~Ethan's 5th Birthday Party!~

Wow. 5!?!  Already?!?!  I.have.a.5.year.old.  Okay mini-meltdown over..that's how I felt almost three months ago when I woke up on Ethan's big birthday.  We had his party on the Sunday after his actual birthday and had our usual cast of friends for it.  This year however he got to invite 2 friends to the party...he chose two of his buddies from daycare. 

I, as usual, was the freak-a-zoid running around trying to make sure it was perfect.  Such a ridiculous habit!  But I just want it to be memorable for him...anyhow I digress.  This year Ethan wanted a Thomas the Tank Engine party.  Since we were in the middle of crazy (will link to post in a few days) I decided to just spend a bit of money to buy everything for the party.  I bought it online (I LOVE online shopping, less crowds, better selection)  I went to Etsy again for the party invite...I loved it!  On a side note I really need to take a photoshop class...it all arrived in time and looked awesome!  I made the cake myself and had Randy make the railway sign for the front step.  The cake took a painstaking 3 hours to do...but it looked wicked awesome and Ethan still talks about it!

We had a blast at the party and all his little guests did as well!  The proof is in the pictures!  I did train stops to coordinate the day.  Stop#1 was Pin the Funnel on Thomas, Stop#2 was Pinata Fun Stop #3 was Fueling Station and Stop #4 was Train Playtime in the basement.  Here is the railroad crossing sign Randy
made...I forgot to get a picture of it on the front step!

My little conductor put on his hat and got ready to welcome his guests!

The first thing they had to do was bring their 'ticket' and get their picture with Thomas and Percy!  Ignore the ghetto grey on the card, it of course, was not there when it was given out.  It is there however to prevent you from stalking me...teehee.

Each little guest got their picture taken with Percy and Thomas...

 Time for Pin the Funnel on Thomas fun!  The

boys had a blast with this!

Next Stop:  Pinata Fun!  Check out the expressions on those little boys standing in the line...love it!!!

 Playtime stop!  The little boys had a blast playing with Ethan's trains!  They probably got more play that day than they have in months!

The Thomas Cake!  It was a labor of love I tell you...it actually wasn't as hard to do as it looks...thank goodness for the template!

 The little boys had a great time discussing which part of Thomas they were going to eat...I was shocked at how adept they all were in all the Thomas terminology!

Ethan got some great gifts from his friends.  All were very thoughtful and reflective of Ethan's interests...he even got a $35 Visa gift card and a $15 Itunes card...which sent him over the moon!  You CAN buy your way into my kids heart with an Itunes Gift Card!  It was all fantastic and I know Ethan loved the entire day...that made all the running worth it! 

~The Rogers-Grounds 2nd Annual Christmas Party!~

It's that time of year again...we'd love to have you over for a night of friendly fun and holiday spirit!

A free invitation card by Smilebox

~Ethan’s 4th Birthday Party!~

What a fun day!  Curious Ethan had a blast at his Curious George party! I had lots of fun with this one…I bought the invites and thank you cards off or a great designer on Etsy…The Paper Giraffe Shop.  Loved them! 

I wanted to knock it out of the park and have some awesome decorations for his party so I bought a kit off another designer on Etsy…it was such a great deal and made the party decorations look awesome!

Birthday Decorations VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We had Monkey Tails for lunch (Hot Dogs) with Monkey chips, Monkey Chow, Monkey Cake, Tutti Fruiti Tray, Veggies and Monkey Dip, and Monkey Juice.

We had the usual crowd invited this year…unfortunately Aimie and kids from Ethan’s daycare couldn’t make it.  We had Leanne and her boys, Wyatt and Morgan; Erin and Corbin, and new additions Trudy, Wes and Sydney.  It was a blast! 

Birthday Guests VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We had some fun games we played…Pin the butterfly on the log, Curious George coloring sheets, and of course a Monkey Piñata!  The kids had a blast and we enjoyed watching them play!

Pin the Butterfly! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Piñata VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Birthday Presents VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Ethan got some great presents from his friends…he got an awesome slip and slide from Morgan and Wyatt, some beach toys from Corbin and a Thomas the train Mega Block set from his little buddy Sydney.  Grandma Grounds gave him a remote control helicopter.  We gave him a Curious George board game, a Curious George stuffy, a bike Helmet and kneepads, and a 3D Glow in the dark color thingy.  I can’t wait to play the board game…it won a Gold Award for best toy by 2 different groups!  We are going to have our first game tomorrow night!

It was such a great day, the best part was sharing it with friends!  We are so grateful to have such a great group to call our friends…Thanks to everyone. 

Well this was a super fun birthday…what to do next year???  Hmmm I already have my mind ticking!

~The Grounds-Rogers 1st Annual Christmas Party Details~

So the party was a smashing success!  So much fun that the camera didn’t even make it out to record it, LOL!  It had rained the day of the party so a few people couldn’t make it due to road conditions but we still had 7 adults and 4 kids. 

I set out a huge spread of food, Randy’s boss bought all the booze and the kids had fun things to do.  I made Gingerbread Men and bought icing etc and let the kids decorate cookies.  There were coloring sheets and a kids Christmas movie to keep them entertained too.  I have to say, given they were all boys from 19 months to 7 years they were really good.  They had so much fun, I’m sure they all slept like rocks that night!

As for the adults, we sat around and BS’d all night.  The plan was to play some cards or games but we just never got around to it.  Everyone said they enjoyed just talking and enjoying the company and the food.  From all accounts (and the massive hangover I had) it was a good party!  We’ll be doing this every year!  Next years date?  December 15th, mark your calendars, you won’t want to miss it!

~The Grounds' 1st Annual Christmas Party~

This free invitation made with Smilebox

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~

We had a fun time on Saturday with some friends for Ethan’s Birthday party.  It went off without too many hitches and I think everyone had lots of fun.

As usual I went a little overboard on the planning end of things…but it looked fun and tasted even better!

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We had ‘Porkchop’ cake pops and green alien cupcakes with of course Pizza for the day.  The pizza wasn’t that great, we tried out Papa Murphy’s for the first time and I doubt we will again.  The green aliens were being ‘guarded’ by green army men and Porkchop had all his friends hanging out with him.

The first thing we did was to eat!  Much easier to have fun on a full stomach…

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

From there we played “Pin the tail on Bullseye”  The kids got to decorate their Bullseye tail and then we blindfolded them and had them try to get it on Bullseye…it was fun!  Shontel won the prize for the closest!

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We then did a fun alien craft with the kids.  They made 3 eyed alien stuffies!  No pictures of that of course because I was the one with the hot glue gun…They were cute but a little to advanced for the little guys.

Then came the real fun!  We had Buzz strung up in the garage waiting…

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

After all that excitement and the Piñata bounty was collected we went inside to open presents and have some cake pops!  Ethan had to give lots of hugs and kisses to everyone!!!

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

~Toy Story Pizza Planet 3rd Birthday Bash~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

At the end of the day, it was a fun time by all and a happy little boy for having spent time with friends.  Thank you of course to our friends that came and for the lovely presents for Ethan.  I’m already looking forward to next years’ party!

~I have a 3 Year Old!!!~

Wow. Ethan’s 3. Already. Wow.

How wonderful it has been to spend this special week with Ethan and Mom.  My vacation was perfectly timed and I’m so enjoying the time at home.  I’m getting to know Ethan better this week.  Amazing how much I didn’t know about him…and sad too.  This week is making me very aware that I need to slow down and take more time for us.  I’ve been too busy with work and have given home only a distracted amount of attention.  I’m re-aligning my priorities and making it right again.

Back to Ethan.  We had a family party for him on Easter Sunday because Auntie Mary and Cole were in town and could come for dinner.  So we did the Easter bunny and had an Easter Egg Hunt (pics in a separate post) and found the basket at the end of the hunt.  Then we had a huge turkey and ham dinner with everyone and had a bunny birthday cake and gave Ethan some presents.

Ethan is LOVING his gifts.  All his favourites.  Here are the pics of the party:

		Family Birthday Party VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

For presents he got a LeapFrog Leap Pad and a couple of catridges, two sets of Thomas tracks from Daddy and a Dinosaur tail from Auntie Mary.  Mommy will give him his presents on his Saturday party.  We are having a friends party this coming Saturday…a Toy Story Pizza party theme…can’t wait!

~Home Depot Christmas Party~

So a fun time was had by all at last night’s Christmas Party.  The night started out slow with only a few people trickling in.  It was themed the Ugly Christmas Sweater party so we came decked out in our Bedazzled Value Village with a Wanda fashion flair sweaters.  Unfortunately we were almost the only ones.  A-W-K-W-A-R-D-!  I hate being the odd one!  There were maybe 10 others that came in ugly sweaters…out of around 94!  Those buggers I tell you!  I did have some people that went out and got some good ones and had some fun:

Joe…he had some fun. He wore 2 sweaters, one on the top, one on the bottom.  Yup that is a set of balls etc. hanging there!

I was involved in the Decoration of Gingerbread houses, blindfolded.  We salaried managers were paired up with an associate who was to assist us with decorating.  I was paired with Ali, who works nights and has a flair for decorating apparently.

~Home Depot Christmas Party~ VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I ended up on the party game show “Don’t Forget the Lyrics Dude!”  I was voluntold, did not volunteer.  I’m so not a singer…but I didn’t do to bad.  It was a tie until there was some Hawaiian Christmas song aleki malikoi or something…I was screwed…that was not in the church choir songbook…

Don't Forget the Lyrics VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

It was a fun night!  In my opinion we paid far too much for the food that we received…so I’m going to shoot for a different location for next year…we’ll see how that goes. 

I did get a gift from the staff…a gag gift.

To: Wanda

From: Santa

Please make sure that you use your inside voice when you have associates in your office if you are thinking this.

I open the present and its a plaque that says “Put your Big Girl Panties on and Deal with it!”  Love it!

The staff had a great chuckle and it went over very well.

Anyhow, it was a good night and we had a fun night out.