celebrating Aidan

as i mentioned in an earlier post, we had Aidan's birthday party early this year. little girl had a month long party....why not big brother?!


he turns FIVE years old this year. where or where has the time gone?

we had one of his biggest parties at a nearby science centre. it would have been nice to have had more of his friends, but i wasn't ready to go insane at my young age. the teacher in me came out as we wandered around the building. i don't think any of the kids would have been surprised if i asked them to raise their hand if they wanted something! okay it was not that bad, but i had them make "trains" to help avoid losing anyone in the crowd.


there were so many activities to choose from and the time flew by so fast. we started out in the Discoveryland. lots of water play and tower building. then we moved on to the SpacePlace. i think this was one of their favourites.



most of the kids wanted their photo taken in the space suit. except the birthday boy! he told me a few days later that he wanted to go back so that he could stand in the suit. oops! i guess he'll have to wait now. i didn't realize the kids could stand in the suit until we were doing a headcount and i came up one kid short. Kristian could see him, so pointed at the space suit. and there was one of his little buddies quietly standing there with the biggest grin!

the next exhibit is a special one called the Science of Sport. this was also one of their favourites. one of the options was to race against various animals, and the kids had fun "winning". i was glad that my brother-in-law and sister-in-law were at this exhibit too. they spent a lot of time at the climbing wall spotting.



it was a fun one for Aidan too! this is one of the rare pictures of him in it. which is weird....i really thought i was taking most of the pictures of him.

then we had time to visit the Green's House. not much time for this one because we had hot dogs and cake and presents waiting for us....




Aidan's first birthday cake for this year! it was also the first year that he learned the importance of blowing out all the candles. after he blew them out, one of the older boys shouted, "yay! NO girlfriends!!" Aidan was confused for a minute!

he loved all his presents. he has them lined up in his room and has been playing with a new one each day this week. i think the upcoming play dates will be exciting too!

after the cake, we went upstairs and watched a movie in the star theatre. the kids thought the chairs were cool and you could tell they had fun moving around trying to see all the parts to the movie. they watched "The Cardboard Rocket". i think it was a very educational party! one of his buddies sat beside me during the movie. love that boy! the basic story is that the main characters build a rocket from a cardboard box and fly to the sun and all the planets. they started at the sun and his one buddy was shocked to learn that our sun was a star. he was in total disbelief that this information had not been shared with him before! i'm so glad he is a good friend of Aidans....he is going to be fun in the coming years!

we only had 15 minutes left, and the kids wanted to look at all the games and exhibits lining the hallway. i had hoped to take photos of each of them on the police bike....but we ran out of time. we also ran out of time for the Mystery and Body exhibit rooms. i'm still impressed that we got as much done as we did. the kids were at a perfect age to enjoy the fun stuff and have patience to realize that if they followed the instructions they would enjoy the exhibits even more. {i mean the instructions for the games....not from the mother-teacher!}

i think we'll do quiet birthdays next year. when Kiara has her fifth birthday, we'll do something big for her that year. i am very thankful that our kids get along with other kids so well. but it makes it tough to work out a guest list! i am also looking forward to hearing the kids ideas for parties when they get older too. they are creative, so life could get pretty interesting!

off to enjoy a quiet evening.

Kiara's special celebration

since it was Kiara's birthday first, it is only fair i start with her!

she invited some little girls who became her friends this summer. i didn't wan't to do anything super fancy or organized for her party. she's really still too young to know any other way. it was kind of like an organized playdate. the activities were geared to those that i knew Kiara enjoyed and those that i knew would also interest her little friends. it's amazing how quickly you get to know kids when they are at your house, playing with your kids and their toys!
when they arrived they each had a crown they could decorate and wear. lots of stickers and gems to dress it up!

all the dress up clothes and princess-like accessories were brought out for them to wear. they are still too young for much imaginative or creative play. however, they wore the dresses and played with the regular toys!



all the girls are at the age where they are old enough to play with icing and decorate. one of her friends loves painting....and since i was not exactly willing to have 4 little girls painting up a storm inside my house....this was the next best thing! they loved it. those tubes were tough for them to squeeze though. i had thought that it might be easier for them to use these in comparison to home-made icing and decorating bags. there were sprinkles and little silver root-beer balls for them to add. yup, could have added all sorts of cute treats for the decorating, but i wanted to keep it simple.




they brought presents and spoiled her! i was so pleased to see that Kiara shared very easily and happily.




then came the cupcakes!

each girl had her own unique cupcake with a candle. one of her guests actually had her real birthday on the day of the party. and, would you believe this, another guest would be celebrating her birthday in a week. we lit the candles and sang happy birthday to Kiara....since it was her party. then we re-lit the candles and sang to the other birthday girl. then we re-lit the candles and sang happy birthday to the up and coming birthday girl. and of course we had to sing to the remaining guest! the girls were so thrilled to be sung to and have their own candles to blow out..FOUR times! i love that girls this age are sooo easy to please.

we started a girl movie at the very end. the party had lots of free play time, and other activities for the kids to enjoy. i knew they would be tired, and a quiet movie time would hopefully eliminate the need for any arguments that could erupt due to the tiredness. it was perfect timing.

Kiara had little treat bags for each of the girls with shiny princess rings....which every one of them had on their fingers when they left! and other fun girly and princessy treats.

Aidan was so fortunate to be invited over to a neighbors house for a playdate that afternoon. we basically traded her daughter for my son. too funny!


i think the afternoon was a success. my legs were tired by the end of the day! i did get plenty of time to sit and enjoy the afternoon too. but i still had to be the "mom"!

the best part of the planning was the babysitter! i had pre-arranged our sitter to come that night and give Kris and i a night out. both of the kids were tired and went to bed without any complaint to her. any parent knows that the situation would have been much different had she not been there!

so a re-cap of the party day. and some lessons i learned as a bonus!

birthday season

3 birthdays (out of 4) are celebrated in September and October in our house. b-u-s-y! it started with Kristian. we had a quiet celebration for him this year. there was so much going on! then came Kiara. it was an odd one because Kristian was out of town that week. so it ended up being the never-ending celebration for her!





we had the "big" party and now i hope she realizes that the birthday is over for a year. she really wanted a princess cake...oops! got the princess party but forgot a princess on the cake.


these were the invitations i made for her party. the crown was like a postcard, with the details on the reverse side. very simple. but the little girls' faces all lit up when they got them. cute!



i tried harder to plan in advance for Aidan. in reality i need to do the planning in August (two months before his special day). September flies by with school....getting crazier every year. then it gets lost in the Thanksgiving celebrations (i'm Canadian). this year i was very concerned about the H1N1 impending epidemic. i didn't want to cancel a party due to us being sick, nor did i want to do a big part in helping to spread it more quickly! like i have a choice.



he's getting older and has shown some amazing artistic talent recently. he also loves making cards and doing crafts. i plan to encourage that for as long as he's willing! he drew this rocketship, then we scanned it. my PSE7 was very helpful as i duplicated it and printed it out! he did the cutting and i did the cutting. he is not yet allowed to use my straight cutter. i also added some glitter to the rocket flame, which was Aidan's request.


i'll share more photos and details from their special days. we have had Aidan's party although he has not officially had his birthday. i'll definitely share photos from his real day. thankfully we should all be at home for this one. and i'm praying that we will all be healthy!