Under the Category of Better Late Than Never...

Or maybe we can all pretend that we just hopped in a time machine and went back a month!

I wanted to show you the few things I did for Baby Boy's fifth birthday in October and somehow time has flown by and here we are mid-November already.

Our littlest guy had not one, but three celebrations for his birthday! MADNESS I tell you.  Excessive madness!  LOL

Little Man made his brother a sign for the entrance way

The first was his "family birthday" party where I think I disappointed my nephew with my lack of handmade goodness in the treat bag.  I have to say, I felt both badly and incredibly honoured when he said, "What's the thing you made this year?  I always like the thing you make the best." And then he proceeded to list off the things I'd made in the past and I'm pretty sure he thought the cookies I'd made this time just weren't up to snuff.  One of my nieces had apparently been wondering on the drive out what kind of thing I'd have made them too.

So from here on in, I hereby declare that Auntie Sarah will stop being so lame and figure out something good to make for my lovely crew of nieces and nephews! (Really, I just couldn't come up with a good idea and then ran out of time.  No excuse really.)

Anyways.  Baby Boy is crazy about dolphins.  Specifically crazy about the dolphins Winter and Hope  of the Dolphin Tale movie fame.  We had got a second hand book about Winter last year and he immediately became obsessed. Playing Winter and Hope, talking about them, drawing pictures of them, telling us great epic stories about them...  So naturally a dolphin theme was what he wanted when birthday party planning rolled around.

For his family party I made a dolphin shaped cake and the aforementioned cookies.

Dolphin cake #1

Dolphin sugar cookies - still working on my Royal Icing technique 

A couple of days later we had his actual birthday, which required another cake and the traditional birthday crown.  I love that the little guys enjoy the birthday crowns still.  I never guessed when I made the first one for Little Man's first birthday that it would become a yearly tradition.

Dolphin cake #2

What a guy!  I can't believe he's already five!!!

 Finally we had his "school friend" party towards the end of the month.  I asked him what kind of cake he'd like figuring he may have been dolphin caked out by that point, but he requested an exact replica of the one he had for his family party.  I feel like I could make a dolphin shaped cake in my sleep now.  Ha ha!

Dolphin cake #3

I also wanted to have a game planned for the kids at the party.  I thought a rousing game of pin the tail on the dolphin would be good to amuse ten five year olds, so I got some poster board from the dollar store and painted a dolphin on it.  Then I cut out tail shapes from card stock - a different colour for each party guest.  Note to self: A loose weave scarf for a blindfold that the kids can actually see through kind of defeats the purpose of the game...  all the tails pretty much ended up one on top of each other in the right spot.  At first I thought the kids were just that good.  Then Little Man confessed,  "There's tiny holes in the scarf, Mom!  You can see right through it!!"  Ooops!

Help kids!  I need a tail!!!

And thus ends the birthday month of baby boy.  I think I'd better try and pin Little Man and Baby Boy down on their birthday themes for next year so that I can start thinking now of things to make for party favours.  Maybe that way I'll redeem myself in the eyes of my nieces and nephews!  :)

Catching Up and a Birthday Party

I can't believe we are more than three weeks into July already!  The summer is flying by at break neck speed.  So much has been going on since I last posted here.  I'm still working on my outfit along and I've done a few other small sewing projects, but there's not been a lot of time for craftiness

(BF)G was on vacation from work for two weeks and we jammed packed them full of things to do.  Every thing from camping and a first time fishing for the little boys to berry picking, to museums, to park visits to lots of playing in the little pool we bought to replace the baby paddling pool.  It was busy, but loads of fun!  We even had a birthday in there! Well two, of course, since Little Man and I share a birthday, but his is more interesting than mine, given that he is six and I'm in my forties.

The boys helped make the lightsaber party invitations
for Little Man's friends

Little Man is crazy about Star Wars.  He's talked about having a Star Wars party pretty much since the day after his Superhero party last year.  He was also super excited that he got to have a "school friend" party as well as a family party this year.   We actually had the school friend party in June before school let out for the holidays so more of his friends would be around to attend.

Now let me warn you, dear readers, that you should, under no circumstances, ever let your child look at Pinterest over your shoulder as you peruse it for ideas for a birthday party.

If you do not heed this warning, you will likely find yourself up to your elbows in papier mache, angsting over just how the heck you're going to make dipped pretzel sticks look like light sabers when you can't find pretzel sticks in any store, agonizing over whether or not your Chewbacca cupcakes looks like Chewie or a friendly little beaver, and painstakingly cutting out and sewing eleventy-billion little pieces of felt to make little freezie holders that look like light saber handles.  Do not say that I did not warn you!!!



It was a bit mad, but all in all Little Man's assessment was that both his friend party and family party were "AWESOME!!!!!!!!", so definitely worth the effort and insanity.  But I'll stop nattering on here and just leave you with some pictures of the two events!

The Annual Birthday Crown!

There was also a  freezer stencilled Birthday Shirt this year!

My interpretation of the Death Star in Piñata form.
(I've never made a piñata before... OH MY WORD.
They are a whole lot of effort to just get smashed up.)

Eleventy-Billion pieces of felt...

All combined to make almost two dozen of these freezie holders!

The kids played a balloon game with pool noodle lightsabers
that (BF)G made by decorating them with duct tape and electrical tape

Marshmallow tie fighter oreos, dipped breadstick lightsabers and Storm Trooper
and lightsaber cupcakes for the friend party

And cupcakes for the family party!
Darth Vaders, Chewbaccas (seriously what happened there?), Yodas,
Luke Skywalkers , Leias and Storm Troopers OH MY!