Party On!

Welcome to 2012! I know I still have some Christmas posting to catch up on...and hopefully that'll come before July this year.

But right now, I wanted to blog my biggest boy's 7th birthday party! It was yesterday. I feel like I sort of dropped the ball on it all. He wanted a Sonic (the hedgehog from various video games) skating party...but I didn't think to order any Sonic supplies in enough time for them to get here without paying heaps of money for expedited shipping so I didn't! You can't get Sonic party goods in stores around here so....oops!

We'll start with the invites. I actually did okay with those. I got them out before Christmas break and was pretty proud of the roller blades I Photoshopped onto Sonic:


Here is Autumn's hair showing off a little Sonic. It's just cardstock and didn't stay in. Oh well.


We didn't invite many of our old friends and instead everyone with the exception of Easton's "girlfriend" (and her sister) were friends from his new school. Let me say again what a blessing this new school has been. He loves it. Still. And the friends he's made are a big part of that. Kindergarten last year was lame and he didn't go to a single new friend's birthday party nor did we get together with anyone outside of school (except for E's birthday party). Obviously we don't keep in touch with anyone from that school. But these new friends...even a lot of the parents and I have become pals. I'm going shopping with one of them tomorrow, in fact!

Got a little side-tracked there, sorry. Okay, so anyway... Easton fancies himself to be quite the little skater. He's been twice for school fundraisers. Oh wait...3 times because once he went without us on a field trip. So, he's a pro as far as he's concerned. And every pro skater needs his own pair of skates! It's part of booking a birthday package: the birthday kid gets a pair of skates. We didn't let Easton know this ahead of time so he was thrilled to be fitted for his very own pair!




And "expert" that he is, he was going to teach Dalton how to skate.

It was Dalton and Autumn's first time to even set foot in the building.

E said that since it wasn't quite his birthday yet he was "little 7". But not 6 anymore:


Let me say, his skating has improved a TON since I first took him at the end of kindergarten. Jason took him for a fundraiser night in November or December and said Easton has improved even since then. He takes off all on his own and falls a whole lot less.

Jason took off with the boys while I hung with my mom, Lauren, and Autumn and waited on our guests to arrive. Dalton had a hard time out there. We took him around a few times each:

But the little guy spent much of the party sitting at the table playing Angry Birds on Lauren's phone.

Which was fine with Lauren who was a bit unsure on wheels as well, apparently:


The party started at noon and by 12:30 all our guests were there. They did cake and ice cream at 12:45. Unfortunately my battery in my nice camera died (I really thought I'd just charged it, darn it!). I only had the point and shoot which I really don't like at all. And I forgot to stick the little Sonic figurine on top of E's cake. Ugh!

But E was having a happy time and that's all that matters:








E is sandwiched between his new bestest bud "K" and longtime girlfriend Mallory. Sometimes I think "K" is a bad influence, he and Easton get separated nearly every day at lunchtime I hear and apparently "K" let Easton know that he likes Patrick better than Easton now but he still likes Easton okay... However, the more time I've spent around K I actually like him a lot. And his parents too. He has a younger sister that will be starting kindergarten with Dalton in the fall. Actually, many of E's birthday guests have siblings that will start kinder in the fall.


So, across the table from E were Mallory's older sister McKenna, "Z" (the friend from the first day of school who had the same shoes as Easton and a shark shirt too), Z's 4 year old sister, and Annika (who always seems like such a brat to me) and wouldn't skate and was pouting the whole time about "K" frowning at her. At the other end of the table was Jack. Blog follwers with good memories might remember that Easton made a friend the first day of school with a kid in an Angry Birds shirt. The second day he learned the kid's name was Jack. Oh this family...they've had a rough time. Jack's dad died of colon cancer in October. :( Leaving his wife and 3 very young boys. Jack is the oldest...a first grader. And then there is a kindergartner 18 months younger than Jack and then another boy just 11 months younger than that who will start kinder with Dalton this fall. We didn't find out they could come till the day before the party but God bless this sweet mom. I found it challenging trying to spend time with all 3 of my kids at this party and that is with Jason, my mom, and both my sisters there to help me so I can only imagine how tricky it was for her with 3 boys on skates. This family spent most of their time at the table eating root beer floats rather than skating. I was glad they could make it all the same. Jack's mom asked on the phone about gift ideas and I said, "Jack and Easton have so much in common, I'm sure anything Jack likes, Easton would like" and gave examples of the Angry Birds shirt bonding and how they play Pokemon cards at recess and how they were both Sonic for Halloween. Sure enough, Easton loves what Jack gave him. The gifts from Jack have been physcially with E more than any of the other things he's received.

Sorry for going on and on about them I guess I just feel so bad for that mom and wanted to share. I didn't know Jack's dad had been sick. But when school was just getting started Easton told me that sometimes Jack would be sad at recess and would hide in the porta potty the whole time while Easton stood outside waiting to play with Jack. Then one day in October he came home from school telling me Jack's dad had died and it all made sense. Easton tells me Jack gets in trouble at school a lot "because he doesn't listen. He's still sad." :( Maybe I'm saying all this so you'll keep this family in your thoughts and prayers. I just cannot imagine.

Whew.

Okay, onto happier things again. Easton didn't want to take the time to stop after cake and open presents so they all just went back out and skated again. Autumn was soooooo good on skates. She was just as good as Easton was his first time out...only 3 years younger than he was!


I really wish we had pictures of her but that little point and shoot camera is just crappy in those kinds of low light situations. But mostly she'd hold on to a grown ups hand and just skate around. Sometimes Easton or Kaelan or Mallory or McKenna or Lauren or Jason or I would come and hold her other hand just for fun but she didn't "need" it. From time to time I'd take her back to the table with my mom and pregnant Jessica so I could have a break to skate with my other kids, ya know, but she'd get really mad and not be satisfied with skating on the carpet with Gramoo and try to head back out. The last round with Autumn she would not hold my hand and instead skated around the entire rink by herself and only fell twice. And mostly that was due to not paying attention because she'd be interested in some other kid nearby. You can see Mallory in the corner of the above picture going into a kneel. She has taken skating lessons and they teach you how to fall: so she's really good at that. She'd come in all out of control wanting to see Autumn, go into her kneely fall to "stop" but not really gauge how long it would take her so I nearly skated over her fingers once. Crazy kid. :) I think everyone had fun.

At parties I always feel so bad I can't spread myself around a bit more. I wanted to help Dalton more...wanted to skate with the birthday boy more...visit with our guests more... you know. At least someone else handled the cake and ice cream and "decorating" and such. And thanks again to my mom and sisters for their help with the table and my kids!!!

The party ended right at 2 so a new crop of parties could start. We had blue party favor bags with bunch of random non-themed junk in there. I did the blue for Sonic and inside Easton chose cherry scented pencils, a juvenile sticker sheet, star shaped sunglasses, a paw print eraser, a bag of Annie's cheddar bunnies, 2 Hershey's nuggets (because I had them leftover), a ring pop, and then I made each kid a book mark (with their own name):

I punched a hole in the top and added a little red ribbon "tassel" but they're still pretty lame. It was all the "Sonic" I could throw in at the time. Every year I say I've got to plan better but his birthday so close to Christmas is just tricky. I asked him already what his theme will be next year and he said, "Captain Jack Sparrow" I was all, "You mean Pirates of the Carribbean?" :) We'll see. He's been planning the Sonic theme since his last birthday so he might just stick with it.

We came straight home and let E open his gifts. The gifts from us we'll save for his actual birthday tomorrow.


He got some cool stuff. His friends and family know him well, it seems.

Grammy, I have to say he was especially thrilled to open these:

He said, "Now I can finally see in the dark!"

As soon as he was done opening everything that was the first thing he wanted to check out and ran down to the basement with them. Dalton came up and burst into tears that he didn't have something as cool as those. So, Grammy: you did good! :) Thank you!

From Jack:




Special card from Mallory:




Excited to check out those night vision goggles:


He tried to teach Jason and I how to play the Pokemon cards game but it makes no sense to grown-ups. He added his new Lego Yoda clock to the head of his bed. Today he's checking out even more of his stuff. I asked him what his favorite part of his party was and it was getting his own skates. I asked if there was anything he didn't like and he said, "just the cake". I'm making him his requested cake for tomorrow as well as cupcakes to bring to school. Hopefully that'll make up for the yucky Skate City cake.

Can't believe my 33 weeker turns 7 whole years old tomorrow! This is the first time he's ever had school on his birthday. I hope we can still make it a super special day for him!