Lego Birthday Party for His Highness

My little guy turned 6 a month and a half ago. I still can not believe that he is really six. The age does not fit him. He is such a peanut. Nowhere near 40 pounds yet and still happily wearing 3T pants (the 4Ts would fall right off him).  I digress...

Last month he was scheduled to have his birthday party with friends on Feb 21st after we returned from Disneyworld. We unfortunately returned with not just bags of dirty laundry but also with a monster virus/bug/cold and I still haven't recovered fully. I had to postpone his party. The day before his birthday party I knew there was no way that I could do anything other than sit on the couch or lay in bed and sleep. I was so sick. When I told him on Friday morning that I would have to postpone his party his initial reaction was that he was very upset and didn't want me to. I sat him on the bed in front of me and asked him to look at mommy and listen to my croaking voice. I explained that I was postponing and not canceling. He said, "Okay mommy." hugged me and jumped off the bed to go finish getting ready for school. I guess he is growing up and is worthy of that 6 year old title. I was so proud of him. 

Fast forward to March 21st. Our new date for the party. One month after the other had been scheduled. We had 12 kids on guest list (plenty of 6 year olds for me) -- 14 when you count my two. N wanted a Lego party. I found loads of ideas online and even a cute idea for his cakes. I had worked on them for several hours -- 2 hours just in frosting -- the night before.

The party was set for 1pm. When no one showed at that time H started to worry, "Where are they?" I told her to relax. I explained, "There is cake. They will come." And they did but not without H informing the first guest to arrive that she was 4 minutes late. 

I had a list in my pocket of all the games and activities we could do with the Legos. I had purchased 3 tubs of multiple sized Legos for this purpose. When the guest had arrived I called the children to the living room (they had segregated themselves...boys in N's room...several jumping on the bed -- monkeys! And the girls in H's room all reveling in the pinkness of it and that she was an older kid...This 3rd grader must have looked pretty awesome to all these Kindergarteners...even though (as Don pointed out) several were as tall as she is). They came out to the living room and I told them they could build with the Legos to make a creation. I thought they would be bored and scream "Where's the bounce house!?" All of the children sat quietly on the floor for about an hour constructing their creations! I could not believe it. 

I was just about ready to announce another activity when N did it for me. He stood up and in his nice clear loud voice said, "Hey everybody. Let's go play something else." I said that everyone should finish up their creations because the other moms were going to put award certificates on their creations while we worked on the next activity. I told them that they would each build a car and then they could have races on the ramp that N's daddy built. Their faces looked like I have presented them with a free pass to Willy Wonka's candy factory. I brought out the car kits I had purchased and everyone picked a favorite. They got to work building their cars and the moms who stayed for the party also got to help (some looked a bit confused as to how to go about reading Lego instructions -- now is as good a time as any to learn, right?).  It had begun to rain a bit but still a few brave souls (led by my brave soul) went out into the wet to race their cars. They were so happy and delighted. The rain lasted just a short time and then all the kids had finished their cars and went out to race. They didn't care when their cars crashed and lost a bumper. Snap. Back on and good to go again. N was having the time of his life. 

It was 2:45 and I had not even called the kids for cake yet! Ack! Quickly we all got our cars stowed in our goodie bags (their goodie bags had some lego fruit snacks, some lego candies I found at a candy store in the mall, their cars they built and later they would add their certificates and their creations they built). One sweet boy told me that the cakes were very cool. We sang happy birthday to my little guy. I had the kids line up and they told me if they wanted chocolate or vanilla cake and what color lego they wanted -- I had not figured on the color request part. It took a little more time but was worth it to make them all very happy and pleased with their cake choices. 

The kids started getting ready to leave. I gathered up their goodie bags and brought them to the living room. I took a photo of each child with their creation and the birthday boy. They were so excited to get to keep their creations. Everyone went home happy and thinking about Legos. What a fun party! I can't believe we only did two activities....I had 6 or 7 on my list of things to do. 

We still have a lot of cake left over. Come on over and have a slice, would ya?

Career Day!

Yesterday at H and N's school was Career Day. They encouraged all the kids to dress up in the career of their choice. They earn spirit points for their class for each child who participates.

H wanted to be a Actress/Singer/Dancer. I made the mistake of saying Dancer/Actress/Singer and she corrected me. Apparently the order is very important. I've been so sick lately that I've had no energy to put into planning this type of thing. She came out of her room at 9pm on Thursday night, "Mommy! What am I going to wear tomorrow for Career Day?"So we brainstormed and came up with this:

Early that week, N told me he wanted to be a Lego Engineer and a Vet. There is no way I could even deal with that and being sick (I missed two days of work again this week). I woke up Friday morning and had a brainstorm! I got his little construction hat and "altered" it. I cut out a Lego logo from one of the boxes he is hoarding in his room right now and put it on the front. Then I used some scrapbooking sticky dots to stick Legos all over the hat. I decided he could wear a Lego shirt also and call it good. Here's the end result:

Not bad, huh? Here's my duo:

And, of course, my little ham needed to throw in a few poses....

Disneyworld - Day 7

We had reservations for Donald's Safari breakfast at Animal Kingdom and all three of us decided to skip it. We chose instead to sleep in and take it easy before we had to head to the Magical Express shuttle at noon to go to the airport for our 3pm flight. In hindsight, I wish we had gone to the breakfast but at the time we were all so tired...it was the right choice. 

We went down to the POP cafeteria and had Mickey waffles for breakfast. We spent the rest of our Disney gift card (we got a $200 gift card when we made our reservations) in the gift shop and used up our snack credits on some giant lollipops and things like that. We also took a few photos around the resort.

We went back to our room and finished our packing. After getting our bags checked we had a little time to kill so the kids played around a little. 

Time to get on the shuttle.

Bye bye POP! Bye Bye Disneyworld!

Our flight out of Orlando to Austin was easy and fine. We had a delay when we got to Austin though. I am just very unlucky when I have any layover in Texas. Not my favorite place to have a layover. We ended up having an extra couple hours tacked onto our wait time. This meant we didn't get home until midnight (and we were all on FL time so that meant 3am!) and we all had to get up for school and work the next day. Ugh. The flight took longer than usual because we had strong headwinds. Urgh. Finally we get to San Francisco. I find our baggage claim terminal (no easy feat). One bag didn't make it...the one with our coats and the booster for N. Grrrr. They gave us a loaner booster seat but I had to open up a suitcase searching for some extra sweatshirts for the kids. I had nothing but short sleeves and it was cold outside. About half way home, my cell phone rang. It was the airport calling to say that our bag came up about 5 minutes after we left and they were bringing it to us. 

All in all, things worked out. The kids traveled well. I got compliments from other passengers both going and coming telling me what good kids they are. That always feels nice. 

Sidenote: The fever and cough that N got....gave it to me. It started on the plane. As I type this, I am still not fully recovered but finally doing better (nearly 3 weeks later). H also got it that weekend with fever and feeling tired. Don got it the following week and missed the entire week of work. Nasty bug!

I am already missing Disneyworld and wishing we could have had more time. I don't know when we will be able to go again. We'll have to settle for Disneyland for now since it is much closer. 

Disneyworld - Day 6

Today was the day Don was flying home. He couldn't justify any more time off work. Work Schmork. He had to leave by noon.

I had made plans weeks before with two Florida friends Tracy and Jenn to meet up at Hollywood Studios. But that morning it became quite clear that N was sick and having none of it. Fever was still high. I had to cancel on them. SOOOOOO bummed. We ended up hanging out in the hotel room all morning. Don brought us breakfast from the POP restaurants. Kids laid in bed and watched TV all morning. H though had the princess dinner at Epcot (we had reservations) on her mind and was not ready to throw in the towel. She got dressed early in her Aurora dress and wore it all day in the hotel -- just so I wouldn't forget what our plans were supposed to be and that she was being a good sport about hanging out in the hotel room. Finally when N seemed to be perking up a bit we went down to the POP restaurants for a late lunch. He seemed alright to go to the parks for a couple hours so I took them to Epcot where we had a 6:15 dinner reservation. We got to Epcot around 3 or 3:30 if I remember right. N hung out in the stroller most of the time. I took them on slow, no fuss "rides". We went on Spaceship Earth -- missed doing that before. Very interesting. Would never have guessed all that stuff was up in there. We went to the Land and watched the movie with the Lion King characters about recycling. We rode Living with the Land. That was fun to see all the greenhouses. It was fun to see how they shape pumpkins to look like Mickey heads. 

I think my son's favorite was seeing Dragon Fruit. I thought it was a made up thing. It is the scent of his shampoo. He's asked me several times what it was and I've come up with many funny stories for him during bath time. I was quite surprised to see it is in fact a real thing.

We strolled over toward Norway and I asked if they could maybe bump our reservation up a bit. No luck. So I strolled a bit more with the kids. We saw Snow White. Of course her line was closed and she would not be back until 6pm...the same time we were supposed to go back to check in for our dinner. Bummer. Missed getting her autograph. H was bummed (me too...I admit it).

Once we finally got in to our dinner...way overbooked or something... you go to a line where you get your photo taken with a princess. Ours was Belle. You get these photos free with your meal. There is also a photopass code on your receipt so you can add them to your photopass account if you want to. I think Cinderella's Royal Table at Magic Kingdom is the only other place that includes the photos with the meal. 

We went to our table and N announced he was tired. Oh boy. He put his head down on the table and WENT TO SLEEP. Mommy guilt. But H was in Princess heaven. 

Cindy thought he was just tired...didn't realize I was a bad mom for taking a sick kid to the parks. 

Now the food....WAY WAY overpriced. If you are not on the dining plan...don't go. Not worth it. A kid's meal of a hot dog was $20. No kidding. My son slept through his meal. Didn't eat it. Didn't touch it. They took it away. Didn't offer to box it up or anything (he could have eaten it later in the hotel possibly). Still charged for it. Holy cow! $20 for a hot dog! The adult food...took me a while and I'm pretty adventurous in food. I'll try lots of things but most of this just didn't sound appealing. I end up with a salmon, some roasted veggies and mashed potatoes. Their appetizer bar is wonderful. Loads of seafood and things to choose from. Bread is good. And the desserts were wonderful.

This is served family style. H and I couldn't finish even close to 1/3 of it. I hate to see food wasted. Grew up being told that we don't waste food. Kills me to see so much thrown away knowing there are people in need out there. Okay....letting go of the guilt. 

We got out of the restaurant and it was COLD!!! First time ever during our trip. And, of course, the first time that I did not pack a sweater for any of us. N wore one. H had a long sleeve dress. But it was cold. Not a happy trio. When we got back to our stop for POP the driver told me to go to the back to load the stroller. Again...I'm alone with the two kids. I told H and N to get on together and come to the back and "get a seat for us together". The darn driver let everyone on that bus while I stood there shivering in the cold before he opened the back. I was a bit worried he was going to forget me and drive away with my kids on the bus without me. Finally when he opened it up, do you think a single person helped me load that monster double stroller up those three steep steps? Nope! I had to lift it and drop it on the floor and then climb up. Chivalry is indeed dead. Luckily kids did get a bench seat right across from the door so we were together at least and able to sit instead of stand. 

Got back to the room and got everyone in jammies and bed. Good night day 6.