Elisa's Lalaloopsy 3rd Birthday Party!

 I've had a guilt complex ever since I last year when I decided not to throw Elisa a 2nd birthday party.  I still do, but I made sure that her 3rd birthday would be a very special birthday, as in, I would spoil her as much as I had time, energy, and funding to do so. 

Spoiled is was! I made her (using a blank white shirt and fabric shirt) a Lalaloopsy shirt, and ordered her some earrings, necklace, and hair bows off of Etsy to match her shirt.   I also made her a pinata, which didn't take as long as Gabe's since I didn't have to do any sculpting.  But unlike Gabe's cake, I put a lot of effort into hers.  It was a lot of fun to make but literally took ALL day long to make!  I didn't go too overboard with the food, I kept it simple (like $5 simple) since her party was between breakfast and lunch, I didn't think it was necessary to have a lot of food.
Elisa was soooo excited when everyone came over!  She knew it was her special day:) I also made sure there were plenty of decorations for her little party, even though you can't see them in the pictures.  A friend even made Elisa a Lalaloopsy wooden plaque for the decor: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It was a little rainy so we all stayed inside.  Elisa's party was a little bit smaller than Gabe's, so it worked out okay.  The kids played "Pin the Crown on Jewel" (Gabe's idea) and did the pinata.  I should have filled the pinata better; I felt like there wasn't quite enough goodies in it to satisfy everyone, oh well: 

 

 

   

  

 

  

 

 

Elisa got spoiled again with the presents.  I got her two pairs of earrings, a Hello Kitty musical jewelry box, and a My Little Pony hairbrush. Not including the outfit, cake, pinata, and party, of course!  Erik got her a little Anna doll (from the movie Frozen) and that has definitely been her favorite gift as of yet!  She also got a beautiful princess dress-up dress, princess puzzles, a nail kit and nail polish, a little Lalaloopsy pony, a silly post-Easter basket full of little things that she just loved, and some little princess doll and a Tinkerbell book I've held on for a while to give to her for her 3rd birthday:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And last but definitely not least, Cake!  The kids liked eating the fondant buttons. The inside was strawberry cake with strawberry frosting.  The head of the girl is actually Styrofoam; using it cut out some much-needed time!  I think the cake turned out pretty cute:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy 3rd Birthday to my sweet little girl!  I know I'm going to say this for every birthday, but I can't believe how old she already is!  I feel like she should still be a little baby.  My pretty little girl is growing up so well and fast!  She is in 30th percentile for her weight and 60th for her height, so she is a tall and skinny little thing.  I love her sweet and sassy personality.  She's a very loving and kind little girl.  And she's a talker.  We love you, Eesa!

Easter 2014

Easter was a fun one this year! The kids really enjoyed it.

First, the Easter egg hunt, hosted by Resiterns.  Gabe was one of the older kids so he filled his bucket up to the top.  Elisa needed a little more help, but both had a good time and ended up with a lot of candy and stickers:

 

 

Then later that same day we went to the Brittany Lakes Spring party.  I think they have it every year, with bouncy houses, music, and free Marble Slab ice cream.  The kids had such a fun time playing in the bouncy houses, especially Elisa.  She enjoyed it so much that she didn't even want to stop bouncing to enjoy the free ice cream we got:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course, Easter egg coloring!  Erik (mostly) helped the kids color their pretty eggs.  Gabe made a blue egg with a G on it (surprise, surprise) and Eesa made a pink egg, among others: 

  

 

Erik didn't make an Easter budget so I didn't bother buying candy.  The night before he asked where all the Easter candy was.  I said I didn't get any, he said we can't have Easter without Easter candy so I went to Kroger the night before Easter Sunday and got some candy that I thought the kids would like (not that there's a candy they don't like!).  Erik filled their Easter baskets and one for us (I decided to keep the Reece's peanut butter eggs for myself!).   I was going to hide the baskets in the yard for the kids to find, but it was too muggy.  I guess next year I'll just hide them in the house.  The kids of course enjoyed their candy and devoured it almost immediately:

 

 After church we had some friends over to share Easter dinner with us.  It was a delicious dinner and we all had fun!

 

And last but not least, my sweet Elisa in her Easter best.  Isn't she beautiful?!

 

 

And one last pic of silly Elisa with her pink Easter egg:

Gabe's 5th Birthday

 I CANNOT believe Gabe is already 5!  That is just so crazy to me.  I feel like he should still be a little toddler still.  He is growing up so cute!  He can already read simple books, do simple math in his head, and draw some pretty awesome pictures.  Gabe is still a mellow, easy going, happy little guy.  We sure enjoy having him around.  I hate the thought of sending him off to school all day :(

In the past couple of months, Gabe has enjoyed playing Mario Kart with daddy (and sometimes mommy), and also watching daddy play Mario Galaxy and watching the Super Mario Bros Super Show on Netflix.  Basically, Gabe really likes Mario and all of the characters, so I thought Mario Bros would be a great theme for his birthday party for him.  Don't get me wrong, Gabe still LOVES trains, but I thought since he's already had two train parties, it was time for a change.
Putting Gabe's party together was A LOT of work!  Being on a budget doubles the work, I think.  I tried to keep it simple, but it always seems like so much work to me. And I'm always scrambling around at the very last minute.

Gabe really likes Yoshi from Mario Kart so I got him a shirt off of Etsy with Yoshi riding a motorcyle with his name and age.

The decoration and food

We had a pretty good turnout out and I think the kids had such a fun time!  We served pizza and I threw a tablecloth on the ground in the back yard so all those kids wouldn't mess up my house. 

I love this picture because you can see how much fun Gabe was having!

I really went crazy and made Gabe a Yoshi pinata for his party.  I haven't made one in years but I think this one turned out really well.  I just can't believe I forgot to take a picture of it!  I guess you can see it okay from these pictures.  It was a lot of work, but it was fun work.  I filled it with a TON of candy and goodies.  Yoshi weighed a good 10 pounds at least!  Other party games included smashing foam blocks with paper coins in them and popping balloons on our stiff Texas grass.  The kids actually made up the later, I didn't plan that but the kids sure thought it was the best thing ever!

And on to the best part: presents and cake!  Gabe sure got spoiled!  He got a rocket (from daddy) lego trains (from me), a toy gun, a remote controlled flippy-car, play dough, paints, and a couple of other things.  Gabe's favorite toy definitely had to be the Lego train I got him.  He played with it for weeks afterwards!

Happy Birthday Gabe!

Close-up of the cake.  Its kinda gimpy.  I was so focused on making Gabe's pinata that I didn't have a lot of time to spend on his cake.  Well, Gabe liked it anyway.  Or at least, he liked the plastic Mario cake topper.

And last but not least, happy 31st birthday to Erik!  Poor Erik has to share a birthday now.  At least he got to have some fun playing with Gabe's Lincoln Logs from Grandma. 

What's this?  Some presents for Erik?! Yes, I did get him some cologne and teeth-whiting strips.  Now that he's an old man, I need to make sure he keeps himself up :)

And something for Elisa!  I wish I would have gotten her something to open while Gabe was opening all of his presents; she didn't seem to understand why she couldn't open them so she threw a big crying fit.  I'll have to remember to do that next year.