Joshua's Outdoors & S'Mores Birthday Party

On October 15th, we celebrated Joshua's birthday with a party at the Oak Shelter at Black Hoof Park.

He had said he wanted a Batman party.  I didn't do a fondant cake for Hannah's party, but the best design I could think of for a Batman cake worked a lot better with fondant, so that's what I did.  The skyscrapers on the side were a little rushed, as that was the last thing I did, so they weren't the best, but I was pretty happy overall with how the cake turned out.  I combined that with black and yellow cupcakes, and black (and gray) and yellow plates, plasticwear, and napkins, as well as some hanging decorations in the shelter to complete the theme.

The shelter was a great venue.  One thing that they don't do well is make it clear when it's reserved.  We had the shelter for the whole afternoon and evening, but when I showed up to decorate prior to the party, there were a couple other groups in there, including a pretty large wedding party.  But  I needed to get set up, so I let them know that we had it reserved, and they relocated elsewhere, which was kind of a lengthy process  This left me scrambling to make up for lost time, but thankfully Kirk and Joanna showed up early and helped me finish the decorations.  As you can see, the shelter was large, which we needed, since we had invited his whole class from school in addition to a few select kids from church (Grayson was the only one who could come), and his cousins, the Hansons, and Alex's kids and Alaina's kids, and the adults our family and also Halie.

Ron helped out by doing all the hot dog cooking, and Matt helped manage the bonfire, both of which were a huge help to me, as I had to manage many other things as the night when on.

When it was time to do cake, all the kids were drawn in like bugs to a light on a summer night.

And speaking of summer nights, even though it's October, the weather was unseasonably warm, so it was a very pleasant evening.  And speaking of lights, the lights in the shelter apparently come on automatically, and it seemed they came on way later than they should have.  It was quite dark for awhile, and I was getting concerned that the lights might not come on at all.  But finally they did.  In the meantime, one of our coolest decorations had their chance to literally shine, as we had some light-up balloons hung throughout the shelter.  They were regular balloons that you blow up, but they have little lights in them to make the balloons glow and flash in the darkness.

When we asked Joshua what  kind of party he wanted to have this year, he said he wanted it outside at nighttime, and he wanted s'mores (likely remembering the kids' joint party from last year).  That's what led us to Black Hoof, as it's a park we already like to go to, and one of the shelters they have, the Oak Shelter, has a huge firepit.  Again, thanks to Matt making sure it was ready to go, we had a nice fire in the firepit, which allowed us to cook s'mores (thanks to Halie for managing the s'more station).  They were a hit, because everyone loves s'mores, of course.

Finally we opened gifts, and Joshua got a lot of cool new toys and activities that he's very excited to get to play with and use.  It was really a pretty great party from every perspective.  The weather was great, and everyone had a lot of fun, especially our birthday boy, Joshua.

Hannah's 4th Birthday Party

This year we were able to have Hannah's birthday party on her actual birthday.  We hosted the part at our house and in our back yard.  We usually try to let the kids choose their own theme, and Hannah chose "Rainbow Dora".  Dora is of course Dora the Explorer, which Hannah loves.  She also loves rainbows.  So she just combined those two.  So it should be noted that "Rainbow Dora" is not a thing.  She just wanted a party with rainbows and Dora.

But I think we pulled it off.  Meghan made a spread of rainbow-colored food, including rainbow Oreos, and six-layered Jello cups with each layer being a different color (though you have to hold them up to the light to see them).  We also were able to rent a bounce house with both rainbow colors and Dora, which was fortunate.

I asked her what she wanted on her cake, and she told me she wanted Dora, and a rainbow, and a bounce house, and glitter and sparkles.  So... yeah.  That wasn't going to happen.  I briefly looked into how I would make a fondant bounce house on a cake before I realized I should just try to do my best and not make her exact request.  So I made a cake that focused on rainbow colors and Dora.  I acquired three Dora figurines (thanks, Craigslist), and came up with a simple design that would let me have a lot of rainbow colors without having an actual rainbow on the cake (which is surprisingly difficult to implement).  My figuring positioning idea was to have Dora and Boots on top with Swiper the Fox doing his normal sneaky fox activity by sneaking up on them from behind.  However, this was way more difficult to implement than I imagined, as I thought I could just jab him into the back of the cake, but it turned out he was too heavy for that.  So (in the middle of the night before the party, of course, because that's when I do cakes) I engineered a solution involving a harness composed of cut bamboo skewers, dental floss, and super glue, and that allowed me to position Swiper exactly where I wanted him.  It was the first cake I've done that didn't involve fondant, but I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out.


The weather was perfect, so people were able to enjoy the outdoors or hang out indoors.

She was actually slightly disappointed there wasn't a bounce house on her cake, but she got over it and was overall pleased with it.

After cake, we did presents.  She was excited to get her gifts, and Benjamin was excited to be the one to bring them over to us to open.  He tried to predict what each one was, and each time he guessed it would be a "race track", but it turns out he wasn't quite right on any of them, as no race tracks were received.  But it was cute that he was wanting to be involved.  We had a really fun party, and we were thankful to have our family and friends there to celebrate with us.

Ron and Peg: 15 Years!

In 2011, to celebrate their 10th anniversary, Mom and Ron flew everyone out to Las Vegas for a huge celebration that involved everyone.  This year is the 15th anniversary, and while there was no particular event planned, Joanna decided to take it upon herself to leverage her newly accessible location (she and Kirk just moved back from Houston) to organize a surprise party for Mom and Ron.  She coordinated with all of us to come up with a plan that would work, which was no easy task, since it needed to be a surprise.  But she, and we, pulled it off, and today we all showed up at their house to surprise them.  Joanna had coordinated with us all to have us write messages to them, and she put them all in a nice book.
Joanna also was in charge of all the decor, and it looked great.  We even had a cake ready.

After we ate cake, we enjoyed the nice weather on the back patio and back yard.  Their expanded patio makes it easy to host everyone without anyone feeling cramped.

The most recent additions to the family, Lucy and Daniel, arrived ready to party!

The older cousins were a little more energetic.  And somewhat amazingly, they were all willing to stand in a line so we could get some pictures of them.   It was a really great party.  Joanna did a great job as lead organizer of coming up with the plan and then making it happen.  And we were all excited to celebrate the anniversary of the couple who made this awesome blended family happen.