Party People

I try to be very careful to not post pictures of other

people's kids on here. So, while I have tons of pictures of

all of our sweet little pirate guest, I'm limited to what I can share.

But here are a few pics so you can sneak a peak at how much fun the kids all had.

Arrrgh! Its a Pirate Party!!!

I stumbled across a pirate party several months ago and new

instantly that I had to talk Dylan into picking pirates as his theme.

Luckily, it wasn't too hard to get him to jump on my party train,

or should I say...

my party ship!

I'm a believer that love is in the details and that love is what

makes a party special. I researched more hours than I will

admit too and bookmarked tons and tons of websites.

I was so happy with how it turned out.

But most importantly, My Birthday Boy had the best time.

I am so sad that I did get more pictures, but I was running around

like a chicken with my head cut off, and I didn't think to hand my

camera to a friend. :( Lesson learned. Actually, I might start

hiring a photographer?

So here are some of my favorite details:

All Little Pirates need some yummy Grub...

The "grub" table included (from left to right)

Cupcakes. I can not even believe that I didn't get picture of them. They were SO cute!

Some were white with red x's and some were blue with white skull and cross bones.

PBJ roll ups held together with little pirate swords. My hubby get credit for that cute

little detail.

Polly's Crackers (Cheeze Its) and Peg Legs (Pretzel sticks)

Veggie Grub (Veggies and Ranch)

Arctic Water (was meant to be ice water. But we forget the ice,

so it should have been called Caribbean water)

Pirate Punch (fruit punch)

Love the flag. My mom made it for Dylan.

On the kid's tables, we had Pirate Punch (strawberry soda)

and Pirate Juice Boxes for little siblings.

Pirate Grammy welcomed our little guest and transformed them into Little Pirates!

This was such a small detail, but one of my favorites.

This was his gift table:

X marks the spot letting our little Pirates know they've arrived

to their destination!

Daniel and I planned the games together.

He is pretty fabulous at this sort of thing.

First up,

the Pirate's need to have some Pirate Training

before become REAL pirates.

We set up an obstacle course.

First, the kids "walked the plank"

Second was a Peg Leg Race. Kids hopped on one leg to the

buried treasure.

Then, they dug for treasure... with their TOES!

And lastly, they had to crab walk back and tag the next pirate to go!

Daniel and I showed them how its done:

Then we had a "Cannonball Toss".
AKA water balloon toss.

I think this was the favorite for a lot of the kids.

Our last game was a Treasure Hunt. Daniel set clues all over the park.

At the end, the kids found a treasure chest pinata.

Sadly, I did not get any pictures of the treasure hunt.

And then comes CAKE!

And again, I can not believe I didn't get a picture of it, but Dylan

had the cutest little cake. We only used it to blow out candles at the party

but we did eat it the next day at my moms.

*Whew*

Now its time to start planning next year's party!

Just kidding!! (kind of)

Dylan's School Birthday Celebration

I made the mistakes of asking Dylan what kind of cupcakes he would like me to make.
He said Power Rangers.
I said, "Okay! Which one!?"
"All of them" he tells me.
"Like, some of each color"
*sigh*
There are 5 colors.
And.
They all have different mask designs.

But, what my Birthday Baby want, my Birthday Baby gets!

London and I took them to his school and stayed to celebrate with his classroom.
The kids were all so excited about the cupcakes and went on an on
about how "cool" they were.
And my boy was beside himself with joy.
Worth it!

I really am glad that I made those cupcakes, even if they were a little bit stressfull.
But next year, I'm thinking I'm going to just suprise Dylan
with a (simple) cupcake design! :)

Dylan's Birthday (at home celebrations)

I mentioned it briefly in a previous post,

but birthday are a big, big deal here in the

Hilburn house. We like to go all out!

By we, I mean me, of course. I never fail to make tons

of work for myself, pouring all sorts of details into the day.

My hope is that I also am not failing to make magical memories

for my babies.

My parents always did it big for birthdays, and I have the

BEST memories from them. So, I guess we know where

I get it from.

But by the end of a "birthday week", yes we celebrate as much

as possible for a whole week, I am so tired that I can barely

stand up straight.

But the kids talk about their birthday week ALL.YEAR.LONG.

Worth it.

So, so worth it.

So lets get started with Dylan's SEVENTH birthday week.

Birthday Breakfast!

Per my Birthday Boy's request, Power Ranger Pancakes.

Every year, I leave the kids gifts on the kitchen table so that theysee them as soon as they wake up. We open them after breakfast.

A few months ago, I was online and saw the neatest idea tothe birthday boy/girl's room up with balloons the night before their birthday.I knew instantly that this needed to be a new family tradition.Once the kids were asleep (they both slept in Dylan's room), Daniel and I blew up a tonof balloons and threw them in the room. I was so scared the cat or dog would popone and wake the kids up in state of panic (NOT the surprise I was going for, but thankfullyall went well. Dylan and London were both just beside themselves about the balloons.

Another thing we do every year is let the birthday person (we do this for grown ups too!)pick a special place to go eat. Dylan has chosen hibachi several years now.

Everyone loved it.At the end of our meal,they brought out this cute hat and sang happy birthdaywhile someone played bongos.It was so fun.Londy says she would like to go there for her birthday too!

As our big gift to Dylan, we took the family to Lego land.

For dinner, I told Dylan I would cook anything he wanted.He asked for chicken nuggets and mac and cheese.I didn't complain about the simplicity of it, not one little bit.That evening, I baked Dylan a cake and let London decorate it all by herself.Ya'll. Its hard for me to let go and not worry about thing being pretty.But London was SO proud of her cake and Dylan was too.Worth letting go.

Our sweet friends and neighbors came over and sang Happy Birthday and had cake with us.