A Tale of Two Birthdays

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times in the Woodbury household. Remember January? Yes, January. We had a party way back then for Savannah.  I am verrrrry loosely using the term party, because, well when you see how it all came together you will know what I'm talking about: 

Monday night at FHE we are calendaring and it occurs to me I should probably do something about celebrating Savvy's birthday that is the next day. She had been saying for some time that she wanted to have a princess party. So I do what any house-bound mother hobbling around on two medical boots would do--- I told her she could invite TWO whole friends to her party. Darling Savvy, she was thrilled. So I phoned the moms that night and asked if their daughters could come over the next afternoon for a princess tea party, wearing their favorite princess attire. Both friends were available. 

{HUGE sigh of relief at that moment. You can't have a party without princesses.}

The next morning when I awoke Ruby was still sleeping soundly in the carrier next to my bed. My medical boots are right next to her, but I don't want to wake her up with all the velcro noises, so I hobble on bare feet. While getting Cade off to school, he accidentally tripped over one of my unprotected feet. OH MY GOSH. It hurt. SO BAD. I was speechless for about 20 seconds and poor Cade thought he had killed me. After reassuring him I was very much alive and there was no possible chance I'd be dead when he came home from school, he was off to the bus stop and I was speed dialing my foot doctor. He told me to come in, which was very imperfect timing since I was supposed to be spending my morning preparing for the birthday party.  Instead, Kyle chauffered me in the car {part of the worst of times for me-- not being able to drive} while we dropped Sav off at preschool and then went to the doc to get X-rays on my foot. Fortunately all was well, but unfortunately I didn't have any time to really have anything together. I came home about 15 minutes before the party was to start. But 4 year-old girls are easily entertained and we just had a ball! 

 Birthday girl holding her birthday balloon and wearing her crown given to her at preschool. They do a great job of making them feel very special. Sav wore her special princess dress. So cute!

The friends arrived and we played a princess game, provided by one of our guests, Ariel.

Then we sang happy birthday and had a little lunch tea party in the play room...

Then the princesses played with Play-do

...and made necklaces out of wooden beads (we had those on hand thanks to a brilliant Christmas gift from Santa...) No pictures to show, but that's what we did.... 

And then they huddled in the little princess castle while I read to them sweet little princess stories until the mommies came.

Later, Sav opened her presents from Grandma and Grandpa S.....

....Shopping Cart!!!

 some cute clothes, and this darling lunch bag....she LOVES it. :)

Big brother loves his birthday sis.

So, no cute cupcake tower with princess cupcakes (I did manage to have my chauffeur stop by a cupcake shoppe on the way home from the Drs so I could buy 6 cupcakes.), no cute princess party favors, and I didn't have a house full of princesses running around, but Savannah loved it and thought her special party was just perfect.

TWO MONTHS LATER....

In so many ways I feel like the real me is FINALLY back. It's been a while. I'm not hobbling around on crutches or medical boots, I'm not pregnant, and I'm not sleep deprived from a new baby (if I'm sleep deprived, it's my own fault!).  Cade's birthday was coming up, and he wanted to have a Super Mario Party. I made up invitations (shocker!) and we delivered them about a week before the big day.  In preparation, I was perusing the net, looking for ideas, when I came across one particular blogger who just had her child's Super Mario party (and her daughter recently had a princess party. Cosmic, no?). She had a lot of great ideas I incorporated into the party.

I made these little cupcakes to look like Toad Stools and Bowser spikes and picked up gold coins at the local party store.

Using some felt from the dollar store and raffia I had on hand, I made these little coin pouches. We handed these out to each of the children when they arrived.
Notice the one that's not like the other? Savvy was devastated I didn't make her one, so I quickly threw one together and realized, rather than using felt, I should have printed a picture of the toad stools. MUCH faster! Perhaps the felt toad stools are cuter, but the boys would not have cared. 

Then we had them color their own Mario mustache for a game later on...

We set these up on the porch and each child took a turn trying to knock these down with a fire ball, star power, or ice (we have some great nerf balls that are blue, yellow and orange. They were perfect!) Each one was worth a certain number of coins and after their turn each boy collected their winnings.

Next, we split the boys up into two teams and sent them downstairs to stomp on balloons. White ghosts and black chomp chomps. I'll have to post the video of the kids going nuts. I spent a lot of time blowing up the balloons and drawing faces on them. I'm no artist, but it was pretty easy.

The team with the most balloons got some more coins.

Next up? Ping pong toss.  

 Depending on which cup the ping-pong landed in decided how many coins each boy got, or had to give up...

The Gang!

 The next game was my own little creation. "Rescue the Princess from the Hot Lava!"
We have a hot tub in our back yard, and I really wanted to come up with a fun game using it.  I found two nets at the Dollar Tree- a green and a red one. Then I borrowed Savvy's princess doll. The boys were split into two teams and then each one had a chance to face off with a member of the opposing team. To start, Kyle told them they had to race to the mailbox and back to the hot tub. Once at the hot tub they could use their net to try and get the princess out. It was a blast!

Next, we did pin the mustache on Mario. Caleb was our winner! He also had collected the greatest number of coins by the end of the last game, so he got a  T-shirt with Mario on it (thank you Target clearance!). I saw him at school 2 days later and he was wearing it proudly. So cute. Speaking of shirts, I failed to mention that I myself was sporting a Super Mario T-shirt for the party that matched Cade's. (He is still young enough that he thought it was cool rather than weird I did that). While at Target I found an XL shirt in the boys section and thought I might be able to squeeze into it. Sure enough I did! :)

Then we sang happy birthday!

It was a great day. It was really a blast playing with all the boys and I think they had a good time. It felt so good to have my energy back.

Later, Grandpa Woodbury stopped by and taught Cade how to throw a football.

Darn those aspen roots though. Cade tripped on one... 

(Cade's showing off his wound while chatting on the phone with Grandma Sheppard to tell her about his birthday party)

We cleaned it up.... waited....then thanks to my sister and brother in law's advice, I took him to the urgent care to get it sewn up. {After dropping the girls off at their house bc Kyle wasn't home. Reason #342 that living close to your sister is the greatest.}

This was Cade's first time getting stitches!  Cade was really nervous. While getting the shots of anesthesia around the wound he was quietly crying, asking the doctor if he was going to die.  What a brave, sweet boy. The doctor told him he was a really great patient and it was nice to have a little boy who was still while he did it. When tucking him in bed Cade said, "Mom. I think I know what's going to happen at school. I'm going to tell my class that I got stitches and everyone is going to care about me." So precious. :)

Here's a shot of his war wound....

Kyle asked him to do a "tough" face. Yeah, about as tough as a care bear.

So, two parties. If I take into account how much planning and preparation was spent on each, they'd be at opposite ends of the spectrum. But they were both successes and both enjoyed.  I really do like the "new me" ---or rather the old me that has returned. 

I hope I'm here to stay.