Picture of the Week

I found this note on Kaiya's lunch sack one day this week....it is kind of sad when you are so busy in the mornings that your kids start writing their OWN notes on their lunch bags---she even signed my name for me!

Picture of the Week

Kaiya Turns 8!

For birthdays, the policy at our house is that the kids can have a birthday party with their friends every other year. This was the rule in my house growing up and now that I am a mother, I can fully appreciate it! Kid birthday parties are a lot of fun, but they can be a lot of WORK too! (That being said, I have no idea how I am going to implement this with the quints yet, since there are five of them....maybe the girls get to have a party one year and the boys the next---when I made this policy, I would never have imagined having quintuplets!)

This was Kaiya's year for a friend birthday party. Within about a month of her last birthday party (nearly two years ago) Kaiya decided that for her 8th birthday, she wanted to have a Hawaiian themed birthday party. I thought for sure she would change her mind in the two years she had to wait for the next party, but she stuck to it! That was fine with me, because I could think of lots of fun things to do with the "Hawaii" theme!

Party Invitation

When all the "passengers" arrived at the party, they boarded the "plane" for Flight 306 service to Honolulu, Hawaii.

All aboard Flight 306--10 very excited, very active, very LOUD girls get ready for take-off!

Once the "plane" had reached its cruising altitude, the passengers were served beverages and snacks.

Snack packs filled with macadamia nuts

The handsome flight attendant (aka Riley) serves drinks to the passengers

The flight attendant collected all trash and remaining service items as the passengers returned their seats and tray tables to their upright and locked positions in preparation for landing.

After the girls "landed", they were greeted with shell leis (which I picked up when I was in Kona in January). Then they completed two different craft projects. First they made some fancy flip-flops and then they put together their own candy lei.

Working on the flip-flops

Fancy Flip-Flops--The finished product!

Making candy leis

Riley models his lei (he didn't think it was manly to curl the ribbons like the girls did)

Next the girls learned a hula dance. I used to live in Hawaii when I was a kid, so I taught them how to do the hula to "Pearly Shells". Jayson took several pictures, but they must be on my other computer, so I will have to add them later :-)

After the hula, the girls played a game called "Boolah, Boolah", which we renamed "Hula, Hula" to go with the Hawaii theme. I remember playing this game at every birthday party I had as a kid, but I think it might be a game that my mom made up, because I have never met anyone else who knows what it is. It is basically a hot/cold game. Someone leaves the room and somebody else hides a prize. When the person comes back into the room, every one sings "boolah, boolah" over and over singing loudly when the person is near the prize and softly when they are far from the prize until the person finds it. The prizes for the game were these cute flower hair bows. I looked at the store for a more tropical flower to make the bows out of, but had to settle for these :-)

The game prizes: Fun Flower Hair bows

Goodie Bags for the girls to take home their loot

The evening ended with dinner! On the menu, Hawaiian Haystacks (which is rice, chicken gravy and toppings which included cheese, crunchy noodles, coconut, pineapple, and macadamia nuts), pineapple and cantaloupe skewers, and Hawaiian sweet rolls. To drink: tropical smoothies (with little umbrellas of course).

The serving table

The party girls enjoying their feast!

If after reading this post, you are thinking to yourself "Wow, she sure planned a lot of stuff for two hours!" You would be 100% correct! The girls barely started eating dinner five minutes before parent started arriving to pick up their daughters! We quickly sang "Happy Birthday" to Kaiya and sent everyone home with a cupcake.

Kaiya with her cake. The shape of the base of the cake is supposed to be an "8" for Kaiya's 8th birthday (it was pretty subtle, I don't think anyone caught on to that). The volcano was made by shaping rice krispie treats around the outside of an 8 oz water bottle. I filled the bottle with Cheerios so that the candles would say put and hopefully make it look like the volcano was exploding. The lava rocks near the base of the volcano are mini and regular sized chocolate chips. The "sand" on the beach is brown sugar. I picked up the hula dancer in Hawaii. The rest is frosting....lots and lots of frosting!

Make a wish!

On Kaiya's actual birthday, we celebrated with a small "family" party. We had GG and Ronnie and the Woods family over for dinner and birthday treat.

Kaiya opening her presents. Ryder was upset that he didn't get to open any.

The whole "family" at Kaiya's family party

I love planning parties, and Kaiya's party was a huge success, but I am glad I don't have to do another one for her for a couple more years! Now time to plan Riley's birthday party...

Kaiya Turns 8!

Hobby Lobby Adventure

The Fab Five at Hobby Lobby: Ryder, Kaydence, Rustin, Kassidy and Kyndall

I took the quints with me to Hobby Lobby to pick up some things for Kaiya's birthday party which is coming up this weekend. When I take the kids shopping by myself, I usually try to stick to stores with big carts (like Costco) so I can put everyone inside and keep them contained, but today I really needed to get some things for the party so I decided to brave it. The kids actually did really well...maybe they were excited to be allowed to walk in the store for a change, or maybe it was my use of bribery ("Kids who obey in the store get to watch a video on the way home!"). We only had one "incident"---Ryder somehow managed to pull the cart over on himself sideways, knocking himself to the ground. It scared him pretty bad, but no serious injuries. The store manager happened to be on the next aisle over when it happened and came running over, which was a little embarrassing (for me). However, we managed to make it out of the store with everything we needed and without breaking anything. And I saved money because each of the quints could be a different "customer" and I could use six different 40% off coupons :-) (Not to mention that the kids loved handing their item and money over to the cashier.) If only all my shopping trips could be so successful!

Hobby Lobby Adventure

Quote of the Week

I recently put BYU people decals on the back of the van. (The whole family just barely fit!) The kids were all excited and wanted to know which one was them. I pointed to the third one from the right and told Rustin he was the one with the hat on. He replied, "I don't want to be the one with the hat on! I want to be the one with the redhead on!"

Quote of the Week