Big 5 Birthday Party

Well, I'm finally getting to post about Jaycee's birthday party.  There will be a few more posts about things we've done in October to come later, but here's a post about Jaycee's 5th Birthday.

This year, I wanted to keep with the plan of not having a birthday party at my house, but rather go somewhere kid-friendly to have Jaycee's birthday party.  Over the summer, I took Jaycee bowling with some of our friends and she had a blast!!!  Tom decided that this might be a fun thing to do for her birthday.  So I kept that in the back of my mind for a few months.

So here's what we did.  I'm not into topping each birthday by trying to make each one bigger and better than the year before.  That is just not something I want to get into the habit of doing.  I do however, want to give my kids a small, quick, yet fun time with friends and family.  We asked Jaycee what she would like to do for her birthday.  With not much luck as to what kind of party she wanted, Tom and I went back to the whole bowling party idea.  So, I got online and looked up all the local bowling allies in the area and decided that Northrock Lanes would be the best option for us.  It is super close, and they had the best birthday party package to fit what I was thinking about.  We decided to keep it small, and only invited some close friends of Jaycee's from church and school. 

This was Jaycee's second time bowling and as you can see, she loved it!!!

 

Here are a couple of Jaycee's friends from Preschool.  I knew that she would have no problem making friends.  She is one of the friendliest kids I know.

One of Jaycee's best friends basically since she was born was the only boy there.  I felt a little sorry for him, but he was a trooper and had a lot of fun bowling with the girls. 

 

 These girls know how to have fun.

 

 

We decided to buy a GIANT cookie cake instead of the traditional cake this year.  One it was much easier not to have to cook anything and transport it, and also it was pretty affordable.   The cake was gone in no time!!!

 

 This birthday girl is pretty cute!!!

 

 

 We had a fun afternoon with these kids.

 

 

We had a fun time!!!

Miles decided that he needed to join in on the fun that the big kids were having.

We had a great time, and I think I will do this again for another party maybe when Miles gets a bit older. 

Four Year Old Birthday Party

 

 

This year, I decided that we would try something different for Jaycee's birthday.  I thought that with having a newborn, it wouldn't be the best idea to get our house all ready and it was stressing me out a little to even think about people coming over into our chaos. 

So we decided to have her party at Acrobatic Academy.  It is a tumbling/ gymnastics place that I drive by a lot on our way to Bible Study Fellowship on Wednesday mornings.  Since Jaycee has so much energy, I thought this might be just the place for her to celebrate her birthday.

It was a short, sweet, and fun birthday.  The kids all had a great time!!!  Thanks to all of you who came to her party and helped make it a fun day for her.


the Ehrlich's

Birthday Interview

Last year I started a Birthday Interview.  It was another idea I got from Pinterest.  I am excited to see how much or if her answers have changed in a years time.  Here it is:

Birthday Interview:  Jaycee is Four Years Old

 1.  What is your favorite color?  blue
 2.  What is your favorite toy?  soccer ball
 3.  What is your favorite fruit?  oranges
 4.  What is your favorite TV show?  Clifford
 5.  What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Mac & Cheese
 6.  What is your favorite outfit?  pink Animal Dress
 7.  What is your favorite game?  Toy Story Matching Card Game
 8.  What is your favorite snack?  cookies
 9.  What is your favorite animal?  bear
10. What is your favorite song?  Overcomer by Mandisa
11. What is your favorite book?  Diary of a Fly
12. What is your favorite movie?  Tangled
13. What is your favorite cereal?  Peanut Butter Balls (Generic Reeses Cereal)
14. Who is your best friend?  Corbin
15. What is your favorite thing to do outside?  chalk
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
17. What is your favorite drink?  milk
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  cereal
19. What do you like to take to bed with you?  bear & dog
20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  I don't know


This was fun to do with her.  I could see her little mind thinking about some of the answers.  I really tried not to give her any clues unless she asked what something meant.  She has been asking me a lot of questions about what words mean, especially when we sing songs in the car.  This gives you a little idea of what we've been doing these days.  Our life isn't super exciting, but watching Jaycee grow and learn has been so much fun!!!

the Ehrlich's

Twenty Questions Birthday Interview

Well, yesterday was Jaycee's birthday.  She was feeling a bit under the weather and we just decided to take things easy.  I saw an idea of asking your kids questions on their birthday and taking a picture of them.  I thought this would be a great way to see the changes in her over the years and to keep a birthday scrapbook of these questions every year.  You can see the idea here.

I decided to ask Jaycee twenty questions and then took a picture of her today.    Since Jaycee has been a little under the weather this week, I wasn't able to ask her these questions on her actual birthday, but I was able to get some of her answers today.  I'm not sure how accurate these answers are, and I had to give her some prompts as to how to answer the questions, but I think she enjoyed the time I spent asking her about her favorite things.  Enjoy getting to know a little more about Jaycee as a three year old.

Jaycee's Three Year Old Twenty Questions Interview:

1.   What is your favorite color?  green
2.   What is your favorite toy?  Elmo
3.   What is your favorite fruit?  strawberries
4.   What is your favorite TV show?  Super Why
5.   What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Peanut Butter Sandwich
6.   What is your favorite outfit?  my pretty dress
7.   What is your favorite game?  no comment
8.   What is your favorite snack?  dinosaur fruit snacks
9.   What is your favorite animal?  elephant
10. What is your favorite song?  Bingo
11. What is your favorite book?  Finn Throws A Fit
12. What is your favorite movie?  Cars
13. What is your favorite cereal?  Lucky Charms
14. Who is your best friend?  Parker and Foster (our neighbors)
15. What is your favorite thing to do outside?  play in the sprinklers
16. What is your favorite drink?  pop
17. What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas 
18. What do you like to take to bed with you?  blanky
19. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  toast
20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  no comment just a blank stare


Well, there you have it.  You now know a little more about Jaycee.

Our Little Monkey Turned One



My oh my what a week it has been!!!  Not only have we been super busy at school, but Jaycee turned one this past weekend.  Getting ready for her birthday was quite the event, but all in all things went pretty well.

My first idea was to have her party outside at a small park near our house.  I thought that way if there are any spills or cake messes, it's easy to clean it up.  I also thought that more people could spread out and enjoy the beautiful fall weather that we have been having lately.  I was also thinking about the kids.  I know that their attention spans are rather short, and if they have playground equipment to keep them occupied, then it would just make keeping them entertained a little bit
easier.

Here we have things set up at Teal Cove Park right by our house.

We went with the colors lime green and pink.  I had to do a little pink. Ha ha!!!

I decided that I wanted to center Jaycee's first birthday around a theme that has been reoccuring at our house lately.  Since Jaycee started walking about a month ago, she is all over the place and likes to climb and move all the time.  We call her a little monkey sometimes, so I thought it was fitting that her birthday be themed around the monkey cake.  I saw a really cute picture on the internet and made some invitations and sent them out to a few close friends and family.  I then decided that I would attempt to make her cake to look like the monkey on the invitations.  This was something that I have been wanting to do ever since Jaycee came into our lives.  I don't know what it is, but my dad made a few of our birthday cakes and I thought it was so cool!!!!  I thought that I would try my hand at it too.

Here is a balloon with the little girl monkey that I looked at to make the cake.

So I got the RSVPs from most people and had an idea of how many people were coming, and decided to make 3 round single layer cakes.  I then looked at the picture and cut them to look like the shape of the monkey's head.  I used chocolate frosting to help keep the pieces together and frosted the rest of the cake.  I also made several flower shaped sugar cookies to look like there was a flower in the monkey's hair.  It turned out even cuter than I had expected!!! 

 The cake table.

  

 Little Girl Monkey Cake

I made this myself. 

It was super fun!!!

 Cupcakes and Cookies galore!!!

 Jaycee's little baby cake.

Here's the birthday girl!!!

She looks nothing like me except for maybe her nose.

 Our little family.

I actually really love this picture.  We all look pretty natural.

Getting Jaycee ready to eat cake.

We used a plastic sack to cover her shirt, but it was useless.

Friends

Travis & Meagan Wells

More friends.

 

 Troy & Gavin Bruns

Chris, Jenn, & Corbin Williams

Gavin & Brenton

These are two of Jaycee's friends.  She is going to learn how to be tough around these boys.

Kyle, Amy, & Jendie Stevens

Janel & Karen

Foster & Parker

Family

My mom & dad, nephew Everett, & sister-in-law Casey.

I was so happy they could come.  They were in town from the Chicago area.

 Tom's sister, neice, brother-in-law, and mom.

Jaycee Eating Her Cake

 She took her time eating her cake.  I really think she was confused because we don't let her just go to town and smash her hands into her food like that.  But you gotta have a little fun with it though!!!

 Tom's dad is trying to get her attention. 

I think she is too preoccupied with that yummy cake.



Here's what was left of the cake after she was done with it.

 It's time to clean up and open presents.  Yay!!!

I think she wanted to keep working on that yummy cake!!!

 Opening Gifts

  We took lots of pictures of this, so I am just showing you a few of the highlights.

 Gift table. 

Tom did a good job of decorating

Jaycee had some time to play with her cousin Everett who lives too far away. 

They are only about 2 months apart in age. 

Party Favors

I mdae these myself.

I think that little monkey is so cute!!!

So many of Jaycee's friends and family came to wish her a happy birthday. 

I was completely overwhelmed by how many people love her.  She is such a blessing!!! 

We had a blast!!! I can't wait to see what exciting things we will see from Jaycee this next year.