Birthday Party-The After After Prom Party

 Rob is a keeper. I have always known it, but its nice he gives me nice reminders why he is a keeper!

He was planning a surprise party, but upon my request I made him spill the beans a few days before. He was trying to do a good thing for me, but what he doesn't realize that the planner in me doesn't find surprises fun. I am the planner so planning is fun for me, not knowing the plan = no fun for me! Regardless of not being in on the planning he did a great job! Note to self work on being more spontaneous and less planning!

We had joked in the past that we should throw a prom party. I called it alternative prom, but my friends said that wasn't correct. Alternative Prom made peoples minds go places they shouldn't be so we came up with After After Prom Party. I am delighted at how many people came in costume! Rob had food, drinks, cake, and a DJ for dancing! Happy Birthday to me and who couldn't be happy with a dress up prom party! We think this might become a yearly gig, start shopping for your prom dress now! I was pleased that my dad saved all of my prom jewelry from high school and brought it up to me a few years back. I am also happy I never found the time to go through it all because I probably wouldn't have kept my old jewelry. My beautiful earrings and hair piece is from my sophomore year of high school, not college HIGH SCHOOL! Yikes! 

Ellery 4th Birthday Party

Mason's School Valentines Party

I have mixed feelings about being a head party mom. I don't know where the balance is with working with non-crafty moms vs crafty moms. It is fun to do crafty things for 25, but not for 75? So do you ask the non-crafty mom to do it or do you not do it? We were supposed to be doing the same party for all 3 classes, but scheduling conflicts due to busy schedules made it too difficult so I decided to plan my party and if someone wanted to use my ideas they could. I really do enjoy these things!Not that excited over the craft, but we were able to decide upon this as a group without meeting prior to crazy schedules. Mason enjoyed making one a sample for the group so I think it will be fun for the kids. Where our planners ran into problems was running stations. I like to run stations and have a group snack at the end and play a fun game if time permits as a group. In this case we would play Cupid Says. The other moms don't like running stations, but yet they wanted to place the kids in groups and do the activities together. I call that stations, but whatever works for you go for it?
here is what I came up with:

GAMES:

Pin the Eyes on Mrs. Farley - Played just like pin the tail on the donkey, blindfold one child spin them around and send them in the direction of Mrs. Farley and let them stick a googly eye on her.

Conversation Heart Toss - throw a conversation candy heart into a bucket. Place kids in two groups and see how many hearts they can get into a bucket while taking turns.

Surprise Kisses - A lot like pass the pumpkin to music, but this one is boxes and each time the music stops the kid with the box opens the box to find another box inside. Continue until no more boxes to unwrap. We tell the kids that whoever unwraps the last of the boxes has to give everyone a kiss. No one will want to do it, but when the final box is opened they will find they get to hand out hershey kisses to everyone in the group.

Stacking Heart Challenge - Set up a bowl of candy hearts on a table and see who can make the tallest tower by stacking them up onto of each other. Count the highest number they are able to stack. Our back up game is Steal My Hearts - Letting the kids try to use chopsticks and put them in a bowl or pile. No one will be able to use the chopsticks properly, but they should enjoy holding them in each hand trying to pick up the hearts. At the end of the game have the kids find their initials out of all the soap letters.

The party was a hit and I couldn't resist these two cuties! I hope their friendship keeps growing over the years. Sam and Mason are two peas in a pod!

Mason's School Halloween Party

Oh, I have mixed feelings on being a party mom for school. Our school makes each grade have the same exact party for all the grades. We have 3 kindergarten classes, so you have to plan the party with two other moms and make it the same. Making a craft for 24 kids is fun, but doing it for 75 isn't as fun. Working out schedules to get everything planned is tons of fun as well. I found cute little signs for each group of kids so they would know what station to go to. I divided them up into groups based on the signs. Rob printed cute name tags for me out of skeleton font and then we put the coordinating stickers on them to place them into groups. My kids had a great time painting the signs prior to the party!
I love to look at the costumes. Our school also does a parade so you get to watch all the kids walk through. Well, I didn't because I had to get everything set up, but I did watch Mason go through.
Nothing makes a party run smooth like stations! I dressed up as a witch with long eye lashes! I also had witch stockings on that were red and orange stripped! I think everyone had a good time so I would call it a success!

Congratulations Rob

We had a party last night at Paddy's Pub to celebrate Rob's fellowship completion. We had it in conjunction with another fellow named Rob as well. The last three years really have flown by and I know Rob is thrilled to be done and I am ecstatic for him. He is no longer the peon of the PICU. He is joining the attending world and I have a feeling he will love every minute of it. We are extremely proud of him and all of his accomplishments. I know I wavered on how I was going to make it through some of his hard months and I wasn't the one doing the actual work. Needless to say we are beaming with joy for him so I threw him a party. We had a great time at the party. I am sorry to say I forgot my camera, but it was a successful fun night. We left the kids with our babysitter Lauren who will be turning 15 this month or next. She is our usual babysitter for Mason, but we hadn't used her for both of them. I wanted Ellery to be older before we left her in the evening. I am happy to report no phone calls were received and she was successful in watching them. Mason was already down for the night, but she did have to feed and put Ellery down. Ellery didn't take the bottle, but Lauren did get her asleep and in her crib for the night and that is where she stayed until 5 am.

Back to the party story...... We left the bar at 1am and I was the sober one driving us home. We of course had our GPS, that I have named Javier, and Rob wanted to be adventurous and go Javier's way home. I should have known not to listen to Javier or my drunk husband. Javier lead us into construction and as he is telling me directions Rob is telling me to go as well. I am trying to explain to Rob that Javier isn't aware of the closed ramp due to construction, but I drive forward just to show him. I then decide I better flip a u-turn or I am going to have to drive along the lake for 10 min before I can turn around. I assessed the situation and I did see the NO U-TURN sign but I decided to go for it. Of course when I go for it over the hill comes a car and can you guess what kind of car? A cop car. He goes through the light and then pulls to the side of the road to witness my illegal u-turn, sitting like a cat ready to pounce on the poor mouse. I then get in the left lane to turn, I get the green arrow and a Milwaukee unmarked Sheriff truck blows through their red light and almost t-bones us. I guess someone running a red light and almost running into you makes the cop finally decide to pull us over. The cop approaches the car and the first thing I say is that car ran the red light, not me, but then I notice a camera man on me. I immediately ask if I am on the news, and we find out it is a camera crew for the old court tv channel. I can't remember what name it got updated to. Anyways, you are looking at potential stars of the show. We had to sign waivers and everything and they say they will call me before I air, but it was hilarious. We explained about the party and how Javier and my drunk husband lead me astray. I think he got a kick out of us so he let me off with a warning. "Illegal "U" turn at controlled intersection"