Carsyn's 6th birthday - Rainbows and Unicorns!

Another year around the sun and our daughter is now 6!  Our quirky, sassy, lovable little lady still gives great hugs and is honing her sense of humor.  She's as active as ever; still loving soccer and has taken up jazz/hip hop dance.  Carsyn has grown 3.5 inches this year and the personality to boot.  We are so proud of you baby girl, MWAH!  🎂🎈🎉💗😘

This year Carsyn choose unicorns and rainbows as her theme.  She wanted to have it at Chuck E Cheese's, but last min were able to convince her to have a roller skating party!  I began my search on Pinterest for ideas.  Thankfully I already knew how to make a unicorn cake as it's very similar to her my little pony cake from last year.  The majority of the items I found decor and goodie bag items online form Oriental Trading Co & Amazon and the balloons came from Party City.

The evite:

A Magical Day is on the Rainbow Way

Let's Celebrate with a Skating Birthday!

Carsyn's Party is Here at Last

So Lace up Your Skates & Come Have a blast!

Snacks, drinks and cake will be served.

birthday girl

cake and cupcakes

For the Unicorn cake my daughter wanted pink cake, so we found strawberry cake mixes for the 3 layers and paired with with vanilla frosting.  The unicorn horn and eyelashes I ordered off Amazon as a kit.  For the rainbow hair I just found pre-made colored frosting in baggies and used that to pipe onto the top of the cake.  Voilà!  For the cupcakes we used vanilla cake mix with vanilla frosting.  I bought unicorn & rainbow cupcake rings off Amazon and rainbow gummy strips from the grocery store.  This was probably the easiest I've had it when making my kids birthday cakes!  The birthday girl LOVED it.  🦄 🌈

goodie bags

good bag contents

The goodie bags contained rainbow/unicorn tattoos, unicorn poop (jelly beans) and a vinyl unicorn character toy.  Plus with the cupcake ring they had a nice assortment of favors.

Since the party was from 1-3pm, we only provided snacks, drinks and cake.  The snacks consisted of rainbow gold fish, assortment of individual bags of chips and fruit snacks.

I even made sure the birthday girl was decked out with a rainbow skating unicorn shirt (Amazon), unicorn rainbow head band (which I found at Good Will, brand new for Halloween), and rainbow colored hair braid extensions attached to a hair-tie (CVS endcap find).  It was magical how it all came together!

This year Carsyn couldn't wait to open her gifts at home, so we opened them at the venue and followed that up with a little more roller skating.  Carsyn had a blast with her friends and was thrilled with all her presents.  We truly appreciate all our friends and family that were able to join us and celebrate Carsyn's 6th birthday! 

• Pinterest ideas - links to everything below in this album
• Oriental Trading Co - plates, napkins, goodie bag items
• Amazon - Unicorn cake set, birthday girl t-shirt, unicorn tattoos
• Party City - balloons
• HEB - cake mixes and frosting, #6 candle
• GoodWill - rainbow unicorn headband (brand new of course), they were fully stocked for Halloween which is where I found it.

Carsyn updates

I'm way behind on blogging.  In fact now I really only have time to write about milestones and big updates like birthdays, etc.  Life is just flying by so quickly!

Carsyn has had a couple of 1st this year!!

She lost her very first tooth in July at 5.5 years old!!  She was SUPER excited to finally receive some money from the tooth fairy.

Then in August, right before school was to start, she finally asked to learn how to ride her bike.  We'd been trying to get her to try it ALL summer and she refused.   She asked for some knee and elbow pads and was ready to tackle the bike.  Once Malek started working with her, she had it down by her 3rd or 4th day of practicing.  Now we need to upgrade her to a bigger bike!  Guess it's a good thing her birthday is in Oct, now we know what to get her.  :)  Though that would make for a good Christmas gift as well....

Ry's 8th Birthday - Pokémon!

My little boy is not so little anymore!  Hard to believe he turns 8 in just a couple more days!!!  To date he's lost 6 teeth (oh my!), is in the 2nd grade making As & Bs and loves playing sports (except for baseball).  Ryland is funny, sweet, quick, smart, bright-eyed and full of smiles!  He will still cuddle but has nixed giving kisses.  😘  He likes to tease and loves to read his Dogman and Captain Underpants books.  If he's not playing sports (mostly football and soccer) then he's hanging with friends and setting up as many sleepovers as he can.  He even tried his had at mutton bustin this year at the ATX rodeo and LOVED it.  Too bad we were only able to fit it in once as he has now hit the weight and age limit for the sheep.  🐑  We are so proud of our sweet, sensitive little man.  LOVE YOU!  🎂🎈🎉💗

EVITE

This year we celebrated Ry's birthday at Altitude Trampoline park.  This place was awesome!  The facility had tons of foam pits, climbing walls, obstacle courses, jousting balance beam, a dodge ball arena and so much more!  Plus they serve Double Daves pizza which we LOVE.  They handled all the setup and provided plates/napkins/utensils and a hostess.  All we had to bring in were the party favors and the cake!

Happy Birthday Ryland

Every birthday I make their cakes and cupcakes based on a theme they pick.  This year Ryland really wanted Dogman or Captain Underpants for his cake...I just couldn't bring myself to making an underwear cake, thankfully when I mentioned his love for Pikachu he quickly changed his mind and wanted Pokémon!  Now that I could do!  I began my search on pinterest for ideas.  We settled on a pikachu double layer round cake and pokeball cupcakes!  Easy peasy.  I used oreos for pikachu's eyes and yellow poster board for the ears.  The small white dots on the cupcakes are upside down candy eyeballs, the red half of the cupcakes are sugar crystals.  I was ecstatic with how the cake turned out.  All the kids at the jump place would excitedly run up to look at the cake, it was a hit!

Pikachu cake and pokeball cupcakes

For 2 hours the kids had a blast and wore themselves out!  We had a break in the middle to eat pizza and cake, then the kids were back at it again with their renewed energy sugar high!

obstacle course

jump time

climb time

FOOD nom nom nom

blow out the candles

happy birthday boy

For the party favors I put together little bags with a Pokémon plush backpack clip, pokemon ring and some chocolates.

favors

We waited until we arrived at home to open all the presents.  🎁  Ry received some awesome gifts and started playing with them immediately.  The big winner was the Fortnite nurf gun and RadRobot.  We will give him our gifts on his actual birthday in a couple days, we had to have his party early to avoid Easter weekend.  I think he will love the giant nurf gun and new helmet and goggles for his dirt bike.

the loot

A big thank you to everyone who came out and celebrated Ryland's 8th birthday with us❣ 💗

My pinterest site contains links to all the party items:

• Party City - Pokemon balloons and balloon weight
• Amazon.com - pokemon plush clips, pokemon cupcake ring toppers, presents
• HEB - cake supplies, yellow frosting, yellow poster board, cupcake liners, cake mixes

Carsyn's 5th birthday - My Little Pony!

Our little girl has grown so much in the past year!  In fact she's no longer little, she's grown 3 inches since her last birthday!  Happy 5th birthday to our darling daughter, Carsyn.  You continue to amaze us with your loving personality, awesome hugs, sweet kisses and quirky sense of humor.  You're starting to find your love of sports (soccer), dislike of cheer-leading, and fascination with makeup!  Love you to the moon and back!  🎂🎈🎉💗😘

When I asked Carsyn what kind of cake/theme she wanted this year, she surprised me with My Little Ponies.  I didn't even know she watched them or knew who they were!  Sure enough she did as she began to name them.  So began my search for all things My Little Pony.  The majority of her items I found at Target, the goodie bag items I purchased off Oriental Trading Co and the balloons came from Party City.

We decided to have her party at a kids gym this year.  What better way to burn off all that energy and sugar high than diving into a foam pit, climbing on balance beams and jumping in a bounce house.  Any prancing pony would love dashing through those obstacles!

The evite:

Gallop on over for a magical treat

We'll jump, tumble and play so sweet.

Celebrate with Apple Jack and Rainbow Dash

at Carsyn's 5th birthday bash!

Capital Gymnastics

60 mins gym fun, 30 mins pizza & cake time.

Birthday Girl

rainbow cupcakes and rainbow dash cake

I found the cake idea on Pinterest.  The cupcakes were easy, made with confetti cake mix and then decorated with sugar crystals in rainbow colors.  For the Rainbow Dash main cake I used 9" round cake pans and bought 3 different colored cake mixes:  pink, yellow and blue.  I used pastel blue food coloring mixed with vanilla frosting to get the desired base color for Rainbow Dash.  The ears I came up with in my dreams (yes I seriously had a dream about it).  I took Oreo filling, molding it with my hands into the shape of an ear (triangle), put it in the freezer to harden and then covered it in blue frosting and placed it onto of the cake.  I cut the cookie part of the Oreo to fit inside the ears to give it depth.  Instead of mixing 7 different colors of frosting for the hair, I used the AirHead rainbow sour strips and curled it around the top and backside.  Genius!  The eyes were also made out of Oreos, then I cut some of the sour strips and used the blue to line the iris of the eyes and make the eyebrows (good idea Juju!).  I think it turned out quite well!  The birthday girl was quite pleased.

rainbow cake!

Goodie bags:

My little pony pez, stickers and unicorn poop (jelly beans).

Wrapped in clear bags.

one happy bday girl

goodie bags and rainbow cupcakes

Fun at the gym!

Everyone in the foam pit!

Time to eat!

Happy Birthday!!!

We waited until we were back home to open gifts.  Carsyn had a blast with her friends and was thrilled with all her gifts.  We greatly appreciate all our friends and family that were able to join us and celebrate Carsyn's 5th birthday! 

 

All pictures located here.

• Pinterest ideas - links to everything listed below is in this album
• Oriental Trading co - pez, stickers, unicorn poop candy
• Target - plastic table covers, pink utensils, plates/napkins, rainbow airheads sour candy strips, rainbow Twizzlers
• Party City - My Little Pony Balloons
• Costco - pizza and drinks
• Walmart - #5 candle, stickers, My Little Pony shirt
• Goodwill - My little pony headband (brand new of course), they were fully stocked for Halloween which is where I found it.  And since her fav color at the moment is pink, this worked out well.  Target & Walmart also had the headband in the blue color.

Carsyn got her ears pierced!!!

Yup, this just happened!  I'm so proud of my little lady.  She finally said she wanted to get her ears pierced for her (early) birthday so I decided to take her the very next day, before she changed her mind.  We went to a little local shop where I know the owner (B Sweet) and picked out a pair of black onyx studs.  She really wanted pink but unfortunately the store didn't have that color in stock.  

Poor little girl had no idea what was about to happen.  We couldn't do both ears at once as there was only 1 person in the store to do it.  So I sat on the chair with my little girl while she watched you-tube on my phone.  The 1st earring went in effortlessly.  At first Carsyn had no idea what happened, she went from shocked to crying in a matter of seconds.  She did rebound quickly but now she KNEW what was going to happen with the other ear and wouldn't let us near it.  Thankfully my friend Katie had come with us, we had to hold her down on the table so that the owner could pierce the other ear.  OMG you would have thought we were committing murder in that boutique.  This time it took several minutes for Carsyn to calm down.  B Sweet made it all better by giving Carsyn and her friend Evelyn a mini make over, complete with sparkle eye-shadow!  5 mins later she was a happy camper.

I'm just glad it's done.  Now we just have to try and keep the earrings in for 6 weeks.  Cause if they fall out, not sure I can go through that experience again!  She should be able to start changing them out by her birthday in Oct, hopefully she lets me do that...

prepping the ears

Ready for the 1st piercing!  Oblivious...

Hurry and get the 2nd one in now!  Can you see the tears??

All done!  Mini makeover complete.  Now we are happy.

Oh!  I also decided to get my ears pieced with Carsyn.  Now I have them double pierced.  My husband has only been asking me to do this for a good 2-3 years now...

our pierced ears

Ry's 7 yr checkup

My Ry-Ry is growing up!  There are times he actually sounds like an adult, and his sense of humor is definitely maturing.  Time is just flying by, I can't believe he's almost done with 1st grade and his reading has drastically improved!  This boy is always on the go, he's into ALL the sports:  basketball, soccer, football, swimming, etc.  I love that he is so full of life.

His annual checkup was at the end of April.  He weighed 55 lbs and was 49.5" tall which puts him in the 75th percentile.  He's on track to hit 6'1"!  Thankfully no shots this time around, though he did have to have a wart frozen off his baby toe.  He did so well!  My brave boy.

Ry's 7th Birthday - Nananananana Batman!!!

My little boy is growing up so fast!  I can't believe he's now 7 years young; reading, protecting his little sister and mastering his humor/teasing.  He's such an amazing, loving, handsome, sweet, caring, kind, funny, intelligent, energetic little guy full of life and smiles! You love your family, friends and football and put all your heart and energy into everything you do. You make us very proud and we love you very much!  💝🎂🎉🎁

1st grade, Spring Pics - 2018

This year we celebrated his birthday with a batman theme 🦇 at DARTemUP.  They had a pretty sweet birthday package that allowed the kids 70 mins of dart'em up tag experience (where they break into teams and battle it out, similar to lazer tag), 45 mins in the party room with pizza and a movie, gift bags for all the kids and then $8 worth of arcade tokens for each guest!

For his batman theme I scoured the web and pinterest for batman cakes and finally settled on a 2 layer cake that had the bat symbol on top and Gothan City around the cake edges.  I was extremely happy with how it turned out and found some amazing sugar sheets at Michaels to achieve the affect.  I also made 24 cupcakes with batman rings that I found on amazon.

batman cake and cupcakes

I thought it would be fun if we all wore bat apparel as a family.  I had fun tracking down some shirts for the hubby (batdad) and I (batmom).  Ry already had 2 batman shirts and Carsy had a batgirl dress.  We looked heroic if I do say so myself!

Batmom ready for action!

bat family

batkids

bat parents

The kids had a blast choosing their nerf guns and dividing into teams.  Ry got an upgraded nerf gun as he was the birthday boy.  After some initial rules/training and choosing their protective goggles, they were led into one of the obstacle rooms to begin their tag experience.  Those kids really got into it!  I saw some of them diving behind barrels, low crawling and somersaulting.  Some of the parents even got into it and participated in the battles. I was able to walk around and take video and pictures as long as I wore the goggles.

receiving instructions and safety rules

waiting for their weapons

birthday boy is armed and dangerous

nerf wars!

After some intense battles, we moved into the party room for pizza and cake.  They even had a TV set up on the wall and were able to play the Lego Batman movie while the kids ate.   They were mesmerized...the quietest I'd seen them all day.  🍕 🎂

pizza time

Happy Birthday to You!

After pizza and cake we passed out gift bags and headed to the arcade room to wrap it up.  The kids each got a ton of tokens to play video games, air hockey and prize games.

arcade games

That's a wrap!  Heading home to open gifts

We waited until we arrived at home to open all the presents.  🎁  Ry received some awesome gifts and started playing with them right away.  This year we gave Ry some remote control bumper cars that he had been raving about.  They are a ton of fun to crash!

A big thank you to everyone who came out and celebrated Ryland's 7th birthday with us❣ 💗

bumper cars

our protector

My pinterest site contains links to all the party items:

Party City - batman plates, napkins, cupcake stand.  (GASP,  I forgot balloons!!!)
Amazon - Batmom/dad shirts, batman cupcake ring toppers, presents
Cake supplies - Michaels, HEB