpa’s house when cousin Jack accidentally kicked a ball in Logan’s face. Logan called me, en route to Brian’s company Xmas party downtown, to let me know the news. I was very happy given that the lost tooth was an upper one that was starting to look nasty…all sticking out and lopsided. Logan told me that after the pain subsided, he said to Jack, “good job!” Luckily the tooth fairy located Logan and his tooth at Memaw and Grandpa’s house!!

Several years ago, Memaw bought the boys an elf that is supposed to come and visit them during the holidays, do goofy things, leave them treats and generally make me stress out about coming up with clever ideas for 25 straight days. :) This year, the whole Elf-on-the-shelf thing has exploded. All the kids in the neighborhood have one, plus there’s the movie that was just on TV. I actually hadn’t thought about bringing out our elf (his name is Loady…he isn’t a true “elf on the shelf” variety elf….he’s bigger and stuffed), but all the boys’ friends kept asking if our elf had arrived yet. I decided to wait until after Brady’s birthday party this past Saturday (post to come soon). I was excited because the “true” Elf-on-the-shelf has very specific rules:

* Every night the elf goes to the North Pole to let Santa know if you’ve been nice that day

* He comes back in the morning and hides in a new place

* You can talk to him and give him messages for Santa, but you can’t touch him

 

These rules seem not to incorporate stuff that I have to do and plan so it sounded totally do-able. That is….until I started telling the boys about the elf who was on his way here. Logan freaked out. Like literally, I was sitting in the office below their bedroom on Saturday night when I heard him crying. When I went to see what was going on, I found him sitting up in bed sobbing. He told me that he doesn’t want an elf…that it creeps him out that he’ll be “watched” and could I please, please call Santa and ask him to not send us an elf. Oh my poor baby! I ended up having a little talk with him about how we didn’t have to get an elf who watches them…and how it’s a fun thing that mommies and daddies do. I told him about Loady who had been to our house in years past (not last year though so Logan didn’t remember him). Per his request, I went and found our elf, showed him that it was a stuffed toy and explained how I would “help” him do fun things for the boys. Logan said that would be ok…that it would be fun…and that he would allow it <—ok…not verbatim, but basically, he felt better and now I have an elf with no rules like “don’t touch” and “he just sits on a shelf”. Off I went, straight to www.pinterest.com for some ideas!!

 

Day 1: Location, downstairs bathroom sink. Loady’s note to the boys

Logan, Aiden and Brady: Hi! My name is Loady! I’m here to have fun with you until Christmas. Santa already knows what wonderful, kind, sweet and honest (ah-hem) boys you are so I wasn’t sent to watch you. Special boys like you get an elf who will just help make your lives fun for a while (note: see how I’m trying to talk up good behavior without actually saying that this guy is a Santa spy?) I hope you guys don’t mind, but I thought I would make myself at home. At the north pole, I don’t get much time off from toy making. I found these delicious “bubbles” in your cabinet and decided to have a bath.

 

I actually turned off the water to this sink on the off chance that someone turned it on without realizing that there was an elf in there.

 

Day 1 update: all the “bubbles” were eaten. And…since we don’t have the “no touch” rule…I literally lost the elf by the end of the day. I couldn’t find him anywhere!! Brian and I scoured the house. I knew Logan wasn’t asleep yet so I went upstairs last night to ask him if he knew where our elf was. Turns out they were playing hide and seek with him! Seriously?! He told me to look behind the big pillow on the chair in the front living room. That’s where he was! Sheesh.

Day 2 location – behind a bunch of flowers Brian brought me for my birthday last week. Loady’s note to the boys:

Logan, Aiden and Brady: Good morning! Last night I was missing home where everything is elf-sized. My favorite morning treat is donuts. the ones in your world are too big for me. I made some small ones I thought you might enjoy :) Happy Birthday Brady…hope you love the donuts – Loady

Another idea from pinterest. The original idea is to cover cheerios to look like donuts and put them in a match box. We happen to have some fruit loops (snuck into the shopping cart by Aiden last week). I covered one small batch in powdered sugar. For a second batch, I used a mini grater to made some chocolate dust out of a block of chocolate we have laying around. Finally, I melted some of that same chocolate and used sprinkles on a third batch. I made the box with my cricut. Logan doesn’t know it, but he got 2 more of each variety in his lunch as a treat today as well.

And now I have to come up with tomorrow’s idea. I think Loady is about to become mischievous! I’ve seen funny things like replacing the stockings on the mantle with a pair of underwear from each person’s drawer. One elf tee-peed the Xmas tree…another elf replaced all the pictures in the house with pictures of himself…thank goodness there are mega-creative people out there posting ideas I can use!!!! :)

A couple weekends ago, Brian and I discovered an ipad version of an oldie, but goodie – Battle Ship! Played between 2 ipads, it’s a blast! So much so, that we stayed up until midnight one Saturday, sitting mere feet from one another, playing several rounds. We taught the boys the next day. They played for like 2 days straight! It was hysterical because they started in the same room, then sat back to back, then one of them moved rooms…at one point Logan was in the office and Aiden was under the dining room desk area. The funniest thing was them yelling back and forth things like, “oh man – you got me!”. Not to worry, we did play several rounds of good ol’, standard, with a board and pieces, Jr. Monopoly this past weekend. But still…technology – wow!

This is round 1 in the office.

A view of Logan’s board. When shots are fired, it breaks to a picture of a big, giant gun shooting from the side of a ship. If an opponent’s ship is struck, it shows the kind of boat you hit….and of course you get to see the whole thing sink once you’ve landed the fatal blow. Not only is it graphically more interesting than the version we had as kids, you can also earn various new powerful weapons, decoys and even shields for your own ships.

In other news, we turn to our sports desk: Pictures daddy took last week (when he took the WHOLE week off of work – how glorious!) of Brady at his little kicker’s soccer class:

Brady LOVES his soccer class. The only problem is that he sees his older brothers go into this same building in full soccer socks, shin guards and cleats. If you notice, Brady is the only one in the class wearing actual soccer socks. He begs for cleats every week and I have to tell him that he’ll kick his friends and maybe hurt them.

And now for arts and entertainment…first arts: more gift bags I recently made, strangely for 2 different birthdays in two weekends at the same place, The Painted Penguin…paint your own pottery. One for a neighborhood friend, Grace and one for Aiden’s total preschool crush, Juliana. Not to worry, it’s a mutual crush so at least he’s not chasing unrequited love ;)

 

I did these same butterflies last year in pastels. I love them in black and pink with bling-a-bling!!

And last, in entertainment news, I am currently in the process of planning Brady’s 4th birthday party – a rock-star, dance-party theme craziness thing :) I made a play list and the boys (aka Brady and Logan) “practiced” dancing tonight in PJs. First we went over a few of the moves to the Cha Cha Slide then they made me play Dynamite by Taio Cruz over and over and over…what’s new! I’m turning the basement into a sort of kid’s-only dance club. As always, the entire concept currently resides in my head….so we’ll see how it actually turns out!!!!

And ahhhh…P.S. – the highlight of the Christmas season was delivered by Memaw tonight – our advent calendar! Grandma Maria started this for the boys last year and they thought it was such fun. She re-filled it and it’s ready for Thursday. I may have peeked a in a few of the doors (I thought I heard some money jingling around….who can blame me?!) Logan caught me, swatted my booty and told me to quit it! (what?! it’s not like it’s a surprise for ME!?) ;)