The big 5th birthday party

For Poppy's 5th birthday, we wanted to have a party where we could invite all of her cousins and family friends, and let her invite a few friends of her own as well.  And she requested that we have her party at one of her all-time favorite places in the world - the playground.  

After weeks of planning and days of weather watching, the day of Poppy's party finally arrived...

We brought lots of picnic blankets and balloons.  The army showed up to do drills (which was pretty exciting for all of the kids to watch) right behind our party.  There was also a group of jugglers meeting on the other side of our party!  Good thing I didn't go to the trouble of hiring entertainment!

We had pb&j sandwiches for the kids, subs for the adults, korean dumplings (of course!) and chips and fruit so that it felt like you were at the park having a picnic...

65 cupcakes, a bunch of enthusiastic singers and Poppy in her glory...

Then it was time for the pinata...

I love watching all the kids scramble to grab as much candy as possible once the pinata breaks open...

Poppy opened her gifts as our guests were getting ready to go.  Even though it's blurry, I just love this picture of Poppy and Ava hugging goodbye...

We were so lucky the weather turned out to be beautiful that day (or else we would have had 40+ people crammed into our house!) and everyone had fun at the party.  Poppy says it was her favorite party ever (and I think it might have been my favorite too).

We've had a crazy and hectic couple of weeks around here.  I was planning on doing individual posts for each event, but well, you get a photo dump instead.  Here we go...

My birthday started with breakfast in bed.  This was a first for Sam and I think he could get used to living like this...

and we finished celebrating my birthday at Shogun.  Sam did not take his eyes off the hibachi chef for 1 second....

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Poppy's end of the year piano recital...

She played "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and she did such a great job!  We are sooo proud of her...

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Poppy had her first ever soccer game!  She is loving soccer this year...

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Her last day as a 4 year old.  I begged her to not turn 5, but she refused.  She said we can always pretend she's still 4...

This is what I got when I asked her to smile for the camera...

Strawberry ice cream cone cupcakes to take to school for her birthday...


Her birthday lunch was a sprinkle sandwich (which she loved, of course!)...


And then we had Marc's family over for a Korean dinner followed by birthday cake...

She could not believe I put real suckers on her cake.  She barely took a bite of her cake, went straight for the suckers and then told everyone all night "They're real suckers, ya know.  Really, they're real.  You can eat them!"

Sammy enjoyed his sucker too...

and Poppy even played a few songs for everyone at her party...

One of the favorite gifts- the book that goes along with the Arietty movie (which was sooo good, btw)...

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In addition to non-stop partying lately, Marc has been building a treehouse/playset in our backyard.  Everyone is sooo excited about this...

Both Poppy and Sam are quite the helpers...

 

It's going to be so cute when it's done - I can't wait!

Speaking of being so cute, I could just watch these two play together all day.  Today they were pretending Sam was the doctor and Poppy was the doll's mommy...

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 Happy mother's day!  Hope everyone had a wonderful day.  Mine was filled with family time and relaxing...

Stay tuned - Poppy's big birthday party post coming up next...

Birthday Party

Finally, the last installment of Poppy's birthday celebrations!  Usually, we throw a big party with all of her cousins and friends and family, but this year we decided to scale it back and just do a smaller party at home with the just the regular pizza Thursday crew and her Godparents.  

Poppy decided on a "movie theater" theme...

{popcorn cupcakes}

{and popcorn for snacking on during the movie}

{Poppy requested bee bim bop for dinner, and we had to introduce it to everyone by reading the book}

{singing Happy Birthday for the 100th time that week}

{the kids were surprised that the cupcakes weren't popcorn flavored!}

Once all of the kids had their dinner and cupcakes, we corralled them into the makeshift movie theater, aka: our living room.  We moved all the furniture around, hung a sheet on a wall and used a projector to show "Tangled".  Marc even printed out tickets that the kids had to turn in in order to get into the movie theater.

{it was actually pretty dark in there and the movie looked really cool and the kids loved it!}

And the best part was that all of the adults got to sit back and relax and talk and eat, sans kiddos!  It was a genius idea, if I do say so myself. 

At the end of the night, we asked Poppy what her favorite part of the party was, and of course she said "Opening the gifts!".  Her favorite gift by far was the fishing pole Marc got for her.  She has been using it to "fish" all over the house, and has been asking if she can go fishing first thing every day.  Marc is super excited to take her once it stops raining!

Poppy's birthday & Mother's day

Poppy's birthday turned out to be fantastic.  I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that she's 4.  4 years old!  That's just crazy.  

Her day started with her requested breakfast in bed.  It was adorable how excited she was when she saw us carrying in a tray of muffins and donuts and juice to be eaten in her bed.  Then we had Marc's family over for bee bim bop and birthday cake.  Poppy said her favorite part of the day was opening all of the presents, of course!

Mother's day was fantastic as well.  The night before Marc asked if I wanted breakfast in bed, but I told him he could take the morning off.  Instead we went out for a nice brunch with family.

{our attempt at a family picture - I'm not sure why I'm the only one looking at the camera!}

After brunch, Marc and I hung out outside while the babies were napping.  It felt soooo good to be outside all day!  Once everyone was up we headed to Uma and Upa's for more playing and then dinner.

Check out the mother's day gift Poppy and I made for Grandma and Uma... 

It's a bird feeder!  We made a loaf of bread and covered it in seeds and then added painted sticks for the birds to sit on.  Poppy and I thought it was rather clever, but everyone in my family seemed to think it resembled something that belongs in a toilet and they thought it was soooo funny.  

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Poor Marc with all of these holidays.  Just about every night this week, after I went to bed I could hear him get in the car and drive somewhere, and then come back an hour or so later.  He was making runs to get stuff for our breakfasts in bed, flowers for mother's day, movies and snacks for our anniversary date night, etc.  He did such a great job and I am so lucky to have him!

3 down, 4 more to go.

My birthday this year turned out to be one of my favorites ever.  It started with Marc and Poppy bringing me breakfast in bed.  Poppy was soooo excited that we got to eat on our bed.  She even requested that we do the same thing for her birthday.  

Then the sun decided to make its first appearance in months!  I was so excited to see my old friend!  As soon as we were all dressed, I loaded up the stroller and we headed to the playground.  Sam slept all morning in the stroller and Poppy had a blast with the playground all to herself.  

Then we headed home where Poppy and I made my absolute favorite cake in the world - strawberry whipped cream cake!  We even used the last of the frozen strawberries that we picked last June.  And yes, some might think it's a little odd that I made my own birthday cake, but I love baking with Poppy.  We really have so much fun in the kitchen together.  I told Marc, I feel like Poppy and Sam both knew to just be extra good kids on my birthday.  There was not a single tear or whining or tantrum or anything.  Everyone was just so good and happy.  It really made my day to be able to spend it with my family.

When I saw a picture of a "ruffle cake" on pinterest (of course!), I knew that I had to try making one myself.  And it was so easy to do!  Didn't it turn out cool?

And everyone surprised me with a Mexican Feast (my favorite) instead of boring old pizza for pizza Thursday.  And the sun was still shining!!!  It was such a perfect day!

I've included a video of everyone singing happy birthday.  I was cracking up when I watched it, it sounds like there were about 100 kids there!

 {Louis loving the fact that he's not the baby of the family anymore - he's a big kid now!}

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Then today was Poppy's birthday party at her school.  I didn't think all the little boys in her class would appreciate a princess themed party, so we decided to go with owls instead.  Poppy and I made demo crafts yesterday...

 and then we all got up bright and early this morning to decorate her owl cupcakes...

 and I went in and read an owl book to her class...

We read Wow! Said the Owl, which was a really cute book.

then we all made an owl craft!  The kids really seemed to have fun with our owl theme, and Poppy was in her glory with everyone wishing her a happy birthday.

But the real highlight of her day is going to be when Marc takes her to "Day Out With Thomas" tonight.  She's been talking about that all week long.

Still ahead: Poppy's actual birthday tomorrow, mother's day, and more parties!!!

sources:
ruffle cake
owl craft
owl cupcakes 

Let's get this party started!

And so the chaos known around here as 'birthday week' has begun.  We celebrated my MIL's birthday on Sunday.  We'll be doing my birthday at pizza Thursday, followed by Poppy's birthday on Saturday.  And Mother's day on Sunday.  Oh, and I almost left out our wedding anniversary on Saturday too.  

Poppy and I were inspired by the cake the fairies bake for Sleeping Beauty when we made my MIL's birthday cake.  Poppy didn't think we would be able to do it without magic wands, but I think we pulled it off.  :)

All that celebrating means a lot of cake eating (and making)!  I'll try to post pics of everything.  We decided to tone it down with Poppy's birthday this year.  Just smaller family parties and a party at school.   She is soooo excited for all of the celebrating!

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I've been dying to catch Sam's sweet smile he gives me when he wakes up from his nap every day.  So when I saw he was sleeping extra late on Saturday, I decided to go in his room and open his shades and try to snap a few pics of him waking up...

 {sleeping baby - sucking his thumb and holding his blankie}

 Wait a minute, this isn't the sweet smile he always gives me!  That's the stink-eye!

 Let's just say he was not happy that I had a big black camera in front of my face.  As soon as I put the camera down, it was all smiles.