Birthday party recap

Ethan and his friends had a ball at Jump Zone. I stressed over it way too much, but it ended up ok. The place was huge and so nice. The kids all kind of did their own thing. It was hard rounding them all up when we ordered pizza.

Ethan with Savannah & Zach

All 11 kids he invited showed up to play, too! They let us use the party room for the pizza & drinks we ordered. They had plates, cups & napkins included. It was nice. We had the place pretty much to ourselves, I think 2 other families were there part of the time. It was good I had it on a Thurs. night on his actual birthday.

They had this neat Birthday Throne in the party room for the birthday kid. We told the parents that they didnt need to bring a present, but about half did. I think the ones that didnt bring a gift just ran to go jump more, which was fine.

Then on Sat. we had our family party at the house. I didnt do a set theme as years past. Couldn't decide on anything. His cake he chose was Hot Wheels, but he isn't a super fan of cars.

The cake was neat, called a stage cake. The pic in the bakery book of course was awesome due to them using fondant.

My happy 6 yr old.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Happy Birthday, Ethan!!

My baby boy is 6 Today!!!! Where did the time go? How are you already 6??!!

Happy Birthday, Ethan!!!

We are going to have fun tonight!! Family party is Sat. at our house.

C wanted to have his next birthday party at the local jump place and offered to pay for it. I let him pick 7 friends from school plus cousins and 2 of friends' kids. So maybe 12 kids will be at our local jumping place. I didn't book a party room, they are just meeting us there for fun in the inflatables. I decided to make up goody bags to give to them on the way out.

Last night I made choc chip cookies for his class treat to bring in today. I had started my star cookie suckers and they stuck to the pans!! That never happened before. Not sure what was going on, but it was stressing me out too much so I just did my normal cookies. It may have been the flour or baking soda, they seemed too flat.

We got our treadmill yesterday. It took T 3 hrs to put it together! I guess that is typical though. He needed my help at times, too. It takes up way too much room in our bedroom. I can barely get into my closet. Need to shift some things around in the room, I think. It is super heavy! But pretty nice, I didn't want it to be too narrow. It is facing the tv, which is the only way I'd ever use it!! But, when I fold it up it still sits out in the room. T thinks it should just go downstairs. We do have more room down there, but I need it in front of my tivo and that tv down there doesn't have tivo. Ugh!!

Valentine's Weekend

I had fun on Sat. making cute heart treats for the kids.
Those cinnamon rolls didn't quite work out. I guess you need to make them homemade. The ones I bought in the tube didn't unroll. I tried to reshape them to hearts, but I knew they would just puff up and you wouldn't be able to tell the heart shapes.

For lunch I made peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and grilled cheese, with apple sauce & baked lays chips. Then I used my neat heart cutter for the sandwiches.


I made up little goodie bags for the cousins, too. Ring pops, Little Debbie heart brownie, pencils & valentine from E.
I was wanting pizza for dinner. T was out at games and stuff. I told him to pick up a pizza from Papa Johns for us. I kind of hinted that a heart pizza would be great. So excited that he brought the right one home!

HE got their special which was this heart pizza, then a large cheese pizza & this chocolate pastry dessert that was so yummo. Really off track on Sat with the diet, but I'll be better today.I started doing our taxes today. I actually kept on track and got them done. Well, at least just the first draft in pencil! I know what we are getting back, which is awesome! I told T that I got them done and he proceeded to ask if I filed for the daycare refund. Well, I've never done that party before, need to look it up. I think we qualify since E stays at the after-school care. I don't have all the receipts, though. Do we have to turn those in? I need to ask my sister how she has done it in the past.

Wish I had tomorrow off, Ethan does, of course. T has to work a few hrs, so he'll just bring E in with him.
Hope I have an easy week at work!

Happy Valentine's!

Just getting ready for Valentine's Day. I have had the house decorated for the last 2 weeks.

Ethan had a project over the weekend to decorate his Valentine heart, basically a pocket heart to hold all the valentines from the party.

I found 2 little kits I got last year from Target's dollar spot that had the perfect stickers and sayings and ribbons. pretty cute, not that girly, is it? T thought it was...oh well.

Ethan signed all his valentine's for his class party last night. He picked out Wall-E valentines this year. They came with a little sticker that was a pain to compile, oh well. I was going to do treat bags, but decided not to after his teacher suggested a lower key party.

I have to watch my niece and nephew 'the cousins' tomorrow. I already got them some treats, but now I'm going to make some other cute things I saw on a blog.

How neat are these? I have a tube of cinnamon rolls already. It looks like you just unroll them and roll them in a heart shape. I saw it on Be Different...Act Normal, one of my fav blogs.



I'm going to make these cupcakes tonight. You can use a regular cupcake tin and put a marble or a ball of foil in the side to make the heart shape. It was first on Family Fun website.

So excited to do it all!

For lunch I'm going to use this awesome sandwich slicer/cutter that is 2 heart shapes.

Last weekend I got to hang out with my oldest bff, Zubie.
It had been 2 yrs since I saw her! Wish she lived closer. At least her family still lives here.

We partied like we were in college. I had no idea that we have 2 bars in town where you can dance, complete with dj and lights, and people actually dance. We had so much fun. Thanks to her younger bro for taking us out to the right places. We are so old, but I felt young last weekend. This pic was taken at the first bar we went to, which just opened up like 2 blocks from my house. T and I have to go back there and then just walk home!

Looking forward to this weekend festivities. I doubt if T & I will get to do anything on Sat. Not sure when my sister will be back. Her father-in-law is the hospital up in Wisconsin.

So happy that the snow is gone, last weekend was so nice. Now it is supposed to snow on Sat. again. Hope it doesnt stick.

Praying for my friend, Holly. Havent heard how she is yet. I know she is reading this now, call me let me know!!

So much Snow, Let's go Sledding!

We have had lots of snow and it is still sitting on the ground for like the last 3 weeks.

We went sledding at the fairgrounds back on Jan. 10..here are pics from that day. I just took pics from top of the hill. The boys went sledding, I just watched. I got too cold! I need better boots and gloves. I was numb after an hour.
Trent got his old sledding tube from his parents house.

Ethan got pretty tired from walking up the hill. I'm sure I would be exhausted, too!
Found him sitting down and then laying down in the snow...just taking a little rest he said.

Click to play a video of the boys going down the 'big' slide...




The next day I found a cool green saucer sled so now we have a better sled for Ethan.

We went to see Jack Hanna at SPT. It was a good show, interesting. We saw around 12 animals and he showed around 4 mini video clips. He was a good presenter and you can tell he truly loves animals and his job.

BoDeans concert at Rialto

So Trent and I went to see my fav, The BoDeans, on Dec. 28 at The Rialto in Joliet.
It was part of our Christmas gift from my parents. Thanks Mom & Dad!
It had been awhile since I had seen them, like 3 years I think! This was the 13th time I've seen them in the concert, yea...I really love them!
We went with friends, Dave & Mary, who also are big fans.

We went extra early to get dinner before the show. We found this awesome bar & grill across the street from the theatre called Chicago Street Pub. We got there at the perfect time to get one of the last tables. Dave and Mary were so shocked to run into friends of theirs in the bar! We were all from CP.

Dave and Trent with their 312 beer. Trent really liked it, too bad we can't get it out here.
So excited to take pics and video of the show. Not the best seats, since we were up in the balcony but it was a smaller venue under 2000. The theatre really was beautiful with all the marble and intricate ceiling carving details.

The reason why I love going to BoDeans concert.. and my fav song...



Great show

Our actual view from our seats...

We may see them in March when they have an acoustic show in Valpo.

Our New Year's was pretty uneventful. Just stayed home and made up my fun appetizer meal of potato skins, mozzerella nuggets, chicken fingers, carrots, mini tacos, and Friday's quesadilla rolls.

I was off work, of course, on Jan. 1 and I took Jan. 2 off so it was a nice 4 days off. I took my time taking down all the Christmas decorations. It took like 4 hours just to take down my tree, but I was watching a movie as I was doing it. Our outside lights and decor are still there.

It is super cold out here today. It is negative 12 right now. Seriously negative 12, that is not the wind chill either! I told E that this is the coldest day he has ever seen in his lifetime. They called off school today due to the cold weather. On Wed. we had a bunch of snow so they dismissed hs and middle school early. Ethan still had afternoon kindergarten, though.

Ethan has 5 days at home now. He already had Friday & Monday off. Tomorrow he is going to cousins' house, so he'll have fun time there.