Fiveorama!

Spencer celebrated his 5th birthday with his friends and classmates last Sunday at Westgate Lanes. Daddy designed the invitation and as always did a great job!

Between his best friends, seven classmates, grandparents, the kids' parents and a few siblings thrown in, there were probably 40 people there. The kids had a blast and I think the adults enjoyed it, too. You can see some good pictures over at Steffani's blog, too.

Funny story about the cake. Since I baked a cake on his actual birthday, we decided to buy a cake for the party instead of doing one of our classic creations. We took some pictures of bowling themed cakes to the HEB bakery and were expecting to have a couple of bowling pins drawn on the cake. We were quite surprised to see the crazy 3D cake! The kids were all begging for the bowling pins (they were definitely better to look at!).

At the end of the party the bowling alley presented Spencer with a real bowling pin and all the kids signed it. Then Spencer handed out cute bowling pin cookies and thanked his friends for coming.

 

We had a small family gathering at our house afterwards and Spencer opened his gifts. I think it's interesting that kids don't usually open gifts at their party these days. It definitely makes things easier on many levels, but aren't the kids missing out a little on seeing their friend open the gift they picked out? And learning that it's okay to watch another person open gifts? But I digress...

And let me tell ya, if you need a gift idea for a 5-yr-old boy, a good old fashioned Whoopie Cushion is the way to go. Spencer got one from Piper and Beckett and I would give anything to have a video of the first time he sat on it. It made me think of this classic for some reason. But after the initial "what?!" he laughed and laughed and laughed all evening as he got various guests to plop down on it. "Mommy, isn't this so funny? Mommy I love this Whoopie Cushion. Isn't it funny Mama?" Comedy gold right there!

It was a fun day and we were reminded once again of how blessed our little guy is to have so many people who love him.

The Wheels on the Bus

Every now and then, just out of the blue, Spencer will tell me that he wants to have a bus driver training party for his next birthday. You know, because we did astronaut training at the last one. Why do I have a feeling he's going to stick with this notion? And why do I have a feeling Dave and I will be scouring Etsy and Pinterest for bus driver party ideas in about eight months?

Soccer, a Party and a Pow-Wow

Our last couple of Saturdays have been unusually jam-packed and today was no exception. Spencer had his last Soccer Cubs of this session and little did we know that the parents would be participating. Well, I didn't have on my soccer shoes, so I just took pictures.

After soccer we headed to Pease Park for our little friend Pearl's third birthday party. She had a great musician and bubble machine!

After the party we headed home for rest time. Mommy fell asleep and was allowed to nap for almost two hours. It was awesome! We watched the beginning of the football game, then Spencer and I headed to the Austin Pow-Wow, a Native American festival where we saw a lot of beautiful traditional costumes and watched people dancing, chanting and playing drums. Here's a video.

 

 

 

Funny moment: Before we left the house, I realized Spencer was wearing his Mayflower/Plymouth t-shirt. Thank goodness I realized how inappropriate that would be to wear to that event!

Ella's Backyard Jamboree

We had a blast at Ella's 3rd birthday party yesterday. Let me tell you, Steffani and Carol know how to throw a party! (Ok, I'm sure Chad had a little something to do with it, too...) They transformed Carol's beautiful backyard in Buda into a farmland jamboree, complete with petting zoo, pony rides, bouncy castle, an amazing balloon-twisting-artist, yummy food, a crazy cool cake, and creative (and very generous) party favors. For some reason we didn't get any pictures of the beautiful decorations - probably too busy petting the baby goat and donkey - so you mosey over to Steffani's blog for her report and more pictures than ones of just Spencer. I had to swipe a couple of pictures below from her blog, too...We didn't take tons of pictures because we were busy having fun!

Was hard to get him out of the bouncy castle!

Like herding kittens, but here are all the kids together

Corn box = major fun

My little buckaroo

Let's mosey over there

My handsome little guy

Holding the sweetest little bunny

Daddy found a furry friend, too

This little goat was only a week old

Separate corral for the big-little-animals

Pretty magnificent cake!

It was awesome to see how confident Spencer was when riding that sweet pony, Ginger. He climbed right up and didn't even bat an eye when the guy leading him around starting "clucking" to get the pony to trot. Spencer got the biggest smile as he came galloping toward us. A couple of short vids:

It was a wonderful morning celebrating a sweet girl who puts a smile on the face of everyone she meets. Happy third birthday, Miss Ella! And a big thanks to you, your mommy, daddy and Nana for the hospitality and party to remember.

Weekend Roundup

I haven't been updating Spencer's blog much lately, huh? Will try to do better, starting now with a little weekend roundup. Went to our first birthday party at Build-a-Bear for one of Spencer's classmates on Saturday. I was not looking forward to this event because that store just sort of creeps me out. I think Spencer was a little overwhelmed by all the choices but he ended up having a pretty good time. He came home with a karate bear he named Heart.

After the party we watched the second half of our football game (blah) with Garven, Kit, Patrick and a few other folks. Spencer was such a little gentleman at Kit's house and everyone was commenting on how polite, sweet and fun he was. It was a really great day!

This morning Spencer and I made "cloud dough." This is an activity we will do again for sure. We mixed flour and baby oil and the result is a damp sand-like substance that is fun to dig in, mold and smoosh with your fingers.

Later, I packed a picnic lunch for all of us and we headed to Butler Park. Spencer rode his scooter for awhile. This was the first time I've gotten to see him ride in a park where he can really get going. He is so cute on that thing - and brave! He took a little spill and scraped his knee. It really didn't seem like a bad scrape at all, but for some reason he got extremely upset to the point that we eventually had to pack up our lunch and leave the park. I started thinking maybe he had injured himself some other way - like strained a muscle or something - but he kept saying it was just the scrape. Part of me thinks he got embarrassed about falling because there were some other people around. It was hard seeing him that upset and nothing we did helped. But before that little spill, he was a total thrasher!

Spencer and I took a stroll down to Starbucks this afternoon, too. Then he played his guitar while I practiced my clarinet for a little while. I really enjoyed having so much one-on-one time with him today. He told me, "Mommy, you're the loviest lovey-est Mommy in the world." Sigh...

p.s. If you get emails when I update the blog, sorry for the multiple notifications. Trying to fix some weird spacing...